Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

NON-COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS UNDER RULE 20.

In case the necessity shall exist at any office or Department for holding a non-competitive examination under Rule 20, the following conditions shall be observed;

30. The Commission shall be immediately notified of such necessity and of the grounds thereof, showing that it is impracticable to supply in due season for any appointment the names of persons who have passed a competitive examination by reason of the failure of competent persons to attend to be examined, or the prevalence of contagious disease, or other sufficient cause.

31. If the Commission shall not disapprove the holding of a non-competitive examination, the Secretary of the Commission in Washington, or of the Examining Board for any post-office or customs district, shall notify for such examinations any persons whose names may be on the record, as applicants for places analogous to those to be filled, and whom the exigency of time may allow to be notified, not less in number than the vacancies and places to be provided for, nor more than four for each of them.

32. If the number of applicants on the record be insufficient to furnish such supply, then the examining Board, or in its absence the Secretary, may notify other suitable persons, nominated by said Board or Secretary, upon consultation with the head of the office, who, taken together with said regular applicants notified, shall, if practicable, be not less in number than four to each place to be filled. The persons selected for appointment or employment shall be required to make oath to the proper application paper, before entering upon their official duties.

33. The non-competitive examination shall conform as nearly as practicable, in subjects, questions, and marking, to the competitive examinations of the same grade; but no person shall be appointed under such non-competitive examination whose average standing upon the first three subjects, clause 1, Rule 7, or such parts thereof as may be used, is less than 65 per centum; Provided, There are those who pass at or above that grade from whom the place can be filled.

34. The names of all the persons passing the examination shall be certified to the proper officer, and the existing vacancies shall be filled therefrom; but no person by reason of such non-competitive examination shall be appointed at any other time than during such exigency or to any other vacancy or place.

35. A record shall be kept by the local Examining Board, and by the Secretary of the Commission at Washington, of the persons thus notified, examined and appointed, or employed, and copies of notices and the examination papers shall be preserved; and said Board shall after each such examination and appointment make full report to the Civil Service Commission of all the facts.

36. In case a majority of the Commission may not be present, when an examination hereunder may need to be held at Washington, the same may be conducted under the charge of the chief examiner and any two members of the Board of Examiners.

SPECIAL EXAMINATIONS.

37. Special Boards of Examiners will, when deemed necessary, be designated by the Commission for the examinations in special and technical subjects under clause 5, Rule 7, and one or more members of each such Board will be selected from the office or bureau for which the Board is to serve. These special Boards shall be subject to the regulations prescribed by the Commission for the general Examining Boards as far as they are applicable, except as herein otherwise provided.

38. Applications for any special examination must be made in the form prescribed by the Commission, and must be accompanied by certificates as required in the case of ordinary applications. The minimum limitations of age shall be the same as those prescribed by Rule 12 for the several branches of the service, but no maximum limitations shall be required except such as the Commission may from time to time prescribe.

39. Whenever a special examination is to be held, notice in writing, specifying the time and place of the examination, shall be sent to a suitable number of the applicants, in the order of their application for the same, in time to allow their attendance.

40. Each special examination shall embrace the subjects approved by the Commission therefor, after consultation with the head of the office concerned or the special Examining Board for such office; and shall, as far as appropriate, be conducted under the same general regu lations, as to the marking of the examination papers and the grading of the persons examined, as those for ordinary examinations.

41. A special record of applicants and a special register of eligibles shall be kept for each part of the service or office requiring special examinations; and when the Commission, or the proper Examining Board, shall be notified by the appointing officer of a vacancy in such part of the service, certification shall be made to him of the names of the four persons graded highest on the special list of eligibles for the same, or of a less number, if four names do not remain thereon.

42. In case that competent special applicants do not apply, or do not appear for a competitive examination, after suitable notice, a non-competitive examination may be held in as near conformity as may be to the regulations provided for non-competitive examinations for admission to the service, For such examination, applicants on the general Record, and persons on the general Register of Eligibles whose application papers claim the special knowledge required, may be notified, and if they appear shall be examined, as if special applicants; but no person so examined shall forfeit his right to the general examinations, or lose his place on any register of eligibles by reason of his special examination.

