Foreword

Don’t feel worried at the length of this book. Scouting is not an abstruse or difficult science: rather it is a jolly game if you take it in the right light. At the same time it is educative, and (like Mercy) it is apt to benefit him that giveth as well as him that receiveth.

The term “Scouting” has come to mean a system of training in citizenship, through games, for boys or girls. It is complementary to the more scholastic training in the schools.

The girls are the important people, because when the mothers of the nation are good citizens and women of character, they will see to it that their sons are not deficient in these points. As things are, the training is needed for both sexes, and is imparted through the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides (Girl Scouts) Movements. The principles are the same for both. It is only in the details that they vary.

You will find this book a disappointing one if you hope to find in it a set of definite stepping-stones to complete knowledge.

I merely propose to state, as suggestive, the line which we have found to be successful, and the reasons for it.

A man carries out suggestions the more wholeheartedly when he understands their aim.

So most of these pages will be taken up with the objects of the steps rather than with the details of the steps themselves. These can be filled in by the learner according to his own ingenuity, and in harmony with the local conditions under which he is working.

Introductory

The Material We Have to Deal With

The slogan of the times—whether for a nation or an individual—seems to be Selbst uber alles. “Down with everything—and up with me.”

The convulsion of the war has opened our eyes to many strange things. Few of us had realised till war had exposed it how thin is the veneer of civilisation over the underlying animal proclivities. In the brutality of even those who boasted of their superior kultur, in the mad riot of Bolshevism, in the want of all Christian consideration for others by men in pushing for their own claims for money or power—in other words, in the world-wide assertion of self one cannot help recognising, almost with hopelessness, the failure of religion to direct, and of education to balance, the actions of men.

At the same time there is an encouraging reverse to the picture, where we see such splendid spirit of self-sacrifice and of superhuman endurance and fearlessness of death among the manhoods of the world. With the natural elements, good as well as bad, thus exposed, we surely ought to be able to oust the worst by the interposition of the best.

The Church and Education

In our own country we have realised in what directions we were failing morally, materially and physically, and where we can, if we will, remedy our national defects. Whether we are going to profit by the lessons of the war and really bring our education and religion up to meet present day needs is another question. New Education Acts altering the hours of the curriculum, new rubrics based on the letter of some old-time instruction, are only going to scratch the surface; it is deep ploughing out that is needed to kill the weeds and to bring on the healthy crop.

Is not a new and wider survey now needed on the part of the authorities whether Church of State or Schools, and a practical recognition of the present day needs? Cannot a remedy be devised more in accordance with the modern spirit of freedom, something in the direction of a true education through the development of an eager desire from within on the part of the individual to improve himself in place of the out-of-date imposition of automatic instruction upon the mass from without?

The report of the Mission of Prepentance and Hope sounds one call, among many others, in this direction. Will it be responded to?

Scouting

It is at any rate gratifying to us in the Scout Movement to find that the lessons of the war do not call for any great change in our aims or methods, and it is a further encouragement to realise that not only here in Great Britain, but in most other civilised countries, educationists and others are turning to our system as one which may help in a practical way to remedy some at least of the previous shortcomings.

So it is up to us to develop our efficiency in order to respond to the expectations that have been formed of us. For this reason, as a temporary measure to meet the present need, I offer this reprint of a short course of Scoutmasters’ Training much of which has already appeared in the Scout Headquarters Gazette.

The Boy-Man

As a preliminary word of comfort to intending Scout masters, I should like to contradict the usual misconception that, to be a successful Scoutmaster, a man must be an Admirable Crichton—a know-all. Not a bit of it.

He has simply to be a boy-man, that is:—

1. He must have the boy spirit in him; and must be able to place himself on a right plane with his boys as a first step.
2. He must realise the needs, outlooks and desires of the different ages of boy life.
3. He must deal with the individual boy rather than with the mass.
4. He then needs to promote a corporate spirit among his individuals to gain the best results.

These are the main principles on which the Scout and Girl Guide training is based.

With regard to the first point, the Scoutmaster has to be neither schoolmaster nor commanding officer, nor pastor, nor instructor. All that is needed is the capacity to enjoy the out-of-doors, to enter into the boys’ ambitions, and to find other men who will give them instruction in the desired directions, whether it be flute playing, nature study or engineering.

He has got to put himself on the level of the older brother, that is, to see things from the boy’s point of view, and to lead and guide and give enthusiasm in the right direction. That is all.

