Page:The Wisconsin idea (IA cu31924032449252).pdf/214

 and influences which great corporations have used in the past, in connection with legislative bodies, may be transferred to the accountant. If an accountant computes the rate, basing it on an intricate system of valuation, cost of the service, etc., the powers that are interested will try to reach the accountant. We should fortify our service by employing men who have had the right instruction; whose teachers were such men as know fire when they see it and who maintain not only the highest ideals of public service but who supply their students with that insight into the methods by which legislation is actually checked or defeated so that they too will know fire when they see it.

In the choosing of men through civil service it will be well to remember that a civil service commission is subject to all of the frailties of a commission. The whole plan may go wrong if that source is not watched and subjected constantly to the light of public criticism. The kind of examination which must be passed determines in the end a large part of the efficiency of the individual. Fortunately commissions have realized that the ridiculous examinations of twenty years ago when book knowledge was made the standard cannot longer command the confidence of the people and they are gradually modifying examinations so as to bring the elements of personality and executive ability to a greater prominence than mere memory.