6 JUNE 1952, Page 16

Competition - for Scientists Snt,—Your unhelpful editorial comment on the use

of good scientists amounts to burying your ostrich head in the sands, and killing the grammar-school sixth-form goose which has laid golden eggs. One considerable alleviation to the crisis can be proposed—a check to expanding Government departments. It has been stated that • the Civil Service wants in future more than half the graduate scientists year by year, and intends to get them, presumably by inflating salaries from the bottomless public purse. Cannot the Treasury or the watch- dog Estimates Committee cut this demand to real essentials ? Where the supply of good materials is not unlimited, then all gain by seeing that all essential needs are met. Sixth-form teaching by good scientists