rapidly with current business; and also, as he advances in office, of taking a certain amount of responsibility on himself. You think that you have accomplished this end by ascertaining that he can construe Latin, and has been crammed with a certain knowledge of the facts of history, which facts, having been devoured rather than digested, stand very little chance of being well used by him for the future, and will probably be entirely forgotten.

'As a humorous person I know is wont to say, "If you were to try the candidates in whist, there might be a chance of discerning whether they would be capable of dealing with the real business of the world."'

Now, in what has been said, I am not covertly pressing a party view. It is not said in the interest of gentlemanly blockheads or scapegraces, who under the competitive system would be beaten by the cantankerous, vulgar, disobliging man: to the great disgust of their aunts, who exclaim Dreadful! There's Brown, the grocer's son, has beaten Charley Fitzgerald, who dances so well, and is such a gentlemanly young fellow!' Other reflections will follow, to the effect that the world is coming to an end, and that our institutions are being Americanised. There ought certainly to be a test examination, to make sure that a man can spell, and do simple sums, which many a young fellow cannot, who dances admirably, and has a command of small-talk. It is essential to the public

service, that public servants should be certified as possessing the elements of a decent education. And the thing which has greatly tended to confirm and extend competitive examination is, that it is quite plain that some noisy opponents of it are in fact eager to get back that system of patronage which stuck into employment their incapable selves, and would stick into employment their incapable relatives and dependants. It is very natural to decry the system under which you know that you and yours would have no chance. And very natural to cry up the system under which you and yours have flourished far beyond your respective merits.

There seems little weight in the argument that promotion by competitive examination encourages education. Take the case of the young persons who are being educated. The direct tendency of the system is to make such eager to cram up just what will enable them to pass the examination well, to the neglect of general culture. All their energies will go in one direction. The disposition in these days is already too strong to slight that training which will not speedily prove itself of money value. Surely this disposition is not worthy of encouragement. Yet selection by competitive examination encourages it in the strongest way.

Take the case of the schoolmaster. He, too, must devote himself to cramming his pupils with that

knowledge which the examination is to test. He cannot afford to spend time and strength on training whose results will count for nothing in that. The examination fixes the point to which all his energies must tend. Is that the highest and worthiest? Then the advertising and parading the number of pupils he has passed successfully, has in it something very degrading and abhorrent. It has no effect unless with a very ignorant, stupid, aud coarse-grained class. And it brings a man, morally, a long way down-hill, when he makes up his mind that he is to live and thrive by appealing to the ignorance, stupidity, and vulgarity of such. Few things do more to debauch the moral sense, than to use, with success, what you know to be unworthy arts and means. That such means and arts can be used with success, is certain. And when a man who flourishes by their use looks another in the face who (he knows) understands matters, it appears to me that it is ever with the peculiar expression of a detected pickpocket.

What better way, the reader may inquire, have you to suggest, for discovering and promoting the able and the deserving? Really I cannot answer the question. That is for wise men to find out, whose business it is. Sir Robert Peel, being in opposition, was keenly criticising some measure proposed by the Government. Whereupon a member of the Government demanded of Sir Robert in what fashion he

would do the thing himself. But Sir Robert's answer was, 'Put me in power, and I will tell you that.' All I have undertaken to maintain is that competitive examination, as at present conducted, is a very imperfect means of attaining a very desirable end.

CHAPTER VII.

CONCERNING THE DISADVANTAGES OF LIVING IN A

SMALL COMMUNITY.

THIS afternoon, a sunshiny winter afternoon, the sky bright blue and the air cold and clear, I climbed the winding turret-stair which leads to the top of a certain tower. The tower, which carries a low spire, is that of the parish church of a certain little city. That church was built, centuries ago, as an ancient document bears, in mediâ civitate: and from its tower you may see the whole city very distinctly. Very picturesque is the view. You look down on red roofs, and ivied ruins green gardens are interspersed and on two sides the buildings cut against the blue sea. A stranger, looking at the prospect for the first time, exclaimed, 'How charming!' And no one can feel the special charm of it more than the writer does. But I thought, looking round, that I knew better than the stranger at least, I knew more. For I know every

house on which you look down: every household: and the curious relations between many of them, friendly and other. I know the poverty and privation :