I dislike the suggestion of putting military men on the Committee as a check on the civilians.

Hitherto we have never, to the best of my belief, been troubled by any such idle jealousies.

I would appoint the fittest men without caring to what branch of the service they belonged, or whether they belonged to the service at all." [This, and the following extracts, are taken from a volume of Macaulay's Minutes, "now first collected from Records in the Department of Public instruction, by H.Woodrow, Esq., M.A., Inspector of Schools at Calcutta, and formerly Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge." The collection was published in India.] Exception had been taken to an applicant for a mastership, on the ground that he had been a preacher with a strong turn for proselytising.
"Mr .-- -- seems to be so little concerned about proselytising, that he does not even know how to spell the word; a circumstance which, if I did not suppose it to be a slip of the pen, I should think a more serious objection than the 'Reverend' which formerly stood before his name.

I am quite content with his assurances." In default of better, Macaulay was always for employing the tools which came to hand.

A warm and consistent advocate of appointment by competitive examination, wherever a field for competition existed, he was no pedantic slave to a theory.