Do we turn out good girls and boys?
Good heavens! What is "Good"?
Through all the periods of my life
One goodness I'll pursue;
With rare "good things" this world is rife;
I'll try to get a few.
At the close of the same year, however, Punch castigates sectarian bigots with equal vigour. He took for his text a letter by Dr. James Martineau to The Times, in which that "wise and gentle teacher" had appealed to the conflicting parties of School Board electors and members to reconcile themselves to a peaceful co-existence on the basis of our common Christianity. Punch does not spare "secular spleen" and "shortsighted super-thrift," but his severest criticisms are reserved for the sectarian zealots, Anglican and Nonconformist, who had broken up the compromise of 1871, and he concludes:—
Oh, self-elected shepherds, with your crooks,
Fighting, while round your folds the wolves are creeping!—
Pedagogues wrangling o'er your lesson-books,