The Training of Public Servants
| Date | 01 July 1931 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1931.tb02893.x |
| Published date | 01 July 1931 |
| Author | Stanley Leathes |
The
Training
of
Public
Servants
By
STANLEY
LEATHES.
K.C.B.
[Being Paper to be discussed
at
Summer Conference
of
Institute
of
Public Administration.
Jdy,
19311
HAVE
been looking at my paper which was discussed at Cambridge
I
on the 3rst July,
1923,
when Sir Austen Chamberlain
was
kind
enough to take the chair. The paper was published in the October.
number of the Journal
in
the same year.
It was entitled the Qualifications, Recruitment, and Training of
Public Servants.
I
explained in my opening remarks that
I
had
not
promised to talk about training or qualifications, and was not
fitted
to do
so,
because my qualifications, if any, were purely accidental
and undesigned, having been acquired by chance and without method.
As
for training
I
had none-for that specific career. Nevertheless,
the headline to every right-hand page of that article
is
“
Training
of Public Servants,”
a
subject which
is
only mentioned
in
the first
paragraph to be set aside, and in the remainder of the article by
allusion twice. Now
I
am led captive, and pledged to write on the
very subject which
I
had refused to treat even when every headline
said
I
was doing
so.
I
must crave your indulgence, for
I
can only write on this theme
by guesswork. It
is
true that
I
lived in an office for the best part
of twenty-four years, but
I
took
no
direct part
in
training any
sub-
ordinates;-except,
I
suppose,
that
I
must have done something to
train
two
secretaries who served under me after
I
had become a
Commissioner, and
I
hope that indirectly
I
did something to mould
the policy of our Examinations Branch.
I
suppose
I
ought to have
done more, but coming in near the top one may easily do more
harm than good by interference.
I
must therefore, if
I
am to carry out the task imposed upon me,
exercise such powers of imagination as
I
may possess, and frame in
my fancy the course of discipline and instruction that should await
the tyro when he enters his department for the first time.
But there must be many forms of discipline. There
is,
or
should
be, a different discipline for a clerical officer entering for the first
244
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