When The Gods of the Copybook Headings Smile
Substack,
by
Glenn Harland Reynolds
Original Article
Posted By: Judy W.,
8/3/2025 8:41:03 AM
In recent years, I’ve sometimes invoked Rudyard Kipling’s The Gods of the Copybook Headings, usually when something goes wrong because people did something obviously stupid.
Well, to be fair, that’s the main subject of the poem: how being entranced by popular but dumb ideas leads to destruction. But there’s another side to it. When you do things that are simple and obvious — and, often, traditional — you can do pretty well.
And we’re seeing that illustrated, at home and abroad.
At home, the allegedly insoluble illegal immigration problem is being solved, via the simple and obvious, and traditional, approach of policing the borders and deporting people who are here illegally.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
padiva 8/3/2025 9:15:15 AM (No. 1985994)
Great read.
Some people are more interested in maintaining a problem rather than find a solution for the problem.
14 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Poorboy 8/3/2025 10:01:23 AM (No. 1986024)
Concluding lines of the poem:
"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."
9 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
mseegal 8/3/2025 10:31:27 AM (No. 1986032)
K.I.S.S. usually works. Enforce existing laws, let markets work and put your own country first.
6 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Vaquero45 8/3/2025 10:43:00 AM (No. 1986036)
One of my favorite poems, from one of my favorite poets. And just as true as when it was written.
6 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
DVC 8/3/2025 11:10:02 AM (No. 1986043)
Simple, direct solutions WORK, every time they are tried.
5 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DVC 8/3/2025 12:47:18 PM (No. 1986086)
For clarification for others who, like me had no idea what a "copybook heading" actually meant......In the 1800s copybooks had well known proverbs or sayings, such as "A stitch in time saves nine." printed at the top of a blank page. The student would copy this proverb/saying over and over again down the page, practicing penmanship (remember penmanship?) and inculcating these wise sayings into the children.
Understanding that.....the poem makes a lot more sense.
7 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
LonestarM3 8/3/2025 1:28:30 PM (No. 1986093)
Kipling is also my favorite poet. Although most of his work was published in the early 1900's, so large a percentage of it is true and applicable to today as it was then.
Another that is almost exactly true of the last few years is, "The City of Brass."
We came very close to the fate described in the last line:
"For the hate they had taught through the State brought the State no defender,
And it passed from the roll of the Nations in headlong surrender!"
1 person likes this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
DVC 8/4/2025 1:43:13 AM (No. 1986267)
One of my favorites...
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
2 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DVC 8/4/2025 1:48:57 AM (No. 1986268)
Robert heinlein has a favorite list....
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
I've never planned an invasion, fought efficiently, or died....any way. Otherwise, I have done all of those things.
0 people like this.
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