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Thank you for the Kipling quote. I very much enjoyed that. I have Kipling's poem "If" in a little booklet that I keep by my computer. A friend gave it to me over 40 years ago. I am afraid I was too young to enjoy it at the time. I didn't care for poetry. But I kept the present all the same. I'm not even sure why. And it turns out that time has taught me a thing or two about the power of words. Some things can only be said well in a poem. I would like to quote the poem here:

Serendipity! May I refer you to a post I wrote just yesterday.

What I've posted here is actually a slight adaptation of some lines of one of Kipling's poems - the reason I apologised although as I said, I'm sure he'd understand why I appropriated them. It's a poem that doesn't get quoted much any more, because of its racial overtones, but it rings true very much today. He wrote in 1899 directed at the United States - he foresaw that the United States was going to be put into the situation that the British Empire had found itself in - a nation that found itself having to save and protect others, but earning their contempt by doing so.

Take up the White Man's burden -
Send forth the best ye breed -
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild -
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child

Take up the White Man's burden -
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride
By open speech and simple
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit
And work another's gain

Take up the White Man's burden -
The savage wars of peace -
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought

Take up the White Man's burden -
No tawdry rule of kings
But toil of serf and sweeper -
The tale of common things
The ports ye shall not enter
The roads ye shall not tread
Go mark them with your living
And mark them with your dead

Take up the White Man's burden -
And reap his old reward
The blame of those ye better
The hate of those ye guard -
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light -
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden -
Ye dare not stoop to less -
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness
By all ye cry or whisper
By all ye leave or do
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you

Take up the White Man's burden -
Have done with childish days -
The lightly proferred laurel
The easy, ungrudged praise
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom
The judgment of your peers!

Serendipity! May I refer you to a post I wrote just yesterday.

<smile>That sounds like an outstanding school.</smile>

I am quite frankly shocked that a school like that exists today. But perhaps Australia will survive long after America falls. Thanks for quoting the poem. I have seen references to it but never read the full poem until now. Yes, I think it rings true today, particularly if someone can accept the unvarnished truth. All cultures are not equal. Some are superior to others. Hierarchy is not a four-letter word.