The 1379th Meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences was held on Wednesday, September 19th at 5 p.m. at the New Haven Lawn Club. Some seventy members and their guests enjoyed cocktails before the evening program, which began at 5.30p.m. Some sixty members and guests stayed for dinner. Dr. Ernest Kohorn, the President, welcomed the audience. He said that Council had tried valiantly to obtain funds from the state of Connecticut for the endowment fund of the Academy, but had had little success. Governor Rell had tentatively agreed to speak to the Academy in October but had to cancel at the last minute. However she promised she would keep a future date in mind. Dr. Kohorn reminded members of the forthcoming benefit concert for the endowment fund of the Academy on October 21st at Southern Connecticut State University and hoped that if members were unable to attend that they would make a contribution. He then announced the following newly elected members: Stephen Vreeland Flagg, M.D. Professor of Surgery, Yale School of Medicine, Albert Ned Rogin, Financial Manager, Essex Financial Services, Norma Rogin, Essex, Louise Spear-Swerling, Professor, Department of Special Education, Southern Connecticut State University and Claire Zoghb, poet, New Haven.

Dr Kohorn then introduced the speaker for the evening, Paul Kennedy, the Richard Dilworth Professor of History at Yale University. The title of Professor Kennedy's talk was "The Elusive Mr. Kipling." Kipling was born in 1865 and died in 1936, the same year that King George Vth died, thereby creating something of a dilemma for those concerned with protocol. Professor Kennedy said that Kipling was the A.J.Rowling of 1907, equally popular among children and adults worldwide. Millions of copies of his works were published throughout the globe. Yet for Kennedy Kipling remains an enigma, an elusive personality whom he is trying to capture. Describing what he does know of Kipling he said that his writings were controversial but he tossed off more phrases that are commonly quoted than Milton or Shakespeare. Like Haydn he had the capacity to write for different audiences and in different genres in a short space of time. He was prolific and fast. He finished the nine stanzas of a poem about the Boer War in one morning while pacing the corridor and repeating the beat of his pacing in the rhythm of the piece. He wrote many political poems, among them an ironic one suggesting that if the U.S. took the Philippines as a rescue mission, the people would not be grateful to their deliverers. His poem "White Man's Burden" is prescient of Iraq today. Although Kipling was a staunch supporter of the British Empire and known as the bard of Empire, his writings often questioned whether it would still be there in 100 years. He feared that people would not uphold the values of empire and that corruption would prevail. He wrote "The Hive" in which a moth causes a beehive to disintegrate by attacking it from within. He felt that the British had a trust that needed to be passed on, "defrauding not our sons." He upheld the values of standing firm, standing loyal and keeping the heritage. With this in mind Kipling composed the Whiffenpoof song,"We are poor little lambs who have lost our way" During the 1st World War Kipling's only son John was reported missing. He had been denied admission into the navy because of poor eyesight, but with the help of his father he entered the Irish Guards although Kipling was anti Ireland and against Home Rule. He disliked the liberal British government and disagreed with the suffragette movement. John disappeared on his first day of duty and Kipling stopped writing children's books. Although Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907, the first English language writer and the youngest to be awarded the prize, he refused all other honors wanting to be an independent strong voice. However he did become the first member of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which tends to the graves of fallen British soldiers all over the world. There are 76 such cemeteries in the U.S. alone. He was commissioned to write the epitaph on the monument to the fallen, designed by Edward Luchens that stands in Whitehall, "Their Name Liveth For Evermore." Although there was revulsion against Kipling as the bard of the war, T.S. Eliot encouraged Faber and Faber to reprint Kipling's verses and George Orwell praised him as a "wordsman" who wrote "good bad literature'' suggesting his message was bad but his writing terrific. Professor Kennedy said that he would pursue his quest and promised to return to the Academy in three years with a better understanding of the elusive Mr. Kipling.