than a thorough education, keen intelligence and capacity for development. Proceeding upon this assumption, Macaulay's commission on the Indian Civil Service laid down two principles: first, that young men admitted to that service ought to have the best general education England could give; and, second, that ambitious men should not be led to spend time in special study which would be useless if they were not successful in the competition. The commission urged, therefore, that the examinations should be closely fitted to the studies pursued in the English universities. This plan was adopted, and although at one time the age of admission, and with it the standard, was lowered, they were afterwards restored; and the same principle is now also applied to the higher grades in the home service. For the lower positions in that service, where the work is of a clerical nature, and hence less discretion and responsibility are involved, it was formerly the habit to make the examinations more of a test of immediate preparation for the duties of the office; but this, as we shall see, has recently been replaced by a system based upon Macaulay's ideas, though applied, of course, to an inferior scale of education. [Sidenote: The Different Grades in the Civil Service.] The permanent officials of a typical department comprise a permanent under-secretary at the head, and one or more assistant under-secretaries and chiefs of branches. These offices are treated as not subject to examination under the Order of 1870, either because they are filled by promotion, or on the ground that the positions require peculiar qualifications.[160:1] As a matter of fact such posts are by no means always filled by promotion, and persons are sometimes selected for them who are outside of the service altogether. Next in rank come the principal clerks; but they are recruited entirely by promotion from the first-class clerks, who are, therefore, the highest grade of officials entering the service by competitive examination. Below them are the men now properly called clerks of the second division, although the title of this class of civil servants has been changed so often that one finds strange variations of nomenclature in the different departments. Below these again come the assistant clerks (abstractor class), and finally the boy clerks. [Sidenote: Their Origin.]