FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Many Irishmen found careers in the British empire in the 19th century: this editorial (on a quiet news weekend) drew attention to an opportunity in India.
Although the London Spectator is by no means unknown or unread in Ireland, we fancy that few of its Irish readers ever glance over its advertising columns. But there is an advertisement in last Saturday’s Spectator which ought to be brought under the notice of an important class of readers in this country. It is issued by the Indian Government [ie the British administration in India] and contains an invitation to young men of sound constitution and superior education to compete for appointments in a new and most interesting Department of the Civil Service.
The Department in question of that for the Preservation and Management of the Indian Forests, and the conditions which it offers to its employees are such as to show that the Indian Government is quite in earnest now about the important work it has taken in hand.
These conditions are as follows: The candidate must be between the ages of seventeen and twenty- five. He must pass a particularly strict medical examination, as his work is of a kind which requires great personal activity. The employment is by no means unwholesome, as the operations are only carried on during those six months of the year in which the forests are free from jungle fever and malaria. During the other six months the employees enjoy a complete holiday. The salary begins at £300 a year, and rises to £1,900. Irish students will be glad to learn that the promotion depends on the employee’s efficiency, and not on favour.
Previous to being put under salary, the candidate is required to undergo a special course of training. He is required to spend two years and a half at certain forestal establishments in France and Hanover, and to produce half yearly certificates from the heads of those establishments, attesting his diligence, good conduct, and professional progress. [. . .]
The Government contributes £100 a year to the expenses of the candidate’s training. No candidate need apply who has not a good colloquial knowledge of French or German. In either one or other of these countries he must receive the largest part of his professional training, and without a knowledge of either language he would be unable to follow the lessons of his preceptor, or even to read the valuable works on Indian botany and arboriculture, which are every day adding to our knowledge of the Flora of that great dependency. Besides the knowledge of French or German that candidate will be required to have attained some proficiency in the sciences and arts which are subsidiary to mensuration and land surveying. He must be a good arithmetician, he must be master of the first six books of Euclid, of elementary algebra, trigonometry and the use of logarithmic tables, and of freehand drawing.
Moreover, he will be examined both in writing from dictation and in original composition.
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