I HAVE read with sustained interest your leading article on science in the public schools and the Civil Service. The preference given to classical subjects in the competitive examinations for higher appointments in the Civil Service is patent. This might be remedied, as you appear to suggest, by a different allocation of marks to the various subjects of the examination. But are there not serious objections to the whole system of competitive examinations as applied to these appointments? I venture to suggest that the system should be ended rather than mended—“off with his head”, as the Red Queen would say, with admirable directness.