"1. Henceforth the proportion of child fiction in any magazine shall be restricted to ten per cent. of the total contents of such publication; and no magazine fiction child under the age of twelve shall be represented as possessing an amount of intelligence greater than the combined wisdom of its parents.
"2. The married heroine of a society drama who has consistently preferred yachting trips, bridge, and the opera to the company of her children shall be precluded from calling upon them for aid to save herself from the dangers of a mad infatuation.
"3. Children under the age of eighteen shall be employed in no form of industry whatsoever. If there are not enough hands to produce piece goods for the Congo and the Philippines, let them draft all adult motor-car chauffeurs, diamond polishers, wine agents, amateur coach drivers, settlement workers, preachers of the simple life, and writers of musical comedy.
"4. In the public schools there shall be no talks or lessons dealing with the duties of citizenship. The time now given to that subject shall be devoted to the reading of dime novels and fairy tales, so that on graduating, children shall not be confronted with so startling a contrast between the realities of life and what they have learned at school.
"5. Cooking and other branches of domestic science shall no longer be taught in the schools. One-half of us expect to live in family hotels and the other half will probably be in no position to afford the expensive ingredients employed in scientific cookery.
"6. Mr. Francis Galton, who invented Eugenics, and Messrs. Karl Pearson and Sidney Webb, who helped to popularise it, shall be executed. Mr. Bernard Shaw shall be banished to a desert island."
And the mayor all the while kept thinking how like her mother Helen was: her voice, her hair, her eyes, but especially her voice. It filled the room with many-coloured vibrations of the consistency of building concrete and hid completely from the mayor's sight the crowd of young faces, O'Brien, the Board of Aldermen, and the three million presidents of the Board of Education. Only Helen remained and she came close to him and laid her cool fingers on his aching head.
The mayor started up to find his wife bending over him.
"Edward," she was saying, "you promised me you would go to bed early."
"My dear," he replied, "I would have if I had not fallen asleep in my chair. Have you had a pleasant evening at the theatre?"