Adopted, December 10, 1823.

Instruction to Ladies desirous of entering the
Civil Service.

THE APPLICATION FOR EXAMINATION. To every person requesting to enter the classified service, a blank application paper is sent. The filing of this paper is the first step in the applicants' examination. In the proper blanks she gives her name, age, residence and occupation, for each of the past five years, and such other facts in regard to herself and her experience, education, and qualifications as are important to be known. All these statements are made under oath, and are required to be confirmed by the vouchers of not less than three, or more than five persons, who state, in blank certificates on the same sheet, their knowledge of the applicant, and their belief in the truth of her statements, and vouch for her character, capacity, and good reputation. No recommendation outside of these vouchers are allowed to be received or considered by the Commission, the examiners. or the appointing officers.

some grades of clerks. Questions appropriate for ordinary clerkships would be unfit tests for telegraphers, or pension-office examiners. Provisions is therefore made under which the application paper designates the grade or description of places sought; and it follows that the real competition is between all those who seek the same grade or places.

Further than this, the act, requiring the appointments to the service at Washington to be appointed among the States, Territories, and the District of Columbia, practically makes the competition between those from the same State or Territory, rather than an inter-State competition. In some cases, perhaps, this state competition may put into the service a person inferior to the one whom the broader competition would have supplied. But it gives to each State and Territory, what it has not yet had, a proportion of the appointments numerically due to the population, and it will unquestionally stimulate education in the states as well as increase the local interest in all matters affecting the administration of the Fedral Government.

SUBJECTS FOR EXAMINATION.

The branches embraced in the general examination for ordinary clerkIn none ships and other places of the same grade, are given in Rule 7. is of these branches do the questions go further than is covered by the ordinary instruction in the common schools of the country. If limited examination is provided under Clause 4 of Rule 7, for copyists, messengers, carriers, night inspectors, and other employees of similar grades, including only a part of the branches above named, the subjects and questions being varied in number and grade to meet the requirements of the different parts of the service. This allows persons of only limited attainments to secure the positions for which they are competent. The common school education must have been exeecdingly defective which does not enable one to pass this examination.

The application thus filed is returned to the Commission, or to the proper Examining Board, and if its statements show that the applicant is regularly voched for, and that she is entitled by age, health, and citizenship, to be examined for the service she seeks, her name is entered upon the proper record, with the date of her application, and her paper placed on file. When the examination is held, at a point which is deemed convenient for her, she is notified to be present. If the applications on file, at any office, are in excess of the number that can be examined at one time, the earlier applicants, by Rule 13, are summoned first; except that at Washington, the duty of apportionment may require those to be first examined who are from states whose qualified applications are in deficient numbers. This excludes all preferenee of applicants through favor or patronage, and is the spirit of the act, section 5, which makes all willful and corrupt obstruction of the right of examination a criminal offense. The applicants who are in excess of the number that can be examined at one time stand first upon the record to be notified for the the next examination. Examinations are, held as frequently as the needs of the service require. Thus for all applicants (except some from the District of Columbia, where the number is excessive, and in one or two similar cases outside), have been notified to attend the first examinations held after their applications were received.

The application paper is itself a sort of preliminary examination, it asks the same questions that any wise and experienced business man or appointing officer would desire to ask concerning the circumstances, health, character, and experience of the applicant, and it frequently deters from the examinations unworthy or incompetent peraons, who find themselves uuable to answer satisfactorily the inquiries proposed, or unwilling to give the information asked for. Of the best of place-seekers, many may be weeded out by the necessity of making this sworn statement of their career, while to genuine and worthy applicants it opens the way for the proper statement of their qualifications.

WHO MAY COMPETE.

A competition theoretically perfect would be one in which every person, from any part of the country, could compete for every vacancy. But the needs of the public business, as well as the provisions of the act that the examination shall be practical, and shall fairly test capacity and fitness needed for discharging the duties of the place sought, require limitations. The qualifications needed for carriers or for weighers, for example, are quite different from those needed for copyists, or for

It will be noticed that, even in the general or higher grade of examination under Clause 1, Rule 1, proficiency in the first three subjects secures eligibility for appointment. Therefore failure in the last two will exclude no one from the service, though a good standing therein raises the grade of the applicant and gives her the better chance for an appointment.

