Graduates in the Public Services A Comparative Study of Attitude
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1957.tb01318.x |
| Published date | 01 December 1957 |
| Date | 01 December 1957 |
| Author | V. Subramaniam |
Graduates
in
the Public Services
A
Comparative Study
of
Attitudes
By
V.
SUBRAMANIAM
This essay was commended by the adjudicators
for
rhe Haldane Essay
Competitioii
of
1956.
Mr.
Subramaniant is ar present a Scholar
of
the
Australian National University.
N
April, 1955, the Government of India appointed a Committee to examine
I
the question as to how far and at what levels the possession of a university
degree is necessary for recruitment to the Public Services. About the same
time the Australian Commonwealth was acknowledging the need for more
graduates in its public service directly and indirectly. The evolution of
these differing attitudes, starting as
it
were from exactly the opposite end
in both countries, has many lessons for students of public administration.
In this brief essay an attempt is made to study the interplay of social and
economic forces on the problem of graduate recruitment in two different
environments. India was a country burdened and ennobled by long
traditions and was forced to face the modern west and problems of modern
government under a process of conquest and subjugation. Australia was
an empty continent,
“
the last sea thing dredged by Sailor Time
!
”
It
started
free from the crippling bondage of ancient traditions, but with the heritage
of
western industrial technique and government taken directly over there
by its first and successive waves of immigrants.
To
make the study more
broad-based, comparisons are made with New Zealand, which resembles
Australia in many respects, and also with Ceylon, which in some respects
is a part of the traditional East which took on the superficial aspects of the
West more eagerly than India. The plan of this study is first to set out
briefly the facts regarding the problem, secondly to compare and contrast
the developments
in
each country, and lastly to explain them
on
the basis
of the operating socio-economic forces and to draw the lessons.
India
The first statutory recognition of the usefulness
of
university studies in a
modern public service was given in the Charter
Act
of
1853
in connection
with the recruitment to the East India Company’s Covenanted Service.l
Centuries earlier, the use of learned clerics in the service of the state was
common practice in Europe, and the elaborate process of study and pre-
paration at the university for serving the king was well established in
contemporary Prussia. India had its learned Brahmins in advisory positions
for centuries. But Macaulay’s introduction of competitive examinations
of university honours standard for the East India Company’s Covenanted
Service set in motion a definite scheme of recruiting young men fresh from
universities.
It
is worthwhile to recount Macaulay’s arguments and his scheme briefly
since after more than a century the same arguments and similar schemes
are used in the main even today. In his (now famous) speech in the House
373
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
of Commons
in
1853, and in an earlier speech in 1833,2 Macaulay recounted
all the arguments in favour of the young trained mind with general education
for administrative positions. His contention in 1833 that whatever be the
subjects at an examination, the men at the top would be superior, was
elaborated by his dramatic reference in 1853 to the leading lights of the
House, and outside it, and the promise and brilliance of their scholastic
career.
It
was characteristic of Macaulay that he should turn the tables
on Lord Ellenborough, who opposed the validity of such examinations,
by referring to the latter’s brilliant scholastic career. His statement
:
“
It
seems to me that there never was a fact proved by a larger mass of evidence
or a more unvaried experience than this, that men who distinguish themselves
in their youth above their contemporaries almost always keep to the end
of their lives the start which they had gained,” is still widely quoted
on
the
subject. His insistence on general education as opposed to early departmental
specialisation was equally dogmatic. “Men who have been engaged up
to one and two and twenty,” according to him, “in studies which have
no immediate connection with the business of any profession and the effect
of which is merely to open, to invigorate and to enrich the mind, will generally
be found
in
the business of every profession superior to men who have at
eighteen or nineteen devoted themselves to the special studies of their calling.”
In defence of the literary nature of the examination, Macaulay suggested
that study of dead languages facilitated the study of modern ones, and that
the safeguards against the smatterer would secure only the basically best
men. The argument that examinations were
no
test of character, Macaulay
countered with his affirmation that self-denial and application to study in
youth instead of pleasure was a proof of character and ability.
The Macaulayan arguments were advanced in defence of cornpetition
as against patronage and hence the question of recruitment
of
graduates
in preference to young school-leavers (within the framework of competition)
was not directly dealt with, nor was the question of having an administrative
class, directly recruited (as against filling such positions by promotion from
the ranks recruited at school-leaving age). This was so, for the very simple
reason that to Macaulay as to his brother-in-law, Trevelyan, these questions
were interrelated. Nevertheless, it is possible to disentangle the serious
arguments for recruiting graduates (of honours standard) with a general
education in the Classics and Humanities, from the merely subtle arguments3
for competition only, at some level. His specific reference to two and twenty
as against eighteen or nineteen, and his preference for studies which merely
‘‘
open, invigorate and enrich the mind,” make it clear as to what he is driving
at, even apart from the whole tenor of his speech. Secondly the syllabus
and the list of subjects which his committee drew up were meant for an
examination at honours leveL4 It is necessary to emphasise that in Macaulay’s
mind, graduate recruitment and competition were interrelated-since many
of his arguments for competition have been employed for competition at
school-leaving level, for example, in the early annual reports of the Common-
wealth Public Service Commission, and some of his sonorous sentences
have been repeated in other contexts.
Macaulay did not find it necessary to say anydung particular about
an
374
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