The importance of the English school drama has been well presented by Professor Herford and Dr. Ward, but there is something in the name that leads the ordinary reader to underrate the _genus_. A word or so by way of classification may be of assistance. These interludes fall naturally into four kinds. Those that ridicule folly, vain pretension, and conceit, or Mirth plays,--plays after the model of Plautus, mock-heroic, or purely diverting, like the _Thersytes_. Those that are pedagogical in tendency, directed against idleness and ignorance, or Wit plays. They began with Rastell's _Four Elements_, and reached their highest mark in the _Contract between Witt and Wisdome_. Those that portray the conflict with the excesses and lusts of the flesh, or Youth plays. They consist of such productions as _Mankynd_, _Nature_, _Hyckescorner_, and reach their climax, about 1554, in the _Interlude of Youth_. The school drama includes, in the last place, a series corrective of parental indulgence and filial disobedience, aptly called Prodigal Son plays. These are patterned upon Terence, but follow the manner of Dutch school plays like the _Acolastus_ or of the still earlier French _moralités_, _Bien-Avisé et Mal-Avisé_, _L'Homme pêcheur_, and _Les Enfants de Maintenant_. They make more or less use of the scriptural motif and are sometimes tragical. In the period under consideration their best representatives are the _Nice Wanton_ and the _Disobedient Child_. From the point of view of comedy the first of these kinds, the Mirth play, occupies a place by itself; for, though it may sometimes intend to teach, it always aims at, and achieves, laughter. To the three remaining kinds, we must for convenience, join, however, another which, though not of the school species, is primarily didactic,--I mean the controversial interlude. This includes Bale's _King Johan_, Wever's _Lusty Juventus_, and the _Respublica_.