from the lowest to the highest, serving till 1883, during five years as chief clerk of the United States treasury.
In 1872 he was appointed by President Grant civil service examiner for the treasury and he was made first chief examiner by President Arthur, holding that office until 1886. President Cleveland then appointed him civil service commissioner and in 1889 he became president of this commission, an office which he resigned in December, 1893, and the commissionership in May, 1895. He was appointed a chief of division in the office of the secretary of the treasury in 1897, and in 1898 was made chief of the division of appointments, in that office—a most difficult and responsible position which he still holds in 1905.
Mr. Lyman's most important public service was rendered while he served as chief examiner and member of the United States Civil Service Commission. In the early years, the organization and prosecution of the examination work of the commission was almost wholly his work, and under his hand the examinations increased from a half dozen or so to more than one hundred and fifty different kinds and grades, covering as many subjects, practically all the requirements of the public service. The earlier extensions of classification covered the railway mail service and the Indian service. The preparations for these extensions, including the necessary rules and regulations, were the work of Commissioner Lyman, as was also the extension to cover all free delivery post offices. He was a member (and most of the time president) of the commission, during the whole period of Mr. Theodore Roosevelt's service as a commissioner, and while Mr. Roosevelt's work and attention were largely given to the investigation of abuses and violations of the law and rules, and to the education of public opinion in favor of the reform, through public addresses and the press, Mr. Lyman's work was almost wholly administrative and constructive, his purpose and effort being to establish the reform on a sound and conservative basis and to develop it according to the more obvious and pressing needs of the public service. His theory of expansion was that the different branches of the service should be brought under the operation of the law and the rules as fast as their requirements could be understood and provided for, and no faster; so that the reform might be carried on without serious opposition or friction until the whole available service should be covered and the system received as an accepted and permanent part of our govern-
