Stalky and Co. by Rudyard Kipling

Kipling’s first book championing the great man “Stalky” is near the top of my list of must-read literature for adolescent men, though it is a book that I have never recommended to said young men.  The reason for my reticence finds basis in the all-too-abundant collection of “good naughties” that in the book one therein finds—the kind of good naughties that every child must pursue, but that no adult can properly recommend.

Although Kipling’s novel reads more as a rag-tag collection of short stories than a novel, Kipling gives proper narrative shape to his quasi-autobiographical tales about a band of three young men attending a preparatory high school in England by concluding Stalky and Co. with a final tale about the young men all grown up.  Though the narrative structure could be read in one way as a sort of “boys-to-men” tale, in the course of which boys use the wild and “fanciful” escapades of their youth as lessons that aid them in their “real” lives as grown men, it is more profitable to consider the nature of the boyish life that illustrates good qualities in itself.  I suggest that good naughties characterize the manner in which “naughty boys may defend Western Civilization.”

RudyardKiplingWhat is a “good naughty?”  Let a good naughty be “an action at cross purposes with a given set of norms for the purpose of displaying a thorough knowledge of said norms.”  For example, Housemaster King, the object of much of Stalky’s Company’s wrath, suggests that good little boys like those in his dormitory keep themselves clean.  In other words, King “sets a social norm” of cleanliness, and suggests that the Co. has breached that norm.  The Co. responds by introducing a prurient presence (a decaying cat corpse) into the unreachable depths of King’s dorm rooms.  They “act at cross purposes with the social norm of cleanliness.”  Stalky and Company have no desire to tear down the norm of cleanliness.  They act against that norm, first of all, on the assumption that cleanliness is a necessary part of boarding school life.  They act, moreover, on the assumption that what they are doing is educative: that they are teaching King (and members of King’s dormitory) an important lesson.  This simple lesson, which the boys understand too well to formulate in words, might be that the cleanliness of the man’s exterior does not necessarily correspond with the interior state of the man’s soul.

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Though incorrigible scoundrels, the company of Stalky, Beetle, and M’Turk possesses admirable qualities that not only enable them to pull off audacious pranks, but also serve to illustrate perhaps the most profound quality of good naughties.  The good naughty frequently demonstrates an open delight in hypocrisy unveiled.  In the book’s opening episode, Headmasters Prout, King, and Sergeant “Foxy” attempt to prosecute the boys on the grounds of trespassing—by introducing themselves onto the private grounds of a gentleman whom the Company has befriended, and who has given the boys permission to use his grounds.  As Stalky points out to Beetle at the end of the chapter, in the presence of King, of course, “Quis custodiet ispos custodes? (Who shall guard the guards themselves?).”  I would answer for Beetle (because he is too busy trying to restrain his youthful high spirits, and, maybe, because his knowledge of Latin is not up to the task), “No one, unless it be ‘eis qui custodiebantur’ (those who are being guarded).”

If Kipling’s book is an account of the importance of good naughties to the progression of boys growing into men, why, then, do I hesitate to recommend Stalky and Co. to adolescents?  It is not the case that boys should not read about and engage in such naughties—though often, in a position similar to the hapless headmasters, I have found occasion to speak and act against those naughties.  It is the case, however, that good naughties must be discovered, not presented; must be conceived, not adopted; must be organic, not galvanized.  Custodians, when they appropriate the birth of good naughties to themselves, change good naughties into “the normal”—a process or discipline from which every young man understandably shrinks.

Adolescence is a time to burn, to distinguish oneself from the normal.  If a young man is able to let his light shine out among men, and to find out later that in the process he has become part of a civilization greater than himself, then his education has truly been effected.  Kipling’s novel, Stalky and Co., illustrates this process with taste… and, with a wisdom born of the good naughty.

Author

  • John Sercer

    John Sercer was born and raised in Fort Scott, Kansas. He graduated from St. Gregory’s Academy and now studies English at the University of Dallas amongst many beautiful people.

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