CIVIL SERVICE FOR COLLEGE GRADUATES

Announcement of the formation of a Committee, under the leadership of Professor Friedrich, to formulate plans for the training of Harvard men for the various branches of the Civil Service, is the most welcome news issuing from University Hall in many months. No longer will Harvard be guilty of the charge from government officials that American universities give students in adequate information regarding the opportunities for a career in government service. Amply justified is the fact that the plan will be experimental for at least the next decade, as in the last analysis if the government fails to co-operate with the universities to the extent of effecting reforms in the Civil Service, all the energy and effort expended by Harvard will go to naught.

From the welter of current publicity regarding the Civil Service, one factor, frequently overlooked, needs to be stressed, and stressed again: that Civil Service in America, whether Federal, State. or Municipal, is at present restricted to positions largely routine in nature. The higher categories of public service, in which precedents are set, and policies determined, are almost invariably filled with political appointees. To be sure, this evil is common to Civil Services the world over, and will be corrected only over a space of years, so deeply is the spoils system rooted in democratic countries. Because the odds are heavily against the young civil servant's being able to rise to an executive position, as is the case under the existing arrangement, it is natural that the looser, more pliable hierarchies in private industry attract so many college graduates.

Many government officials are annoyed when it is pointed out that few college students are interested in government service, that in America we have no tradition of public service. They reply that the reason we have no such tradition is traceable to the selfish motives of youth, and that we will never have a tradition unless college students start the ball rolling by devoting their lives to the public. Unquestionably the argument has force, but nothing will be accomplished, no reform effected, unless the vicious circle is attacked from two angles.

Harvard, together with several universities, has recently indicated a determination to do its share towards providing for a government by the competent and well-educated. Henceforth, no peevish utterances by public officials as to collegiate irresponsibility will carry weight. The next step is up to the government, more specifically, to Congress itself. What must be done, before the present agitation over Civil Service dies out, is to withdraw from the realm of politics, by Congressional legislation, an appreciable number of the positions in the upper strata of departments responsible for public administration. In other words, if Civil Service is over to attract college graduates in large quantities, it must be possible for a man who has proved his ability to rise at least to the position, common in England, much less in America, of Under-Secretary.

However much satisfaction may be derived from the thought that one is helping one's fellows, that one is serving Uncle Sam, that there is more security in Civil Service than in most industries, that the pay in the lower categories is more adequate--no Civil Service will be of permanent value so long as it fails to attract those men who possess the rare quality of leadership. The fact which cannot be overemphasized is that such men are not attracted by security alone, nor by mere altruism. What they have demanded in the past, and what they will certainly demand in the future, is, first, a tangible opportunity to rise in proportion to their demonstrated ability, and, second, opportunity to cut their swathe in American life.