T HERE are more than one or two phrases in Mr.

Kipling's letter to M. d'Humieres, published in Monday's Figaro, which are worth careful studying,—partly, of course, because of the robust directness of their expression, but partly also in view of the circumstances in which the letter was written.

M. d'Humieres is a French writer who has made a close study of the character and the methods of British rulers and workers, and has lately published a book, " The Island and the Empire of Great Britain," a copy of which he sent to Mr. Kipling. Mr. Kipling wrote to thank him and to criticise the book, writing, it is to be supposed, with the knowledge that it was probable that his letter would be published. The knowledge that you are "writing for publication" is occasion- ally cramping, and may lead to the expression of half-truths ; there are peculiar difficulties, too, in writing when it is essential that you must not be taken by the reader to mean what you do not mean. It is precisely that difficulty which

makes Mr. Kipling's letter particularly interesting. He does not seem to have felt himself cramped, and nobody can aver that be has only half said what he thinks, because he has said so much ; but whether or not his readers will understand all that he precisely means is not quite so certain.

Mr. Kipling is on sure ground when he expresses his pleasure at finding that M. d'Humieres has discovered, below a surface-crust of sluggish security, the fundamental, domi- nant energy of the British race. " There exists," he writes "—and I congratulate myself that you have not discovered it —an England which, ruined by excess of prosperity, sleeps, and because it snores loudly imagines that it is thinking."

That is the England of the " Recessional " ; but if it seemed to Mr. Kipling seven years ago that there was a danger lest- " Drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, Such boastings as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law"— and if to-day he still sees " an England " " drowned in security," his foreign critic puts the picture in a different perspective. He may see the England that Mr. Kipling sees,

but he sees a greater England beside it, behind it. Yet although he ungrudgingly pays homage to the deep-springing

energy which he appears to regard as the chief characteristic of the race, he uses a phrase in writing of our private soldiers which from some points of view does not seem quite con- sonant with his general verdict. It is a phrase which has

evidently caught Mr. Kipling's eye ; more than that, for on the whole it suggests the dominant note of his letter. M. d'Humieres had written of the private soldiers of the British Army that "they understand that they must not understand." Here, Mr. Kipling observes, "you put your finger on the vital point of our system believe you touch there the secret of our many successes, and also many of our reverses. It is the first thing we teach our boys." That is a phrase which, as we have suggested, may possibly be misunderstood by the writer's readers, not only in France but in England. Before any attempt can be made to

understand its meaning, however, it ought to be read in con-

junction with another passage which occurs later in the letter. " Besides," the passage runs, " ours is a meat-fed people, six millions of xvhom (more than a seventh of the whole) live in a city which for five months of the year is enveloped in semi- darkness, alternating with profound obscurity. We realise that here is a cause of irritation for certain nervous centres, therefore we—this people—take exercise in order to counteract this abnormal stimulus. We understand that we must not understand.' To understand everything is no doubt to pardon everything. But it also means to commit every- thing." In what sense, it must be asked after reading that, does Mr. Kipling write that " to understand that they must not understand " is " the first thing we teach our boys " P What he does not mean can be guessed easily enough by any one familiar with the large amount of Mr. Kipling's work which deals with public schools and the building up of the character of a boy growing into a young man. He cer- tainly does not mean that the main thing for a boy to learn is slavish, unreasoning obedience to authority under all con- ditions and in all circumstances. If that were so, he could not have written " Stalky and Co.,"—a book that has been often misread. It is a book which, under cover of much that is difficult for persons to understand who have not had to deal with a particular class of schoolboy, does in reality con- sistently uphold the peculiar gospel of the English schoolboy, which begins with the word "silence." Throughout the book, which in some respects contains the best analysis of the character of the schoolboy ever yet written—though, of course, the situations imagined and described would not fit all public schools—that gospel rises insistent ; and it is a gospel which Mr. Kipling applies, not only to the community of the schoolboy, but to the communities of which the school- boy becomes a member later in life. Translated, it is, after all, merely the gospel of discipline ; the realisation that, how- ever vexatious and uncomfortable this or that restraint or compulsion may be, the community has decided that it is neces- sary for the community's welfare, and that such welfare must come first in the consideration of all its members. "There are some things," the community says in effect alike to its meekest and its most rebellious members, "that you must all take for granted. There is neither time nor room to discuss them. The wisdom of the years has decided that this must be done, and that left undone. There must be no argument about the point. Do, and leave undone, or take the conse- quences." It happens now and then, necessarily, that the majority in a community decide that the wisdom of the years is unwisdom,—as when, for instance, Monarchies become Republics, or when autocracy is shattered. But the rebels, if they succeed, only reformulate the doctrine of the rulers whose rule they have stamped out.

When, however, the question arises, as it must arise, "At what point ought reasoning criticism, it may be reasoning

rebellion, to take the place of unreasoning obedience P" it is easy enough to pitch on queer difficulties. The young recruit is taught, in the soldier's pocket-book, that it is the great duty of the fighting man to think for himself. At the same time, he has it thoroughly well drilled into him by the staff-

sergeant in the barrack-square that the main thing he has to attend to is to see that he obeys his superior officer without questioning. He must not "answer back." But why not, if he is to think for himself ? Here, again, the analogy of public-school discipline with Army discipline, which is always present to Mr. Kipling's mind, suggests the best answer. The first thing that the young schoolboy, or the young soldier, has to think out for himself is : "Why must I obey ? " If he really "thinks" that question out to its proper conclusion, he realises that he must obey, must do what he is told without grumbling, because he, who is ordered to do something, is younger than, and therefore in all probability not so wise as, the person who orders him to do it. As soon as he has realised that great truth, he has learnt the first great lesson of his life ; he thoroughly understands that he, for the time being, must not understand. But—that is a doctrine which is only enforced on him while he is young. Notice that M.

d'Humiimes speaks only of British privates as " understand- ing that they must not understand." He does not suggest that the energy of an adult nation is sapped by the enforce- ment of unreasoning obedience to superior authority. True it is, as Mr. Kipling suggests in applying the, doctrine of obedience to each member of a horribly crowded city com- munity, that we "understand that we must not under-. stand " all the possibilities of evil living that such a com- munity holds. But neither Mr. Kipling nor M. d'Humieres suggests that blind obedience to authority in all other direc- tions is the ideal which a community ought to set before its members. That suggestion involves the doctrine that a people dominated by superior officialdom, as the Germans or Russians are dominated, is better off than the freer communities of France and England. Rather, surely, both M. d'Humieres and his English critic do but reiterate the doctrine of a far older teacher, that "the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant " ; and that there is a heritage of "thought "—thought that may legally and rightly find expression in action—upon which, as a minor, it is good neither for the community nor himself that he should enter.

The whole matter is summed up, after all, in the apophthegm which many hundreds of public-school boys must have heard before now. " You thought' ? You had no business to think. Do think, boy." It is the difference between " thinking " and thinking.