“The system of women and girls acting as field labourers, ploughing and
    shepherding, etc., in itself produces a rough state of
    society.”—­Country Life.

However this roughness is to be corrected, as we see by the following:—­

    “ARRANGEMENTS FOR TO-DAY.

    “Class in Elementary Polish begins, King’s College, 6.”—­The Times.

Splendid!  These colleges think of everything.

* * * * *

OUR CORRESPONDENCE COLLEGE.

So much good has notoriously been done during the great conflict by letters to the Press that Mr. Punch, recognising the importance of having this branch of War-work taught to the young, has engaged a gentleman of ample leisure and few responsibilities, who hides behind the nom de guerre “Paterfamilias,” to deliver a series of instructive lectures on the subject.  By the time the student has absorbed a complete course he will he qualified to write to the papers on any topic, and, to adopt every tone from the pleading and querulous to the indignant and hectoring.  From this can follow nothing less than the complete rout of the Germans.

SYLLABUS OF LECTURES.

I.—­A World in Darkness.

The world before newspapers—­Unbearable thought—­No Street and no Man in it—­Unfortunate position of great Generals of history, ALEXANDER, HANNIBAL, CAESAR, etc., in lacking support or criticism by military experts—­Their fatal ignorance of public opinion—­Serious handicaps in the past—­LEONIDAS never seen at lunch by Mr. Gossip—­ALCIBIADES never stimulated by attacks in Athens journals—­No brainy onlooker at defeat of Armada.

II.—­The Growth of the Press.

The birth of a happier era—­The first English newspaper—­Rapid development of the new arm—­A nation made articulate—­Unfortunate quietistic tendencies:  ADDISON, STEELE, JOHNSON—­Foreshadowings of the real thing—­Arrival of the real thing—­The Fourth Estate—­The Tenth Muse—­The Editor as Dictator—­The Millennium.

III.—­The Vigilant Correspondent.

The Council of Ten and the Lion’s Mouth—­Importance of attending to other people’s affairs—­True citizenship the improvement of one’s neighbours—­Neglect of one’s own character a national virtue—­Brief sketch of Paul Pry—­Brief sketch of Meddlesome Matty—­Keepers of the public conscience—­Human alarm-clocks—­Samples of reforms delayed by absence of letters to the Press—­The circulation of the blood—­The law of gravity—­The movement of the solar system—­Value of iteration and undauntability.

IV.—­Range of Subject.

Every stick useful in beating dogs—­Nothing too trivial to yoke with such words as “scandal” and “outrage”—­Suspicion and mistrust the letter-writer’s life-blood—­Necessity for believing everyone in office negligent or corrupt—­Reasons why it is better to write to the papers than to the individual—­The sacredness of publicity—­Importance also of victim seeing the indictment—­Value of Who’s Who?—­Postal rates for newspapers.