In Brief: The Prettier Learning

Kalipedia, he prophesied, would soon be generally adopted and all the graces of life, genuinely good music, agreeable literature, light philosophy, instructive pictures, plastercast reproductions of the classical statues such as Venus and Apollo, artistic coloured photographs of prize babies, all these little attentions would enable ladies who were in a particular condition to pass the intervening months in a most enjoyable manner.

Thus one of the characters in Ulysses, apropos of the needs and wants of pregnant women, about which too many men have uninformed opinions. Joyce was likely referring to “Callipaedia, Or the Art of Getting Pretty Children” (1719), a translation of Claude Quillet’s versical marriage manual. The word “callipedia” itself refers to “beautiful learning,” which Joyce rendered as “kalipedia,” (good learning). 

Apparently Playmobil has this market to itself.

For all of J.J.’s snarkiness, I find this curriculum appealing, particularly as I advance in years. I am likelier to enjoy my leisure hours, such as they are, if I can fill them with old popular music, “agreeable” books, and pictures of…well, cute animals rather than prize-winning babies, but the aesthetic is much the same. Plaster cast statues of Greek gods I’ll need to leave out, as my wife and I have too much bric-a-brac as is; regrettably, Funko Pop has not, as yet, devised smaller substitutes.