STALKY & CO.
Kipling portrays school as the first stage of a much larger game, a pattern-maker for the experiences of life. Implied throughout the stories is the question, What happened to these fifteen-year-old boys, and how did the lessons they learned at school apply to the world of warfare and imperial government? . . . The stories are based on Kipling's own school, the United Services College at Westward Ho! in Devon, which prepared boys destined for the army or for colonial service; Kipling himself appears as the subordinate character, Beetle.