1. To test the fitness of applicants for admission to the classified
departmental service there shall be examinations as follows:
_Copyist examination_.--For places of $900 per annum and under.
This examination shall not include more than the following subjects:
(_a_) Orthography.
(_b_) Copying.
(_c_) Penmanship.
(_d_) Arithmetic--fundamental rules, fractions, and percentage.
_Clerk examination_.--For places of $1,000 per annum and upward.
This examination shall not include more than the following subjects:
(_a_) Orthography.
(_b_) Copying.
(_c_) Penmanship.
(_d_) Arithmetic--fundamental rules, fractions, percentage,
interest, and discount.
(_e_) Elements of bookkeeping and of accounts.
(_f_) Elements of the English language.
(_g_) Letter writing.
(_h_) Elements of the geography, history, and government of the
United States.
_Supplementary examinations_.--For places which, in the opinion of
the Commission, require, in addition to the knowledge required to pass
the copyist or the clerk examination, certain technical, professional,
or scientific knowledge, or knowledge of a language other than the
English language, or peculiar or special skill.
_Special examinations_.--For places which, in the opinion of the
Commission, require certain technical, professional, or scientific
knowledge or skill. Each special examination shall embrace, in addition
to the special subject upon which the applicant is to be tested, as many
of the subjects of the clerk examination as the Commission may decide to
be necessary to test fitness for the place to be filled.
_Noncompetitive examinations_.--For any place in the departmental
service for which the Commission may from time to time (subject to the
conditions prescribed by General Rule III, clause 2) determine that such
examinations ought to be held.
2. An applicant may take the copyist or the clerk examination and any or
all of the supplementary and special examinations provided for the
departmental service, subject to such limitations as the Commission may
by regulation prescribe; but no person whose name is on a departmental
register of eligibles shall during the period of his eligibility be
allowed reexamination unless he shall satisfy the Commission that at the
time of his examination he was unable, because of illness or other good
cause, to do himself justice in said examination; and the rating upon
such reexamination shall cancel and be a substitute for the rating of
such person upon the previous examination.
3. Exceptions from examination in the classified departmental service
are hereby made as follows:
(_a_) One private secretary or one confidential clerk of the head
of each classified Department and of each assistant secretary thereof,
and also of each head of bureau appointed by the President by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate.
(_b_) Direct custodians of money for whose fidelity another officer
is under official bond; but this exception shall not include any officer
below the grade of assistant cashier or assistant teller.
(_c_) Disbursing officers who give bonds.
(_d_) Persons employed exclusively in the secret service of the
Government.
(_e_) Chief clerks.
(_f_) Chiefs of divisions.
4. No person appointed to a place under the exceptions to examination
hereby made shall within one year after appointment be transferred from
such place to a place not also excepted from examination, but after
service of not less than one year in an examination-excepted place he
may be transferred in the bureau in which he is serving to a place not
excepted from examination: _Provided_, That before any such
transfer may be made the Commission must certify that the person whom it
is proposed to so transfer has passed an examination to test fitness for
the place proposed to be filled by such transfer.