In the series of articles on "Education Made Easy" in 1887, _Punch_ sympathizes with the mothers who were constantly harried by "attendance officers" for neglecting to send their children to the Board Schools. Ignorance was a great evil, but the Board Schools were attempting too much. The essentials were not thoroughly taught; pupil-teachers were overworked; there was too much of the 'ologies, and the three R's were in danger of going to the wall. The reactionary protest against the teaching of music--"We don't want Grisis at Board Schools"--is ironical; but _Punch_ espoused the cause of those who condemned over-cramming in Board Schools, and based their crusade on Sir James Crichton-Browne's Report on over-pressure in 1884. But his great point was that there was too much teaching of the things that did not matter. His "Indignant Ratepayer" in 1887 welcomes the decision of the London School Board to hold an inquiry into the curriculum of their schools. The special committee were also to report "whether such changes can be made as shall secure that children leaving school shall be more fitted than they now are to perform the duties and work of life before them." One of the speakers had declared that "the boys educated in public elementary schools scorned all handicraft work, and wanted to be clerks, while girls in like-manner scorned all domestic service." The "Indignant Ratepayer" congratulated the School Board on turning over a new leaf, though it had taken them sixteen years to realize that they were on the wrong tack. [Sidenote: _Indignant Ratepayers_] A week later _Punch_ published another letter from another "Indignant Ratepayer," deprecating the congratulations as premature and indiscreet:-- I, too, _Mr. Punch_, am a ratepayer; I have seen my rates trebled since the creation of the School Board; and I am now told that I ought to thank my stars that, after sixteen years' work, they have at length displayed a glimmering of common sense. There seems to be something ominous in this term of sixteen years, for it appears that it is just for this period that we have been supplying the Army with bayonets that won't stab, and the Navy with cutlasses that won't cut. We are always calling ourselves, though nobody else does, a practical people. But what care we for the opinion of our neighbours, so long as we are happy in the calm contemplation of our superiority?