Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-06-26
THE MAINE COLLEGE CALCULATIONS.
character in Education
Eno,;sb o Jay Lyman Gray
Chester Henry Yeaton
Music
Comforting of Degrees.
Prayer.
Benediction.

O"ii herrlii Robinson of Portland, was
| awarded the Goodwin Commencement
! prize and it was one Of the best narts
ever delivered at any Bowdoin Com.
mencement. The part follows:
kiping, a Young Mans Poet.
The award of the Nobel prize fol-
literary achievements for the first time
10 an Engllshman has brought Rud-
yard klpllng into especial prominence
Inc pestoWal of this prize on Mr. Kip
ing entities him to be considered the
foremost writer of English today. In
deed. so great has been his popularity
within the past few years, that none
OF his contemporaries can be compared
with him.
"Kipling has been called a young
mans poet and yet so great is his YER
satility of thought and style he is be-
loved by all ages and conditions of HUI
mainly. in fact, as one critic has said,
He has become a popular ideal in lit
erature as Sargent in painting, and
president Roosevelt in politics. Not to
have heard of Mulvaney and Mowgli,
not to knew the refrain of the Recess
sional is unthinkable.' Kipling is per-
haps the one writer of English today
who satisfies the two great classes of
readers-the multitude who read to be
amused and the cultured few who read
for art; sake. He touches astonishes,
and thrills alike the plain man in the
street, the scholar in the study. the
rough, the illiterate, the soldier and
the Over-cultured aesthetic
"A French writer has likened Kipling
to 4 savage who bursts upon a circle
of conventional worthless. When he
first emerged from his jungle the Pur-
itans of literature We're for the moment
shocked. The sanctum of the master
poets has been invaded by barbarian!
His only weapons had been handful
of Larrack room ballards. yet the con-
quest was complete. Soon both Eng
land and America We're quoting Null
Vaney and ringing with the Road to
Mandalay.
"NiplinS'S poetry Is unique and unen-
numbered by conventionalities. Like
Homer and the Bible, he has invented
his own modes of utterance. the strong
yet simple and Picturesque. apparently
crude. yet how graphic in description!
Some of his works are like a rough
hewn monument of a master sculptor,
to mutilate.
There is no poet more widely read
today by young men in colleges and
universities than Kipling. Professor H.
Morse Stevens in talk at the Univer-
sity of California not long ago, eX-
pressed his qualification upon the
change that had come over the literary
ideas of college students. When he was
in oxford he said that their desks were
Uttered with Swinburne and Wilder,
but now the students had taken Kip
lirg as their guide and inspiration and
were being influenced by his instances
on the importance of work and dis
cipline.
"kipling appeals to young men be-
cause he goes beneath the superficial
culture of civilization, straight to the
heart of man as he is Above all. it Is
the virility which impresses us. He is
the poet of life and action, of daring
and achievement. and the idea OF true
manhood pervades his work. His COM
posite hero, were he before u.s. would
astonish us by his frank humanity He
would he q young mans ideal. jovial
generous and sincere.
Some of Kipling's heroes We're IL
literate savages. yet they all possess
certain crude manliness. We must ad-
mire Fuzzy Wuzzy, that big. black,
bounding beggar. who broke the Brit
ish square, and who although lie was
a poor. delighted heather, was a!
first-class fighting man. and Gunga
Din of whom he says:
.'Thouch I've belted you and flaycd you,
By the living God that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga
Din
The old Romans thought Of a poet as
a sacred bard. a person who had some
thing to preach. and surely Mr.. klpiing
is forever preaching. In all his works he
seems to have a special message partic-
ularly for young men. He cares more
for what he has to say than how he says
it. In England. Kipling Is studied as
living force. preaching a gospel of poll
tics. and patriotism to the community ana
q gospel of work and discipline to the
individual.
The dominant tone of his work is. in
deed. patriotic: and it is the tone OF a
new patriotism which binds ell speaking
nooples bv the bond of common mother
hood. and by the ties of common con-
victions, principles, and aims. His po-
ut;cal gospel is seen in his appeal to his
neople in the song of the English:
"Keep We the law-be swift in all obedi-
Clear the land of evil drive the road and
bridge the ford
Make We sure to each his own.
That he reap where he hath sown,
Rv the peace among our people. let mon
know we serve the Lord.
TT appears again in his. beautiful Reces-
sio,aI written for the Queens Jubilee:
"If drunk with sight of power. we loose
Wild tongues which have not Thee IN awe,
Surh bonstings as the Gentiles use.
0r lesser breeds without the Law
ord Cod of Hosts. be with us YET,
Lest we forget, lest we forget.
Killings political gospel is not only for
England, but for America as we'll This
noe,n 1.-The White Mans Burden wasl
written for the American as the Recess
s;o,,al was written for the Englishman. 1t
WIS undoubtedly called forth by the ex-
pansive policy of the United States. tore
ed upon us by the result of the Spanish
war. In it he speaks of the Ffltpinos as
..Your new-caught, sullen peoples. haif
dev;, half child and seeks to remind
- Ac,arioan peoDle of the duty they