The Movement is a jolly fraternity, all the jollier because in the game of Scouting you are doing a big thing for others, you are combating the kultur of selfishness.

Regarding the second point, the handbooks for Wolf Cubs, Girl Guides and Rovers cover the successive phases of adolescent life.

Thirdly, the business of the Scoutmaster—and a very interesting one it is—is to draw out each boy and find out what is in him, and then to catch hold of the good and develop it to the exclusion of the bad. There is five per cent of good even in the worst character. The sport is to find it, and then to develop it on to an 80 or 90 per cent basis. This is education instead of instruction of the young mind, which you will find more fully dealt with in Scouting for Boys or in Girl Guiding.

Fourth. In the Scout training the Patrol or gang system gives the corporate expression of the individual training, which brings into practice all that the boy has been taught.

The Patrol system and its methods and power are described in the text-books, and since it is the key to successful results it should be fully studied.

Religion

To the man who reads Scouting for Boys superficially there is a disappointing lack of religion in the book. But to him who tries it in practice the basic religion underlying it soon becomes apparent. This is not that of any particular church or sect, but it catches on to the boy without his knowing it, and gives him a Christianity for everyday practice, and not merely for Sunday wear.

One writer has recently said of Scouting—”What are the Churches doing to deglect such a lever?”

Well, they are beginning to use it now.

What Scouting Is Not

Experience in different fields shows that there are certain shoals to be avoided in launching Scouting, lest it get stranded in commercialism or diverted into dead-end channels that never lead to the open sea.

Here, then, are some of the things that Scouting is not:—

It is not a charity organisation for people in society to run for the benefit of the poor children.

It is not a school having a definite curriculum and standards of examination.

It is not a brigade of officers and privates drilling manliness into boys and girls.

It is not a messenger agency for the convenience of the public.

It is not a show where surface results are gained through payment in merit badges, medals, etc.

These all come from without, whereas the Scout training all comes from within.

What Scouting Is

It is a game in which elder brothers (or sisters) can give their younger brothers healthy environment and encourage them to healthy activities such as will help them to develop CITIZENSHIP.

Its strongest appeal is through Nature Study and Woodcraft. It deals with the individual, not with the Company. It raises intellectual as well as purely physical or purely moral qualities.

At first it used to aim for these ends—now by experience we know that, where properly handled, it gains them.

Cadets, Scouts, and Guides

The following general comparative survey of the Scout training appeared in the Times of 14th July, 1918, and may give a useful line to Scoutmasters:—

“Both Cadet and Scout movements are out for the good of the body. The outstanding difference between their respective methods of training is that of principle - one works through impression, the other through expression. The Cadet training imposes collective instruction upon the boys from without; while the Scout movement encourages self-development on the part of the individual from within. Military drill fashions him on to an approved standard as a part of the machine; whereas the aim of Scouting is to develop his personal character and initiative as a first step.

“‘You cannot teach character, any more than you can teach religion, collectively to a class’ is, I believe, an axiom accepted by educationists. The battalion or company may be the medium for giving excellent finish to older lads who have had previous grounding in character, but it is not a school in which character can be taught in the first instance. This fact I discovered for myself long ago when training young soldiers in the Army. For parade purposes the drilled article was fine, for war purposes useless. My first step, therefore, was to instil into each young soldier character; that is to say, personal initiative, self-control, sense of honour and duty, responsibility, self-reliance, observation and deduction, etc. This was done through the method now known as Scouting—in other words, through education—not merely instruction - of the individual in moral and mental qualities. The final polish of drill was then quite easily applied to give the collective discipline and cohesion needed for military purposes. It was thus a true polish on seasoned foundations, and not a veneer that would crack off under strain. The same moral qualities are equally the basis for building good citizenship, and it may be that such a filing down process may then have its use in fitting individuality into its place in the civic machine.

“We cannot, however, disregard the social evolution that is going on around us. Self-determination is in the air for the individual as it is for the State. I am therefore inclined to think that the continuation of the Scout training towards producing the habit of self-reliance, unselfish outlook, and balanced freedom and self-expression is perhaps the most important point in our training, and is a more practical preparation for sane democracy than the repression of such qualities under temporary collective discipline. We have had an object-lesson in Russia to show that this latter will not prevent Bolshevism.

