For instance, when I was Police Commissioner we appointed some two thousand policemen at one time.

It was utterly impossible for the Commissioners each to examine personally the six or eight thousand applicants.
Therefore they had to be appointed either on the recommendation of outsiders or else by written competitive examination.

The latter method--the one we adopted--was infinitely preferable.

We held a rigid physical and moral pass examination, and then, among those who passed, we held a written competitive examination, requiring only the knowledge that any good primary common school education would meet--that is, a test of ordinary intelligence and simple mental training.

Occasionally a man who would have been a good officer failed, and occasionally a man who turned out to be a bad officer passed; but, as a rule, the men with intelligence sufficient to enable them to answer the questions were of a type very distinctly above that of those who failed.
The answers returned to some of the questions gave an illuminating idea of the intelligence of those answering them.