Rudyard Kipling pays tribute to his hardworking team of investigative reporters.
ByRudyard Kipling1865-1936
Rudyard Kipling1865-1936
Rudyard Kipling was one of Britain’s most popular writers, whether as a newspaperman, or as a creator of short-stories, novel, or poetry. He was in Bombay, of which he was very proud, and his work reflects his personal experience of imperial power, which he saw for its faults as well as its virtues. Famous for The Jungle Book, Kim, and the poem If—, he became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907.
Main Text
IKEEP six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west; But after they have worked for me, I give them all a rest. I let them rest from nine till five, For I am busy then, As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea, For they are hungry men. But different folk have different views; I know a person small— She keeps ten million serving-men, Who get no rest at all! She sends ’em abroad on her own affairs, From the second she opens her eyes— One million Hows, two million Wheres, And seven million Whys!
Think and Speak
From a ’Fifties Classroom
For each of Kipling’s “serving men”, compose a sentence of at least seven words. Try to include one question and one statement among your answers. Extra credit for an exclamation or a command. Here’s a reminder of the words to use:
how
what
when
where
who
why
For the Writer In You
Don’t Give In to Tabloid Thinking
A public man who shows by his speeches
that he applies tabloid thinking to international affairs (by, for example, referring to the Government of another nation as a ‘group of murderers’) should be deprived of his office and given an occupation in which tabloid thinking would be more useful. He might, for example, find a congenial field of usefulness as a cheer-leader in an American University ball game.
Robert Thouless, Straight and Crooked Thinking (1930)
