Few parents can resist such an opportunity; and for several weeks the editor is supplied, free gratis, with a column of diversified but eminently saleable matter. The beauty of a controversy of this kind is that you can debate upon almost any subject without being pulled up for irrelevance. Parents take full advantage of this licence. Some contribute interesting legends of their children's infancy. Others plunge into a debate upon punishment in general, and the old battle of cane, birch, slipper, imposition, detention, and moral suasion is fought over again. This leads to a discussion as to whether public schools shall or shall not be abolished--by whom, is not stated. Presently the national reserve of retired colonels is mobilised, and fiery old gentlemen write from Cheltenham to say that in their young days boys were boys and not molly-coddles. Old friends like _Materfamilias_, _Pro Bono Publico_, _Quis Custodiet Custodes_ rush into the fray with joyous whoops. There is quite a riot of pseudonyms: the only person who gives his proper name (and address) is the headmaster of a small preparatory school, who contributes a copy of his prospectus, skilfully disguised as a treatise on "How to Preserve Home Influences at School." But the boom is short-lived. Presently a crisis arises in some other department of our national life. Something cataclysmal happens to the House of Commons, or the Hippodrome, or Tottenham Hotspur. Public attention is diverted; the correspondence is closed with cruel abruptness; and little Tommy Snooks is summoned from the Picture Palace, and sent to another school or provided with a private tutor. Still, his good name and fair fame are now vindicated in the eyes of the world. But it is not altogether surprising that the great Temple should once have observed: "Boys are always reasonable; masters sometimes; parents never!" III Correspondence between school and home is conducted upon certain well-defined lines. A boy writes home every Sunday: his family may write to him when they please and as often as they please. But--they must never send postcards. Postcards in public schools are common property. Many a new boy's promising young life has been overclouded at the very outset by the arrival of some such maternal indiscretion as this: _Dearest Artie,--I am sending you some nice new vests for the colder months. Mind you put them on, but ask the Matron to air them first. The girls send their love, and Baby sends you a kiss.--Your affec._ _Mother_. "Dearest Artie" usually comes into possession of this missive after it has been passed from hand to hand, with many joyous comments, the whole length of the Lower School breakfast-table. He may not hear the last of the vests and Baby for months.