The times., 1899-10-08
staII.y and the other Two.

StalI<y and the Other Two.
Among the School Boy Lyrics once
privately printed by Rudyard Kipling, in
the days of his more or less caIlow youth, is
a ballad whose refrain is ME and the 9th
er Two There is not much doubt that
it refers TO the trio whose doings are now
chronicled in book entitled "Stalky
Co., and in the words of the ballad they
certainly are "a dusky crew. II has been
suspected by some people that this series OF
papers belongs to the authors youthful
writings, resurrected for the sake of luere,
and not to the work of his mature years,
but there are two or three arguments
against this supposition. One is tnat tue
style Is Not crude enough TO belong 10 the
period of 'c,<t of India. and the 'Departs
mental Ditties." 1t is characteristic of
hipiing TO the last degree. and nobody viii
like 1t who Is not quite thoroughly in love
with the author II is full of slang and
abbreviations and jerkness, and the tech.
nical atmosphere of an English public
school, and nowhere is explanation OF
slang or customs offered the reader
This Is not characteristic of writer in
his twenties He always wants to explain
things. Another argument against the the-
ory that this is one OF the sins of Kipling's
youth Is that there Is an effectiveness
about the attitude which argues a certain
remoteness from the events chfonieled. The
stories are told not as the achoolboy would
tell them. but as the grown man might re-
call them. 1t will be remembered that
kipiing left school at the age of sixteen
and went to India. where he plunged im-
mediately into the strange, many sided,
fnc, ts.x.. q ....I.t
sounds Of those first years must have driven
the adventures of his schooldays entirely in
to the background until, with the insight
that comes OF many years of action and OBJ
seryation, he began to remember them and
see their relation TO the life and work of
the grown man. 1t seems likely, on the
whole, that he began to write them after
some such meeting with old friends as hs
describes in the last chapter of Slaves OF
the Lamp and that whatever lack of fin
ish may appear is due not to youthful crud-
ity, but to oVerwork and the pressure OF
| too many different kinds OF ideas
| The book is familiar to the public
| through Its appearance in serial form,
and it is hardly necessary to state that the
three principal characters are Stalky,
otherwise Arthur L. Corkran. McTurk
whose Christian name was William, and
Beetle, who is never anything but Beetle
/ to the end of the chapter. 1t has also be-
come known that the original Stalky was
called Beresford, that McTurk's real
name was Duntserville, and, of course that
the specialized and often-snubbed Beetle
was Kipling himself, while the school.
which Is not mentioned by name, was sit
! uated at Westward Ho, in the pleasant
County of Devon, and the Head concern
| ing whom the proyerb ran The Prooshan
/ Bates is a downy Bird is still living in
| England and easily recognizable TO those
/ who studied under his more than paternal
care.
1t has been said that this is the best
book of schooiboy life since Tom Brown. .
! Considering the paucity of such books.
| this is not much to say. 1t is certainly
not to be mentioned in the same century
with the monstrous denominations perpe-
trated by Canon Farrar and referred to by
McTurk and Beetle with such unquench-
| able derision. Eric deserves all the
| scorn he got in the nnfettered speech of
that not too gentle pair. When one con-
siders the fearful prigglshness of such
! works, one may understand the appetite OF
schoolboys for books which cause their
| mothers and guardians to weep over hu-
man depravity. Stalky and his compan-
ions were full of all the mischief which
ever possessed healthy boy, and peru
sal of their adventures would probably fire
the average youngster with inconvenient
ambitions, but better far better, this than
that the boy should be modelled on the
Farrar pattern. AS a book for boys, how
ever, it may be doubted whether "Stalky'
will be Overwhelmingly popular, and il
will certainly never approach the popu-
larity of the Jungle Books" Like "Wes
Willie Winkie'' and "Baa Baa, BlacE
Sheep" it appeals less to young people
han tn thpca w old ann tn 70.
gard their youthful days more or less OBJ
jectively.
| One thing may be unhesitatingly prophe-
sled concerning this latest contribution Il
the Kipling library; it will never, so Ions
as the world stands, receive the approya
| of the Sunday schools Nowhere is authori
ty regarded with respect; nowhere do ae
cepted standards receive proper considera
tion, and the speech of the three musket
GERS of the echoolToom would have to b
expurgated into microscopic bits before j
could in any way meet the views Of tn
denominational censors. 1t is the conven
tion in writing stories for, or of, the nor
NAL boy to assume that he never use
shocking language; but Mr.. Kipling has
as usual walked rough-shod over this con
yention, and reported the conversation O
his three youngsters as phonographically a
i he did that of Mulvaney, Ortheris and Lea
! ! royd The result is not silken-smooth. /
is the "Barrack- Room Ballads" translate
: into schoolboy slang.
Yet after all, when one comes TO consid
er Stalky, McTurk and Beetle dispassion
? ately, they are well worth drawing. Their
Is nothing dishonest or caddish about then
! Their moral code is a rude one, but il con
tains the essentials. They do not hit, as
c rule, unless they are hit; and then the
q | make it point to pay in full" They ar
h | as original as sin, but their originate
I takes after all, normal and healthy form
: They are in short, young savages-boy /
Il | the period of the Stone Age, when he
n most difficult for civilized man to deal witt
!, | although he contains within himself tn
d elements of that grown man, and will, late
: develop into just such another The situs
q ton Is paradoxical, and Ii has never bee
: fully and frankly recognized in fiction VI
: til the present generation. There are bl
e two boys in literature who can meet Stalk
a & Co. on the plane of absolute realism, an
e they are born of one big American braI
I, They are Tom Sawyer and HuckleberI
Finn.
Those who are interested in tracing II
e life of an author through his works wi
find something of value in the story ent
tied 1.-The Last Term" 1t gives a fair
~ good picture of the way in which the your
&c Kipling was trained for his profession, al
le the description OF the eager, dreamy b1ol
% voracious Beetle devouring the volumes
is the extensive library of the Head" Il
q, latter, meanwhile, deftly guiding Il
e boys omnivorous mind in the way
rs should go, is one of the cleverest and mo
t suggestive bits of autobiography in Il