If any shall notice, with regret, that only common-school education is exacted for entering the public service at the higher grade, and that thus only small direct reward is offered to academic and college learning, it may be remembered, on the other hand, that both by rewarding excellence in the common schools and by barring out corrupt influence from public office, learning of every grade, and good character and effort in every position are stimulated and strengthened. The common schools are the gates to the academies, and the academies are the gstes to the colleges.

SPECIAL AND TECHNICAL EXAMINATIONS. While only the common-school education is required of the applicant for the ordinery clerkship and subordinate places in the classified service, there are other places, comparatively few in number, for which higher qualifications are requisite. Among these are clerkships in the State Department, which demand some knowledge of modern languages, and of other special subjects; assistant examiners, draughtsmen, and other places requiring technical knowledge or skill, in the Patent office; pension examiners and other clerkships in several Departments requiring some knowledge of law; draughtsmen and other employees in the Super

vising, Arehitect's office, and Engineer Department, and employees in other technical or scientific Bureaus or divisions of the service. Rule 7, Clause 5, provides for the special examinations for such places. Special Boards of Examiners have already been designated in the State Department, the Patent Office, and the Pension Bureau. Special examinations have been held of a telegrapher for the Department of Justice, and a telegraphic draughtsman for the Engineer Department.

QUESTIONS AND EXAMINATIONS.

In order to secure uniformity and justice, the questions for the examinations are almost invariably prepared by the Commission; those for any Examining Board outside Washington being forwarded for its use just before any examination is to be held. They are printed upon sheets with adequate space below each question for writing or solution. The applicant gets her first knowledge of the question as the sheets are given her, one after the other as her work advances, at her examination table. The examinations are open to such spectators as can be accommodated without interfering with the quiet due to those being examined, but the answers are not exhibited without the consent of the person who wrote them. The question sheets, with answers thereon, are preserved as a part of the permanent records of the Commission, so that the fairness of the marking and grading can be tested as well a year as a week after they are made. It is hardly necessary to add that, except in the very few examinations needed for places requiring technical or scientific knowledge, no very difficult questions have been used. The examples in arithmetic do not go beyond the needs of the public business. Every question in geography, history, or government is confined to that of the United States. Not a word of a foreign language, nor a technical term of art or science, nor any example in algebra, geometry, or trigonometry has been employed in any one of the general or limited examinations, and these examinations alone are used for at least ninety-five out of every hundred places within the classified service.

CERTIFYING FOR APPOINTMENT,

Those who have attained a grade showing fitness for appointment at Washington are placed upon the proper register kept by the Commission, for the service there; and at other places by the Examining Board at each place. (See Rules 13, 14 and 16, and Regulations 4 to 10.) These registers are permanent books of record, showing the age, grade, residence, date of entry thereon as elegible for appointment for all parts and grades of the service. When a vacancy occurs at Washing on, the Commission, and when at a Post Office or Customs Office the Examining Board of the same, certifies from the proper register four persons who are graded highest among those entered thereon for the grade or part of the service in which the vacancy exists. In the latter oflices, where no appointment is required, the four graded highest must in every case be certified. At Washington, the Commission takes the four names from the list of those from one or more States (having names upon the register), which have the strongest claim on the basis of the appointment. But the highest in the grade, from the State or States which have such claim, must be taken; and the whole action in that regard appears on record. The grade is won by the applicant herself. The order of selection is fixed by the law and the rules. This excludes both favor and patronage.

WOMEN IN THE SERVICE.

Nowhere, on the part of the Commission or its subordinants, is there any favor or disadvantage allowed by reason of sex. Only under free, open, competitive examinations have the worthiest women the opportunities, and the government the pretection, which arise from allowing character and capacity to win the precedence, and the places their due. The need for political influence, or for importunate solicitations, especially disagreeable to women, for securing appointments in the classified service exists no longer. Rule 16, Clause 3, control the certificaion of women for appointment so completely that the Commission has no discretion on the subject. The law in force before the passage of the Civil Service act gave the heads of Departments authority to decide when women are required or can be accepted. Both the Civil Service act and the rules have that authority unimpared.

