BACK TO THEIR STUDIES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 174, 17 April 1919, Page 7

BACK TO THEIR STUDIES

RUDY.AED "KIPLING AND". "THE SCHOLARS." Some hundreds of the younger naval officers whose education was interrupted by tho war-are now to be sent to various colleges at Cambridge to continue their studies. Tho experiment will be watched with great interest.

"They have taken the men that were careless lads at Dartmouth in 'Fourteen, And entered them in the'' landward schools as though no war had been. They had piped the children off all the seas from the Falklanda to the Bight, And quartered them on the colleges to learn to read and write!"

—Rudyard Kipling. "Mr. Rudyard Kipling, in the noeni entitled 'The Scholars,' which wo liave pleasure in fluMishing," says the "Daily Telegraph, "recalls one of the outstanding, perhaps pathetic, and certainly heroic, incidents of the eve of the Great ■War.

"It will he always remembored as characteristic of a race of empire-build-ers,-who keep youth at the prow. On a fine Saturday afternoon in summer—date August 1, 1911—the Cadets at tho Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, their etudies for the day at an end, were spending the hours of recreation after their usual fashion—in tho cricket field, the swimming bath, tho fives court, at the canteen, supplementing in boyish way_ their ample midday meal, or walking in the lanes which only Devonshire produces in riotous perfection of fern and flower. "The captain, passing through the entrance of tho building, which overlooks the 'silvery Dart,' was handed a telegram, and, opening it, he read' tho onp word, 'Mobilise.' The nation's call had come to all these boys, many of whom wero hardly aware that Europe was boiling over for a war which was in. due course to drag into its vortex nearly nil the countries of tho world. At first the Cadets, many of them in their first term and iust entering on the course of study prescribed by the Admiralty to complete the Osborne routine, could lmrdlv helicvo that they-mere boys of fifteen vears or so—were, of all the millions of peonle in these islands, wanted bv tho country of their birth. The , news was too joyful. Conviction came speedily, ami with it each one of them passed, as though at the waving of some magic wand, -from' boyhood to manhood— for a time.

"Tho. orders wore imperative; telegrams to hundreds of distant homes were the onlv farewell; and then these sons of Old. but ever Young, England, set. out on their war mission—to help defend the l.iiid of their fathers. Before the day closed the halls and passages and classrooms were empty, and the playmgiields were <lesolate ... ' "And now tho war has closed, and Mr. Rudyard Kipling commemorates tho passing of the survivors of this 'bund of brothers' back from the sea to Cambridge, where, they are to complete their studies—at Trinity, at Emmanuel, -at Pembroke, and other colleges. It is a strange reversal of the normal course, for these students have gathered alreaclv niiieh of the ripest experierces of a lifetime, as well as a good deal of the lore of the sea. During these past crowded months of war, 'red in the fang,' thev have faced fierce storms and dense loirs, ball'ling cuncnts and inconvenient tides. Thev have- stood, in all their fresh and buoyant youth, before the enemv of civilisation, defying his craft; thev have looked .Death in the face not onco or twice but for months on end. .Some of them .have passed' through this ordoal of Jutland, the ono great sea batllo of this century; others have invaded the. Bight of many hidden memories; yet others were spectators of the overwhelming of von Spee; n few watched the great guns of the Navy pouring their wrath on the peninsula of Gallipoli; and hero and there ma>; it. recognised former young officers ol iU auxiliary patrol, who last autumn were dealing with German submarines ami mines, at no slight risk, "These strange undergraduates, whose acquaintance the- old university town is making this week, are boys m years but men in dearly-bought experience, I hey rank in war sensations with all the admirals and captains of many years eervico who 'have served afloat in responsible posts since those August days of 1911, toithey have been in the struggle from the first shot. These fortunate youths lnw touched a knowledge out-reaching speech,and yet, after, the unaccountable anil altogether admirable way-of the Navy, they are passing back to the classrooms, tho playing-fields, and tho river; 'gentlemon tired of the sea,' it is suggested by the Poet of the Empire, but, if the tnnh be told, longing to return to it. _ "They are about to complete their education. They may be of good nheer, for they have laid sure and true foumlatirns ' -\t least undergraduates in tl:i> knowledge of thiiies that matter mosttlio real nhilosophy of life—they have already studied in the best' discipline*], most exacting, and most hardening ot at. I , Diversities, where the great seamen or our race, Raleigh and Drake, Nelson ni.d Ciilliii'wood, and—may we nut add: — Jellieoe w\<\ Ueutly. took the 'H'lw which the world to-day holds in highest honour."

Fire completely destroyed the Roman Catholic. Cathedral ill Chieoutimi. Quebec The loss includes an origina>runting by Rubens, valued lit .£20,000. (The cable news in thin issuo accredited to the London "Timop" has atinearod inthat journal, but only whore expressly lUted is fiiicli nows the oditorial opinion d! the "Tlmea.")