The merit system is the process of promoting and hiring government employees based on their ability to perform a job, rather than on their political connections. It is the opposite of the spoils system.
Famous quotes containing the words merit and/or system:
“So that if you would form a just judgment of what is of infinite importance to you not to be misled in,—namely, in what degree of real merit you stand ... call in religion and morality.—Look,—What is written in the law of God?—How readest thou?—Consult calm reason and the unchangeable obligations of justice and truth;Mwhat say they?”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)