In this context I may note that about this time _Punch_ frequently dwells on the unsuitability and extravagant cost of the amusements provided for children. In "How to Befriend the Gilded Babes" he castigates without mercy a gentleman who had been writing on entertainments for titled juveniles, and outlines a children's party the cost of which is estimated at the modest figure of £250. _Punch's_ repeated protests against the perversion of pantomimes to suit grown-ups are too familiar to call for detailed mention, but in connexion with youthful precocity I may mention a curious anticipation dating from the autumn of 1905. This is a "domestic drama, composed by an infant of ten summers who, after reaching mature years, retrieved it from a box containing his toy theatre and copied it out," exactly as it stood. The drama, which is entitled "The Sheep in Wolf's Clothing," bears all the stigmata of a _bonâ fide_ child's essay in dramatic authorship, and foreshadows the exploits of "Daisy Ashford" without being either so funny or so vulgar as _The Young Visiters_. _Punch_ had always been alive to the educative value of the theatre, and it speaks well for his vigilance that the remarkable experiment carried out in the little village of Sompting in Sussex did not escape his notice. The children were taught by making them act their lessons, and _Punch_ in some whimsical verses anticipates the extension of the method to the public schools. It is true that he does not take the experiment quite seriously, but he does not "crab" it. It was reserved in later years for a brilliant and enthusiastic educational reformer, Mr. E. G. A. Holmes, to hail in the Sompting schoolmistress the "Egeria" of the new _régime_ of elementary instruction. In less benevolent mood _Punch_ quoted in 1907 an apparently genuine letter which had appeared in the _Children's Realm_, a paper which aimed at teaching "the higher way of living to the young." The letter describes a small boy who was "a very earnest vegetarian" and a super-prig into the bargain. _Punch_ was exasperated by prigs in all walks of life, and it rejoiced his heart when Mr. Roosevelt compared President Wilson to a "Byzantine logothete." The high-browed infant filled him with dismay, and in 1910 he illustrated the "advance in elementary culture" by a highly imaginative account of the reply given by a very small boy who had been asked by a lady visitor whether he enjoyed his recent birthday party:--