In order to prevent disappointment we ought to add that, perhaps, because the examinations naturally appeal to the hopes and the ambition of women, a greater number of them, in proportion to the places treated by the Departments as open to their sex, have been examined and

hence the number of women waiting to be certified is large in a like ratio.

REMOVALS.

The power of removal and its exercise, for just reasons, are essential both to discipline and the efficiency of the public service. A life tenure would be indefensible.

The Civil Service act and rules have the authority and duty of removal undisturbed, with this exception, that the second rule forbids a removal for refusing to perform a political service, or to pay a politicol assessment, and the last rule adds every violation of either rule, or of the provisions of the act against assessments to the good causes for removal which existed before, The act and rules have greatly diminished the pressure upon appointing officers for removals, and have taken from them the temptation to make removals of their own notion for the mere purpose of making a vacancy for a favorite. Many removals, and those the most indefensible in former years, were unquestionably made not because the person removed was not a useful public servant, but because some powerful Influence was to be conciliated. Some friend was to be gratified, or some dangerous enemy was to be placated by putting a particular person in the vacancy.

Nevertheless, save in the particulars mentioned, the power to remove for even the most partisan and seifish reasons remains unchanged. The changes are only in the opportunity of filling the vacancy with favorites and henchmen, and in the greater peril from a frowning, hostile public opinion.

PROMOTIONS AND OTHER EXCEPTIONS FROM THE RULES.

Rule 19, recognizing needs in the public service familiar to those acquainted with the conditions of good administraiion, allows the applicant for certain places to be appointed without examination. The confidential or fiduciary relations sustained by those who fill some of these places, the occasional need of employing persons of professional standing or of peculiar capacity in others, and the lack of temptation for disregarding the public interests in filling others, are the reasons for all but one of these exceptions.

The entire exceptions (outside from that relating to promotions), cover but few places-not exceeding 135 in all the Departments at Washington; and in the postal and customs service the ratio of excepted places is smaller still.

PROBATION.

The rules provide for a probationary service of six months before any absolute appointment can be made. At the end of this time the appointee goes out of the service, unless then re-appointed. During the probation, the character of the service rendered by the probationer and her fidelity, are carelully observed, as the question of a permanent appointment depends upon them.

The probation is a practical scrutiny continued through six months in the very work which the applicant is to do. In this part of the system and oft-repeated objections based on the assumption that no merely literary examination can show all the qualities required in a good officer. Nobody pretends that an examination in any branch of learning is an adequate test of business capacity. Congress clearly recognized its inadequacy, and therefore provided that in all cases there shall be a period of probation before any absolute appointment or employment. Instead of this practical test being foreign to the competitive system, it is original with that system, and is everywhere an important part of it. It has been shown moreover, upon each of the several trials of competitive examinations, that in a larg majority of instances the superior men in the competitions are also the superior men in the public work The proportion, among the bright minds, of those who have good business capacity, is at least as great as the proportion of those having that capacity among men of very dull minds. Between these extremes, they who excel in the schools do so by reason of the fidelity, patient labor, and good habits-qualities which also fit them for the public service.

The first person to enter the public service anywhere under the present rules-a young man at the post-office at St. Louis-was the first in the competition, and he was the first to be promoted for merit at the end of his probation. The first person appointed under the rules to a department at Washington, was a lady who stood first on the competitive list of her sex. Her practical capacity has proved to be as excellent as her attainments.

PHOTOGRAPHY

AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY is one of the most attractive and permanently interesting forms of amusement. Its practice includes everything from the simplest of mechanical operations to the intricacies of a modern science. It frequently happens that the person who commences with the very crudest form of apparatus ultimately ends up by entering into the thing so thoroughly that they equip themselves with the regular professional outfit. Some definite technical instruction, therefore, becomes necessary in order to lay before the amateur a comprehensive method of manipulating the

camera.

