tion and the reverse, to the central authority alone,
except in certain cases. The co-optation of officials is merely a
co-optation by elimination. The elimination is made once and for all,
and the non-eliminated (_i.e._, the successful candidate) steps at once
into the toils of the Government, that is, into the toils of popular
electioneering and party politics, when all the abuses which I have
enumerated can and do arise. To be fair I had of course to point out
that we had tried to invent some slight barriers against the omnipotence
of incompetence, which prevent it being absolutely supreme.

Unfortunately these prophylactic measures are very badly organised, and,
far from being capable of amendment, ought to be completely
revolutionised.

The examination system in our country is founded on a misconception, I
mean on the confusion between knowledge and competence. We search
conscientiously for competence or efficiency, and we believe that we
have found it when we find knowledge, but that is an error. An
examination requires from a candidate that he shall know, and
competition demands that he shall know more than the others, but
that is almost all that examination and competition require of him.
Therefrom results one of the most painful open sores of our
civilisation,--preparation for examinations.

Preparation for examination is responsible for intellectual indigestion,
for minds overloaded with useless information, and for a system of
cramming, which at once takes the heart out of men, perhaps with good
ability, just at the age when their mental activity is most keen; which,
further, as the result of this surfeit, disgusts for the rest of his
life and renders impotent for all intellectual effort, the unfortunate
patient who has been condemned to undergo this treatment for five,
eight, and sometimes ten years of his youth.

I am satisfied, if I may be allowed to speak of myself in order to
support my argument by an instance well known to me, that, if I have
been able to work from the age of twenty-five to that of sixty-three, it
is because I have never succeeded except very moderately, and I am proud
of it, in competitive examinations. Being of a curious turn of mind I
have been interested in the subject set in the syllabus, but in other
matters also, and the syllabus has been neglected. I sometimes passed,
more often I failed, with the result that at twenty-six I was behind my
contemporaries, but I was not overwo