If we attended the matches an' yelled, 'Well hit, sir,' an' stood on one leg an' grinned every time Heffy said, 'So ho, my sons. According to the housemaster Prout (dubbed 'Heffy' or 'Hefter' by the boys, because of his ape-like build), all 'right-minded boys' are eager to join in these games and to defend the 'honor of the house.' As McTurk knowingly observes in a parody of Prout,

One is by refusing to participate in organized games. Kipling's three heroes go about this in several ways. is Kipling's belief that in such a world, the boy who wished to retain his individuality at school (and in later life as well) would have to train himself to lead a secret life, in which his real feelings and values were contained. In Stalky & Co., Kipling sought an antidote for what he saw as the disastrous effects of traditional forms of public school education on the national character, and in so doing, presented a radical and disturbing answer to the question of how individuality might be retained in a world increasingly constrained by the pressure to conform.Ĭentral to the picture of boy-life in Stalky & Co. 2 In reconstructing his own memories of boy-life, Kipling found himself examining not only the behavior of the boy at school, but that of the adult in society as well. A partial explanation of this apparent paradox may be found in Kipling's attempt to counteract the effects of the increasing conformity of the public schools on the national character. The boys at Westward Ho! are, after all, being prepared to become part of the imperial machine, and at the end of the book Stalky is pictured leading his troops in India. It is paradoxical that Kipling, known later on for his authoritarian politics, should, in this novel about school life, have seemingly approved such a concerted challenge to institutional authority. Dunsterville-employ 'stalkiness,' a school-word defined as the capacity for 'clever, well-considered, wily' action, 1 to defy the traditions of the public school and assert the values of boyhood. describes how three boy heroes-Beetle, who was modelled on Kipling, and McTurk and Stalky, modelled on two boyhood friends, G. The most immediate task facing the boy arriving alone at school was finding a 'chum.' Stalky & Co.

Abandoned to a rather Spartan world, the boys at Westward Ho! were cast on their own resources and boy-society flourished. It is a public school novel based on Kipling's memories of his own schooldays at United Services College, Westward Ho! Situated at Bideford by the sea, in an out-of-the-way corner of the country, the school was rarely visited by parents, many of whom were, in any case, like Kipling's parents, stationed in India. Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co., 1899, is an unusual book by an unusual man.

Kipling stalky and co