“The aim of the Cadet movement is presumably, like that of the Scouts, to supply an environment and activities in the lads’ leisure time on lines complementary to the school training. But to offer the old style of imposed instruction seems neither complementary nor complimentary to the modern educationist’s methods, nor in keeping with the needs of the times. Then, again, in the matter of psychology. At this most difficult age what is good for the adolescent of sixteen is not equally so for the lad of fifteen, and may be bad for the boy of fourteen or thirteen. Yet the Cadet training treats them all on the same footing. Whereas the Scout training, though for both seniors and juniors it comprises the same four principles, viz.: Character, Handcrafts, Health and Service, varies their details to meet the different stages of the boys’ progressivity.

“Space forbids me going into many interesting points on this head, but if we take one alone it will suffice. Probably the average man in the street scarcely realises the extent to which immorality is rife among lads, not merely the poorest—indeed, it is probably less prevalent among the working boys than among those who have leisure time on their hands—throughout the country—but it is there; and too little is done to stop it or prevent it. There is a difference between stopping what exists and preventing it before it comes into existence. Individual education is, I am certain, the only way to ‘prevent’ in this case. It means a close confidence between teacher and pupil, on the relationship of elder and younger brother; a different treatment of each case being employed through personal knowledge of his temperament, age and character. You cannot get this relations between an officer and his company of 100 or more Cadets, but where established it means everything towards training the boy in character, in religious belief, and all that tends to build the man. For military purposes most soldiers who have experience of it regard the Cadet training of young boys as negligible value; so much of it has to be unlearned afterwards. The War Office bear them out in this.

“One of my boys put in the form of a question the other day a criticism rather difficult to answer:—’If they are not going to make Cadets into soldiers, isn’t it a bit of camouflage to register them under the War Office and put their officers in the Army list?’ Well, it is a matter of whether you elect to put gilt on your pill or sugar. We put sugar on the pill of Scoutcraft.

“Personal experience of Cadets, as a Cadet, as a commander of Cadets, and as an interested visitor to Cadets in Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and Russia, showed to me that the system did not do all that was wanted towards what was most needed—namely, preparing boys for conscientious, efficient, happy citizenhood, on up-to-date lines. Had it done so I should not have bothered about evolving the Scout scheme. Other reasons there are which prevent us asking to come under the control of the War Department, since they involve our oversea relations. The Scout brotherhood has, in the ten years of its existence, already spread itself to almost every civilised country, as well as to every British Oversea State. That, however, is another story which, although teeming with interesting possibilities, is outside the scope of this letter. The results of the system have at any rate been successful beyond our hopes, both in effect and in popularity (and we have some 750,000 Scouts in training over the world to-day).”

Possibilities

Having thus spread itself automatically about the world the Scout and Guide movement has the following possibilities:—

(a) The making of the individual into an efficient and happy citizen.

(b) The harnessing of the individual to work for the community.

(c) The strengthening of the bond of the British Commonwealth through its brotherhood.

(d) The promotion of International goodwill, again through its brotherhood, as a practical step towards permanent peace.

National Defects

We want to prevent in the next generation some of the defects apparent in the present. Here is a statement of these, together with the steps which we employ in Scouting to remedy them.

Such are the failings and remedies which fall outside the school purview, and with which we endeavour to deal in the Scout movement.

How to help the Scoutmaster most readily to master them is the object of this work.

Through mutual conferences and instruction it can be done most happily.

Suggestion of Work for a Study Patrol

Where there are a number of candidates living in the same town or district, it is suggested they might form themselves into a Study Patrol, and the following is the programme suggested, which can, of course, be altered to suit local conditions. It is very desirable to get an experienced Scoutmaster, where possible, to act as Leader.

Commissioners and Scoutmasters might do good work by collecting a number of young men from among their friends and explaining the scheme to them with the view of forming such a Patrol.

Roughly, one night a week for four weeks might be given to each of the five subjects specified below.

Principles could be taught by an informal lecture with questions and discussion for about an hour, followed by practical work for another hour.

Where circumstances permit, a week-end camp will give the best opportunity for training, and each Patrol should try to arrange one at the end of each four weeks. If the weather is too bad for the first month or two, the use of some Scout Hall or other building at the seaside or in the country might be obtained.

List of Subjects for Study

I. How to Train the Boy

To an outsider Scouting must at first sight appear to be a very complex matter, and many a man is probably put off from becoming a Scoutmaster because of the enormous number and variety of things that he thinks he would have to know in order to teach his boys. But it need not be so, if the man will only realise the following points:

1. The aim of Scouting is quite a simple one.
2. The Scoutmaster gives to the boy the ambition and desire to learn for himself.
3. That this is done by suggesting to him activities which attract him and which then teach him by failing to work, till he, by experience, does them alright.
4. The numerous branches and details given in Scouting for Boys merely suggest activities from which he may select those likely to catch the different kinds of boys.

