Prophetic words for Kitchener of Khartoum.
Who was this strong, stern, silent soldier whose career linked up past wars with the great World War of our own day?
Like Wellington and Roberts, Kitchener came of Irish stock. He was born near Listowel, June 24, 1850, his father, Colonel Henry Kitchener, having bought a considerable estate in the counties of Kerry and Limerick.
Colonel Kitchener had seen a good deal of active service himself, and still more of garrison life. He determined to retire, and after buying some 2,000 acres of land in Ireland, at a bankrupt sale, he built a hunting lodge, called Gunsborough House. This was Herbert Horatio Kitchener's birthplace. Whether the name of the house had anything to do with his warlike career, history does not state. But certain it is, that he was a born soldier—a man of iron almost from his boyhood.
"Yes," said his old nurse, in talking about him only a few years ago, "I know that he is a great man; and they tell me that he has no heart, and that everybody is afraid of him; but they are wrong. He is really one of the most tender-hearted men in the world; and whenever he comes to see me, he is 'my boy' just as he was in the old days in Ireland, when he used to run to me in all his troubles, and fling his arms around me and hug me. Ah, there is nobody left who knows the real Master Herbert as I know him."
As a boy at school, Herbert Kitchener was not very brilliant. Like Wellington, whose mother called him "the fool of the family," Kitchener did too much day-dreaming to make much headway with his studies. His first teacher was a governess, who gave him up in despair. Then he was sent to a private school where he did not do any better.
His father lost his patience. Just before an examination, he made a dire threat.
"Young man," said the Colonel, "if you fail I'll make you toe the mark.
I'll send you to a girl's school."
Apparently the threat did not have the desired effect. He flunked and was transferred to the other school. This time he was told that failure meant that he would be taken out of school entirely and apprenticed to a hatter.
The warning had the desired effect. Herbert buckled down to work and not only passed his examinations, but even began to show a decided liking for mathematics—which study was to be of good service in later life.