The selection of an instrument is, of course, a matter of individual taste, but one which is of importance to those who are about to take up the practice of photography.

In the first place, it is desirable to consider whether at the outset it would be best to buy a very simple affair, which will require only the touching of a button at the proper moment, or an apparatus which will be more difficult to operate. All this will depend, first upon what amount of money it is intended to expend on the outfit, and, secondly, on what class of work it is intended to attempt.

The matter is one worth thinking quietly over before a decision is arrived at, because a good, services' le camera will prove a lifelong companion, while a toy will never furnish any opportunity for taking up an extended study of photography. Fortunately, the competition of manufacturers has led to the placing upon the market of an infinite variety of apparatus, and the catalogue of any prominent photographic supply house will afford a large variety to select from.

An instrument which can be used either with films or dry plates is one of the most recent compromises in the way of style, and is a very useful innovation, as it permits of a wider range of work with greater convenience for the operator.

There is also among amateurs a tendency to utilize pictures for lantern slide purposes, and for this enlargements are necessary. The work of some cameras is better adapted for such a purpose than that of others, and it is one of the points to be considered in selecting an instrument if such a line of work be ultimately contemplated.

While touching the button of a kodak and forwarding the films to a photographer for development may be the acme of one operator's ambition, nine out of ten persons who enter this interesting field of work will want to master all the mysteries of developing, fixing, printing, enameling and mounting. The fascination of the dark room will, in fact, prove a powerful incentive

to a careful study of the more difficult points of photography.

In selecting the camera, bear in mind the importance of having the size such as will be useful for your requirements. Should it be intended to print direct from negatives, a camera with plate about five by seven inches would be the most desirable size, while for lantern slides and enlargements a smaller plate, yielding pictures about three and one-quarter by four and onequarter inches would be desirable.

One of the most important things to be considered is the lens, upon which much of the results of the camera will depend. There are any number of kinds on the market, and the dealer must be relied upon to provide one most suitable for general purposes. In case it is possible to have more than one lens, better results can be obtained by having one of them specially adapted for short and the other for long distances, a wide-angle lens being preferable for interiors. The tripod should always be as light as possible, and a mackintosh focusing cloth is the most useful for all weathers..

The work of focusing the object to be taken will be found by the amateur the most difficult thing to manage, when firs starting out. Of course, where a snapshot camera is used, there is what we designate a finder attached, and ne has only to look at this to see mirrored in it a picture of the scene or object to be taken. By exercising the judgment for a moment the best distance and elevation at which to snap the button will be easily seen. When using an ordinary camera and tripod it is entirely different, and mathematical accuracy is necessary in order to obtain a satisfactory picture. The first point is to ascertain the focus of the lens with which the camera is fitted. The focus means that point at which the reflected rays of light meet, or, more plainly speaking, the central point of vision to the

camera.

It will be apparent to the novice that owing to the divergency of the rays of light entering the camera some system of regulating their action on the plate or film must be adopted. By obtaining what is known as the equivalent focus, a mathematical result of all the foci, the operator will learn in what position to place the camera before interposing the shutter. A further means of regulating and distributing these light rays is furnished by the diaphragm, generally known as the stop, which is also used to modify the amount of light reaching the plate and thus to regulate the time of the exposure.

A method commonly used for finding the equivalent focus of any camera is to screw the lens on the front of the instrument and place it at one end of a long table.

At the other end lay a foot-rule. Then mark on the ground glass of the camera a three-inch line and shift the instrument back and forth until a clear image of the foot-rule exactly coincides with the mark on the ground glass, which can be observed with a focusing glass. Next measure the distance between the focusing screen and the foot-rule and multiply this distance by the amount of reduction. We will, for instance, presume that the distance between foot-rule and screen is 84 inches. We divide the result by the number of times into which the twelve-inch object or rule is divisible by the three-inch mark; namely, four, plus one, thus:

84X4=336

336(4+1=25)=336-25-12.64 inches.

