Throughout this period _Punch_ was perhaps more concerned with the youngest than with the younger generation--with the progress of the child than with that of the ingenuous youth. Yet he was not neglectful of the changes going on in public and preparatory schools. The picture of "John Bull, Junior," in 1905 represents the human boy of the public-school type as still primarily interested in pastime:-- For instance, his industry's tireless In getting his _Wisden_ by rote; But of Signor Marconi (the wireless) He takes the most negligent note. That the primary use of the cable Is cricket, he's free to maintain-- He associates cricket with Abel, And bats with the mention of Cain. He can't tell the whereabouts clearly Of Constantinople or Prague, But he'll talk by the hour about Brearley, He'll tell you the birthplace of Haigh. He cannot be sure if the Hooghly's A river, a town, or a hill; But then upon Bosanquet's "googlies" A volume he'd easily fill. This was before the aeroplane and the motor had infected schoolboys with a passion for mechanics, and the view expressed is borne out by a suggestion made in 1907 by Sir J. J. Thomson, and duly noted in _Punch_, that boys should go to school in holiday time and during term time should "stay at home and learn something." A year earlier _Punch_ had very properly laid his finger on a blot in the school system--the inadequate salaries of assistant masters. In "The Worm Turns" he had enlarged on the protest which one of the number had registered in the _Westminster Gazette_. It was all very well, as "Kappa" had done in the columns of that paper, to abuse schoolmasters, but what could you expect at the price when, at the best preparatory schools, £120 a year, resident, was considered adequate pay for a first-class man, and things were not much better in the public schools. Hence _Punch's_ versified gloss, in which the much-maligned assistant master sums up the matter thus:-- Ah, well, it may be we are all past praying for, But in this world one gets what one is paying for, (That seems a fairly obvious remark); And I for one, although exposed so crushingly, Still mean to draw my salary unblushingly-- That of a third-rate clerk. [Illustration: UNANSWERABLE YOUNG HOPEFUL: "'Shamefully ignorant'! Of course I'm ignorant, Father. But then why did you send me to a Public School? I always look upon a fellow who's learnt anything at a Public School as a _self-educated man_!"]