13 OCTOBER 1961, Page 11

SIR,—I must thank Mr. Barker for hi. I ricnt.tly letter,

but I cannot agree that it is only Cie 'top twenty' schools to which mothers send their sons a, symbols of their social superiority to their neighbours. It has been said—and I think truly--that there is no school in. England that does not think itself the social superior of some other school. Parents select their children's schools for a mixture of reasons, but at every level the social advantages, real or imagined, are among the strongest of these reasons. I should have thought that it was particularly prevalent as a reason for the preference for a minor public school over a grammar school.

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS Claveys, Mells. Nr. Frame