MEMORIAL FUND

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 108, 3 November 1937, Page 31

MEMORIAL FUND

RUDYARD KIPLING

IMPERIAL SERVICE BOYS

COLLEGE BURSARIES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, October 13.

Today Major-General the Earl, of Athlone (president and chairman of the council) briefly outlined the three purposes of the Rudyard Kipling Memorial Fund. Those purposes are:

(a), The erection at Westward Ho and Windsor, as shall be decided, of commemorative plaques, busts, stainedglass windows, or-other suitable memorials.

(b) The building and equipment of the Kipling Library at the Imperial Service College, Windsor, the newer name of Rudyard Kipling's old school, the United Services College.

<c) Tlie provision of a capital sum, to be invested in the names of trustees, the annual income therefrom to be devoted to the provision of bursaries at the Imperial Service College, Windsor, for dfty boys, the sons of men engaged in the Governmental and Public Services resident- in the United Kingdom, in H.M. Dominions, in India, and in the Colonial Empire, and such other boys as the local committees of the fund may select. It is proposed that the value of each bursary will be sufficient to pay two-thirds of the fees ordinarily payable at the college. The boys so chosen will be known as "Kippling Scholars." ~ CONFIDENT OF SUPPORT. The Imperial Service College stands in an estate of 170 acres on the west side of Windsor. Its present personnel includes 368 boys, 90 per cent, of whom are the sons of men engaged in various bruiches of the Imperial Services. There is ample space available for carrying out the objects of the Memorial Fund. The council holds the opinion that the influences for good which succeeding generations of Kipling Scholars 'will exercise in Imperial matters will be cumulative in effect. The widened knowledge of the conditions which obtain in the United Kingdom, in H.M. Dominions/in India, and in the Colonial Empire, the clearer appreciation of the diversity of points of view, the warmer sentiment which friendships made in youth will maintain amongst Kipling Scholars when they have grown to maiihood and are bearing the responsibilities for which their training will have fitted them; the fact tha each will have a life-long interest in, and love for, a particularly beautiful piece of England where happy years have been spent ir. congenial surroundings, .these are th,e factors which have shaped this proposal intba piece of Empire-build-ing after the heart of the great Imperialist whose memory it is sought to perpetuate. The number of Kipling Scholars must depend upon the volume of support accorded throughout the Empire. It is anticipated confidently that a sum sufficient to provide bursaries for at least fifty boys will be forthcoming. The library will provide a permanent and eminently suitable home for Kiplipgiana. which will thus be preserved for posterity. THE MANLY VIRTUES. .The: Earl of Athlone referred to Kipr ling as perhaps the most versatile man of letters this country has ever had. Poet, historian, humorist, story-writer, and all the time a philosopher preaching his philosophy ttiat the manly virtues are the only virtues, whether individual or national. A literary committee is being formed with Major lan Hay Beith as chairman and Sir Hugh Walpole, Mr. St John Ervine, and Mr. Gilbert Frankau among the members. Already £33,000 has been subscribed, although the appeal will not be formally launched until November 17. „ , , "in thinking of Kipling Scholars we are looking far ahead," said the chairman. "It is not just a question of getting some fifty boys from overseas for three years to Rudyard Kipling s old school in its present home at Windsor. If our plans work out satisfactorily, in seven years' time oyer three hundred men, in as many different parte of the Empire, will be carrying out their life work with the traditions of an English public school behind them and with many close friendships made at school to help them in the work of cementing Empire understanding. Surely such a method of perpetuating Ms- memory would have given infinite satisfaction to the man whose love for the^ Empire was the guiding influence of his life. Lord Dunsterville was present, also General Sir A. J. Godley, who was at the old school at Westward Ho with KiDling. Lord Greenwood made appreciative reference, to Kipling as a man of letters and a journalist.