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A Short History of Boy Scouts
(From The Official Scoutmaster’s
Handbook)
Boy Scouting began as a
training program for young soldiers under the command of British Army
officer Robert S.S. Baden-Powell, who was always dissatisfied with the
ability of soldiers to carry out reconnaissance and to care for
themselves under primitive conditions.
In India in 1897, with
his first regimental command, Baden-Powell had full freedom to use his
training ideas. He had
men train in small groups, made their training hard but enjoyable, and
gave them increasing responsibilities.
Soldiers who became efficient were called scouts.
To record his methods, Baden-Powell wrote a small volume, Aids to Scouting, for military use.
In 1899, the talented
but obscure officer found himself in charge of a regiment in Mafeking,
South Africa, under siege by a force of 9,000 Boers, descendants of
the Dutch settlers who had first colonized South Africa.
British forces were badly outnumbered, but Baden-Powell kept
the Boers from overrunning the city by a combination of bluff and
boldness. As news of relief of the 217-day siege reached England,
Baden-Powell became a hero.
Boy Scouting evolved in
Baden-Powell’s mind as a result of two unrelated developments.
The first was his
review, in 1903 and 1904, of the Boy’s Brigade, an uniformed,
quasi-military organization for English boys.
As the hero of Mafeking, the boys accorded Baden-Powell a
worshipful reception. Their
enthusiasm and interest impressed him, but he was sorely troubled by
the militarism shown in their drilling, uniforms, and toy rifles.
The second development
was his review of his manual; Aids
to Scouting. It had
enjoyed an astounding sale to English boys.
Baden-Powell realized that it would never do as a book for
boys. It was written to
prepare men for war. What
he wanted was a book to prepare boys for peace.
So began
Baden-Powell’s quest for all the literature of the world about
training boys for manhood. He
searched everywhere.
By 1907, Baden-Powell’s thinking had
crystallized enough to get reactions from men whose opinions he
respected. Replies were
encouraging, and in the summer of that year he sought the answer to
the ultimate question: How would boys take to this idea?
To find out, he organized the world’s
first Boy Scout camp. Twenty-two
boys, from farm and city, went to Brownsea Island off England’s
southern coast, to camp as Scouts.
The heart of Baden-Powell’s idea was
the patrol method, and almost the first thing done at the camp was to
divide the boys into four patrols.
This first Boy Scout camp was not greatly
different from Boy Scout camps today.
There was plenty of Scoutcraft practice, games, competition,
campfires, and patrol overnight camps away from the Troop.
The camp was a rousing success in the
eyes of both Baden-Powell and the boys.
The secret was the patrol method in which he said, “Each
patrol leader was given full responsibility for the behavior of his
patrol at all times, in camp and in the field….
Responsibility, discipline, and competitive rivalry were thus
at once established and a good standard of development was ensured
throughout the troop.”
Baden-Powell followed a three-stage
procedure. Each night at
the campfire Baden-Powell told a story about one of his adventures
where some Scoutcraft skill helped him.
The next morning, he showed the Scouts how to acquire the
skill. In the afternoon,
he created a situation in which the patrols had to use that skill.
After that camp, the next big step for
Baden-Powell was the writing of a handbook for boys and a booklet for
Scoutmasters. The
handbook, called Scouting for Boys, was published in five parts early in 1908, and
later that year in book form. It
was an instant success.
Within a few months there were tens of
thousands of Boys Scouts in Great Britain.
They were guided by Scouting
for Boys and a new weekly magazine, The
Scout. Baden-Powell
formed what was to become the British Boy Scouts Association.
Scouting had come to America even earlier
than 1910. With the
publication of Scouting for Boys
in 1908, troops began forming at several locations in the United
States, many in YMCA’s, but there was no formal structure or
organization for them.
The official birth date for the Boys
Scouts of America is February 8, 1910.
William D. Boyce, a Chicago publisher, who had happened upon
Scouting in 1909 while passing through London on a trip to Africa,
incorporated it on that date. Lost
in a thick fog, he was approached by a boy who offered to help him.
To Boyce’s astonishment, the boy would not accept a tip
because he said it was a Good Turn, and a Scout could not accept pay
for such an act. Boyce
went to British Scout Headquarters to find out what kind of program
would have such an effect upon a city boy.
