LORD KITCHENER AT SCHOOL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11346, 14 April 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

LORD KITCHENER AT SCHOOL.

Ever since Shakespere wrote that tlio boy was father to the man, it lias been the fortune or misfortune of great men to have their early days adorned with wondrous stories of their precooiousness. That there aro exceptions to prove tlio rule that men of mark have often given no evidence in their boyhood of their ability lying dormant is amply exemplified by the Duke of Wellington, 110 was a dull average boy, and one out of whose early years the indefatigable anecdote writer is ablo to gather nothing, except it be the fablo of his having thrashed the youthful Napoleon Bonaparte, As a boy, Lord Kitchener was also of the average, and what is more surprising still, when his present tireless activity is taken into account, was inclined to be lazy. His father, Colonel Kitchener, who died within the last ten years, wow a strict disciplinarian of a most autocratic temperament. While his son Herbert was at a public school working for a certain examination, it was reported to the colonel that he was idling. This angered him, and he told the future conqueror of the Mahdi that unless he succeeded in passing his examination ho would take him away and send him to walk two-and-two in a dame's school, adding the further threat that if ho failed then lie would apprentice him to a hatter, In spite of those threats the embryo General failed. His father kept his word, and for some lime Herbert Kitchener might have been seen in the "crocodile" of a certain worthy schoolmistress. But wlion he again went in for his examination ho passed, If he had not there is littlo doubt that for a short time at any rate he might have been employed in the hat trade. For Colonel Kitchener was a severe man of his word, and a martinet of the old school, of .which paternal characteristics Lord Kitchener of Khartoum has ■ a largo share,—Hatter's Gazette..