This form of educating is very much on the principle of Dr. Montessori’s system. She recently asked how her system would be applied to children when they had grown out of the infant stage after six or seven years of age. And she replied, “You in England have the Boy Scouts, and their training is the natural continuation of that which I give to the children.” It is the line that eventually education will take when it comes to be set upon a right footing.

The Failure of Education

In judging of education as in other questions, we have to go by results and not by methods in estimating its success.

The aim of education presumably is to produce God-fearing healthy, prosperous, and therefore happy citizens. Have we got these?

We may have a percentage of them, but the qualities largely representative among our nation are the following:—

Irreligion.—In spite of eight millions subscribed annually to the Church of England we cannot say that we are ahead of other forms or beliefs, including the Mohammedans, in having a religion which really holds the masses of the population.

Physically Defective.—Our average men are not, as a rule, well developed types nor are they sound in health. A million unfit for the army, and 36 per cent. C3 men is one of the exposures of the war. The number of hours of work lost through ill-health throughout the year amount up to an appalling total of millions; eye-sight and hearing are both defective among a large percentage of our rising generation, and sound teeth are the exception; yet all these elements of physical in-efficiency, which mean defective work for themselves and for the nation, are preventable with a certain amount of care and education. Infant mortality is almost as heavy as it was thirty or forty years ago, and will be, until parents understand their duties better, or until the State intervenes and takes charge of infants.

Want of Skill and Thrift.—The school training of our citizens only goes so far as to teach them reading, writing, and arithmetic, up to the important age when they can begin to use their intelligence and really develop their minds, and, at this point, it drops them altogether and leaves them to make their own character for life. Continuation classes and technical schools of the best kind exist, it is try, but only for the best lads, and, even then, till the Fisher Act is in working order, those who are employed have to attend them when their day’s work is done and when their powers are at their lowest, so that the best value is not got out of these schools.

The want of thrift amongst all classes is shown by the fact that our banking of savings is lower than that of most other countries, and compulsory insurance only seems to promote less thift. Blind-alley occupations seem to take something like 50 per cent. are allowed to drift into them, resulting in much unemployedness and unemployableness as these boys grow up to man’s age. This means numbers of poor and disheartened men - the easy prey for political demagogues, without any sense of fair play or even of their own best interests. This wastage is not so much the fault of the men as of the system which permits it. For, as Mr. John Burns himself has said, there is work for all and money for all in the country if all were fit to have them, but so few were qualified and so few are thrifty. Here is our national balance-sheet before the war, and which has since gone up adversely:—

Spent on educating to be good citizens .. £28,000,000

Spent on remedying failures in good citizenship by prisons, police, poor relief, etc. £38,000,000

Until the balance is on the other side of the ledger education cannot well be called a complete success.

The Remedy

The remedy which is now generally being suggested for the improvement of the efficiency of our nations is that instruction which has hitherto passed as education should be done away with as out-of-date, and education proper established in its place. As a first subject character training should be introduced into primary and secondary schools, since it is the essential quality for a man in making his career, as well as for a nation in maintaining its place in the competition in commerce and prosperity.

Secondly, that handicrafts should be introduced into day schools, not merely with the sole idea of making the child into a good workman - which seems to have been the limit of view of education in the past - but as the invention, design, and other properties which go to develop the mind, and intelligence, character and thrift; and also of showing to the teacher the natural bent of each individual pupil.

Thirdly, education in civics, contemporary history, and commercial geography would all raise the level of thought and work among the rising generation.

Also, there is a large opportunity amongst the enormous proportion of physically defective children in our midst, who are at present merely taken into “Homes” and made as comfortable as possible during the remainder of their unhappy existence, whereas much might be done by education to draw them out to have hopes and ambitions, and to develop a certain amount of energy that would lead them out of themselves, and enable a fair percentage to be, if not self-supporting, at least self-sufficient.

The aim of education general has been well summarised in that excellent paper The Child, in these words:-

“No man can be called educated who has not a willingness and a desire, as well as a trained ability, to do his part in the world’s work.” And this is the main road to happiness and prosperity for all.