The distances between the image and the lens and lens and object are known as conjugate foci. These are commonly required for purposes of enlargement and reduction. They are ascertained by equation when the equivalent focus is known. So that if it is required to copy or reduce an object to a particular size all that it is necessary to do is to measure the size of the object and divide it by the desired size of the image in order to obtain a ratio. For example: To reduce a picture measuring 12 inches at the longer base to 6 inches with a lens of 10 inches equivalent focus proceed as follows:

Equivalent focus 10 inches r=12-6=2.

We then get the difference between lens and picture. Focus 10X4+1=50 inches.

The difference between lens and screen will then be 50:4-124 inches.

These rules are worth mastering, because they will often prove valuable to the amateur and save the wasting of many plates. Nevertheless, if one has not a liking for mathematics they are not absolutely essential to the pursuit of photography. By simply extending the bellows of the camera and moving it back and forth the operator can quickly see how much of the picture can be taken on the plate at a certain distance. The ordinary operator regulates his work by this method almost entirely, knowing that for narrow streets or spaces and interior work nothing but a wide-angle lens will secure a picture.

A little problem like the following may be worked out on a pad in a few seconds. It is desired to photograph a building 60 feet high and 40 feet wide in a street 42 feet wide, on a 5 by 7 plate. We use the plate lengthwise, and proceed to see how we can operate. We have a six-inch clear space on the plate, therefore: 60 feet 720 inches÷6-120.

Supposing that we are using a lens with an equivalent focus of 9 inches:

9X120+1=90 feet.

By using a different lens it will be an easy matter to get the picture, but what size shall we require?

The street is 42 feet wide, which allows us 35 feet for a conjugate focus. Our image must necessarily be 120th the size of the original in order to get the entire building in, and we therefore must find out what the equivalent focus of the lens should be. For this the rule is to

divide the greater conjugate, or distance between lens and object, by the ratio of reduction:

35 feet 420 inches. 420÷120-34 inches.

We therefore need a lens with an equivalent focus of 3 inches, and must place the camera at a distance of 35 feet from the building to get a complete picture of it. Now as to the exposure which it will be necessary to give such a picture. The rule in photography is that, all things being equal, the duration of exposure is directly proportional to the square of the diameter of the diaphragm, otherwise its f value, The diaphragm aperture is taken as equivalent to the source of light and the plate as the surface illuminated. The ratio aperture of the diaphragm is reckoned as the expression of its value. Having found the equivalent focus we have only to divide it by the diameter of the diaphragm to get the ratio aperture. For instance, we have an 8-inch lens and the aperture of the diaphragm isinch, the ratio of which will be 8-16. This rule, strictly speaking, does not apply to other than single lenses, but it is near enough for general purposes. The ratio or f value being 16, this will require the same exposure with any lens or focus, provided the aperture stop is the same.

The rule to find the exposure necessary for any subject is as follows: The aperture being known with any other, square the two numbers. Thus: If the exposure with an 8-inch lens working at f-16 was the second, a 12-inch lens working at f-23 would be as follows: 16X16-256: 23X23=529;

the latter would therefore require only half the exposure of the former.

Instantaneous photography is so important a branch of the work that it has almost thrown the older methods into the shade. To get the best results from this method it is necessary to have plenty of light, a rapid plate and as full an exposure as possible. Many of the plates will, however, be found under-exposed and a dilute developer will be necessary so that slow development will counteract the bad effects. Rules have been propounded for finding the exposure necessary to photograph a moving object. It is well to apply them if good results are desired, as the movement of the image on the plate is necessarily affected by the rate of motion and distance of the object from the camera. To find the exposure required for a moving object find the distance of the object from the camera in inches and divide it by the number of yards per hour at which it is moving, then multiply it by the focus of the lens in inches. This yields as a result the fraction of a second which is the maximum exposure that can be given without movement affecting the picture.

An example will suffice to show what is required. An object 50 feet from the camera is traveling at the rate of twelve miles an hour, and a lens with a focus of 6 inches is to be used for the exposure. By following the rule we find that the exposure allowable is only about one two-hundreth part of a second (th).

Provided the object can be taken obliquely more latitude can be taken in regard to time. The following table will assist the amateur somewhat. It is made out

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »