1.  The classified departmental service shall include the several officers, clerks, and other persons in any Department, commission, or bureau at Washington classified under section 163 of the Revised Statutes, or by direction of the President for the purposes of the examinations prescribed by the civil-service act of 1883, or for facilitating the inquiries as to fitness of candidates for admission to the departmental service in respect to age, health, character, knowledge, and ability, as provided for in section 1753 of the Revised Statutes.

  2.  The word “department,” when used in the general or departmental
  rules, shall be construed to mean any such Department, commission, or
  bureau classified as above prescribed.

  DEPARTMENTAL RULE II.

  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