When he sailed for home, he had a trunk full of Scouting
literature, insignia, and uniforms.
Boyce willingly joined the common effort
when he found others also trying to start a Scouting movement.
Among them were two men whose influence on Scouting is felt to
this day.
Ernest Thompson Seton, world famous as
naturalist, author, illustrator, and lecturer on wildlife and the
wilderness, was also head of the Tribe of the Woodcraft Indians, a
loose organization of boys who wrote to him after reading his nature
books.
Seton was chairman of the committee on
organization and the first Chief Scout of the BSA.
He was also the primary author of the first Handbook for Boys published in 1911.
Daniel Carter Beard, another leader of an
existing boy’s organization, was a writer and illustrator of
hundreds of magazine articles on outdoor life.
His boys’ organization was called the Society of the Sons of
Daniel Boone. It stressed
the lore and pioneering spirit of such great American scouts and
outdoorsman as Boone, Kit Carson, Davy Crockett, and Audobon.
With Seton, Beard merged his own boys’
organization into the young Boy Scout movement.
He became one of three national Scout commissioners, a member
of the national Executive Board, and chairman of the National Court of
Honor. Until his death at
91, Beard was a familiar figure at any big Boy Scout event,
unmistakable in the frontier garb he wore.
Late in 1910, as a small group of
national leaders was struggling with the problems of a new
organization, they brought into Scouting a man whose impact upon the
movement was to be no less than that of Seton and Beard.
He was James E. West – a man as
opposite to Beard and Seton as could be imagined.
An attorney, he was then making a name for himself in youth
work. From having spent
his childhood in an orphanage, West had come to know first-hand some
of the problems of the young. He
was crippled throughout his life by a tubercular hip.
Yet these handicaps had not prevented him from working his way
through high school, college, and law school.
The founders talked West into taking the
job of “executive secretary” of the BSA for 6 months, beginning
January 1911. The 6
months lasted 32 years; West finally retired as Chief Scout Executive
in 1943.
Seton and Beard had brought to Scouting
the magic of the campfire and love of the outdoors.
West brought limitless vision and administrative talent.
With the national organization beginning
to take shape in 1911, national leaders turned their attention to
local and regional organization, and to such vital matters as the
Scout Oath and Law, rank requirements, and badges.
In the Scout Oath, the British version
was closely followed, but the phrase “to keep myself physically
strong, mentally awake, and morally straight” was added.
Baden-Powell’s Scout Law contained nine
points (see the back page of this handbook).
They were adopted by the BSA with minor variations, and three
were added: Brave, Clean,
and Reverent.
As in England, Scouting swept the country
as soon as boys heard about it. Even
in 1911 there were 5,000 troops in the United States.
There were 14 merit badge subjects then, and 30 Scouts managed
to earn a total of 83 among them that year.
To keep leaders and boys informed two
magazines began. Scouting, for adults, was first published in 1913, and the
Scouting movement in 1912 purchased Boy’s Life, a magazine for young
boys.
When the United States entered World War
I in 1917, the Boy Scouts of America were well known but not a
household name. Scouting’s
work on the home front made it so.
Fewer than 300,000 Scouts sold $3.5 million in Liberty Bonds
after others had canvassed the field, raised over $43 million by
selling war stamps, collected over 100 carloads of fruit pits for use
in gas mask filters, operated 12,000 war farms and gardens,
distributed 30 million pieces of government literature, and cooperated
in numerous ways with many organizations.
The value of Scout training came home to the American people,
and Scouting became part of the American scene.
The services of Scouts in the years since
1910 make an incredible bank of statistics; more than 64 million
Americans have been involved in the movement in these decades. The
vigor and extent of the movement and its influence have long since
grown far beyond the most extravagant dreams of its founders.
Yet Scouting is not just an American
phenomenon. Every free
country in the world uses the program.
Although the United States leads the world in numbers of
members, there are millions of Scouts around the world.
It is said that one can raise his hand in the Scout sign
anywhere in the free world and find a friend.
World jamborees and other international visits and
correspondence help to maintain and expand the brotherhood of
Scouting.
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