On the new relations that had sprung up between boys and masters--the "elder brother" theory--I do not find any notable mention in _Punch_. I suspect him of adhering to the old view that it was a far higher compliment to a master to describe him as a "just beast" than "popular." The decline of the classical side is touched on, while the continued inefficiency of instruction in modern languages is delightfully satirized in the late Mr. F. H. Townsend's picture of a young lord of creation, the centre of an adoring group of small sisters. "Now Guy," says his mother, "tell us about the school. Is everything all right?" "Oh, yes, Mother--except one thing." "My darling! What is it?" "Well, I wish you hadn't got us that French nurse to teach us the right pronunciation; it makes the other fellows laugh so." _Punch's_ picture was true of a time now rapidly passing away, and furnishes a valuable comment on the solution of a century-old problem. The French master, generally a refugee in the old days, was never accorded a proper status and very seldom recognized as one of themselves by his colleagues. He was generally poor, and he was a standing proof of the saying of the Latin satirist that there is nothing more cruel about poverty than the fact that it makes people ridiculous. Also nine times out of ten he was unable to keep order; so that in the fullness of time headmasters found themselves confronted by this dilemma. They had to choose between foreigners with a correct accent who could not maintain discipline, and natives with a bad accent who could. And in pre-war days they often decided in favour of the latter. [Sidenote: _Commerce at the Universities_] [Illustration: SMITHSON JUNIOR (as the homily ends and the real business is about to start): "Please, sir, is it sterilized?"] _Punch_ viewed the multiplication of universities with acquiescence rather than enthusiasm. He had been, as we have seen, a severe critic of academic obstructives at Oxford and Cambridge, but he was entirely opposed to their reconstruction on purely utilitarian lines. In his view there was room for universities of different types; to standardize them would be a blunder, almost a crime. So when a school of brewing was established at Birmingham, he gave a forecast of Oxford in the year 2000 A.D., completely commercialized, with the Ashmolean transformed into the University Co-operative Stores. In 1901 a daily paper had said that, compared with the University of Birmingham, Oxford must seem hopelessly out of date. _Punch_ rejoined in a masque in which the claims of the old and new universities are reviewed and contrasted, but the last word is left to the Oxford chorus:-- Out of date and useless we, Commerce is beyond our ken-- Let us thank the gods we be Twenty Oxford men.