kipling

​Jeff Minick, writing for The Epoch Times, Sept 8, 2021: “Kipling issues several warnings about the troubles plaguing our nation right now. The Gods of the Copybook Headings, with its admonitions against breaking or abandoning a moral code, is more applicable today than when Kipling wrote it. These headings were the maxims or proverbs at the top of a page in a copybook, which students then wrote over and over again to develop their penmanship … the poem ends with this verse:

​​           And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
            When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
             As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
              The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”

​Minick taught Latin, history, and literature to homeschooling students and is the author of two novels. Two of my students eyed Kipling's poem.

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