What the Boy Scout Training is doing in the Meantime

Whatever may come of the various idea put forward for improvement of the general education of the nation, the Scout training, together with that of other organisations of boys, such as the Boys’ Brigade, the Y.M.C.A., the C.L.B., and others, is already doing much in the required direction of making the boys disciplined, self-respecting citizens. In our training we have perhaps gone a step further than other organisations in taking up the following five branches which have so far been left out of the school curriculum, and yet are essential in building up good citizens, and we inculcate them from within instead of from without.

Character.—Which we teach through Scout lore, woodcraft, responsibility to the Patrol Leader, and the resourcefulness involved in camp work.

Hobbies and handicrafts.—Through pioneering, bridge-building, camp expedients, which all tend to make efficient workmen.

Health and bodily development.—Through games, exercises, and knowledge of personal hygiene and diet.

Happiness.—Includes how to enjoy the pleasure of lives that are offered in the study of nature whether animate or inanimate; biology with its natural processes giving a natural understanding of the sex question, the realization of God the Creator through his works; the appreciation of beauty in Nature; self-expression through the arts and through the love of plants or animals with whom the life has made one familiar.

Service for others.—The carrying into daily life of the practice of religion by “good turns,” dealing with accidents, life-saving, etc.

The Scout training attracts boys of all classes, high and low, rich and poor, and even catches the physically defective, deaf mutes, and blind. It inspires the desire to learn. It gives a good start in technical training through badges for proficiency in various kinds of hobbies and handicrafts. The object of offering so many as we do at an elementary standard is to draw out the boys of every type to try their hands at various kinds of work, and the watchful Scout-master can very quickly recognise the particular bent of each boy and encourage it accordingly. And that is the best road towards expanding his individual character and starting a boy on a successful career.

Moreover, Scout training holds the boy after the age of fourteen, and can be further used when he gives up school to continue his education and to give him the benefit of high ideals and friendly advice at the critical period of his life when he most needs them. The effects of the training on physically defective boys has been reported upon by doctors and superintendents in most hopeful terms.

The Scoutmaster’s Share

The principles of Scouting are all in the right direction. The success in their application depends on the Scoutmaster and how he applies them. The object of this course of training is to endeavour to help the Scoutmaster in this particular. First, by showing the object of the Scout training; secondly, by suggesting methods by which it may be carried out. Many a Scoutmaster would probably desire I should give him all particulars in detail. But this would in reality be an impossibility, because what suits one particular Troop or one kind of boy, in one kind of place, will not suit another within a mile of it, much less those scattered over the world and existing under totally different conditions. But one can give a certain amount of general suggestion, and Scoutmasters in applying this can judge for themselves far best which details are most likely to bring about success in their own particular Troops. I can only, therefore, recommend fresh study of Scouting for Boys, especially Chapter X., and that section of it which is include under the heading “Be Prepared.”

I would add that undoubtedly it is through sport that you an best get a hold of a boy. Many of our working-class lads have never known what it was to play any regular game with strict rules. This, in itself, is an education. When you have your boys running round in a spiral rally you will notice few of them are light and active runners; probably they have never done much running. Nor do boys of that kind usually have discipline, sense of fair play, of keenness for winning simply for the honour of the thing without thought of prizes or rewards. All these come very quickly with a little organised play in competition with other Patrols or Troops. I prefer football, basket ball, hockey, and rounders as being the best games, since they are played by teams in which each player plays in his place under good discipline, where pluck, determination, unselfishness, and good temper are developed. I read recently in the Boys’ Brigade Gazette the following excellent thought in that connection:—

“Take football seriously. If you do, it may prove to be one of the roads leading to the Kingdom of Heaven. Football is almost as important a part of the company’s training as drill and—my meaning will not be mistaken—as the Bible-class. It should be in the regular programme of every company, only it must be football, and not merely playing at playing football.”

Drill on military lines has its good points, but to the boy it has no visible object, and is, therefore, apt to pall upon him. Far preferable is the drill in fire brigade, rocket apparatus, trek cart, lifeboat launching, bridge building, and other sets of exercises. These demand equal smartness, activity, and discipline, but the point is that each boy is using his head in doing his own particular share of the work for the success of the whole team. Moreover, competitions in these drills are of highest interest to the boys as well as to the onlookers. An ulterior point is that they can breed morale, esprit de corps, and fair play. It should be “the thing” for the boys never to bear envy or to mention unfairness of defeated, and whatever disappointment they may feel they should only show cordial praise for the other side. This means true self-discipline and unselfishness, and it promotes that good feeling all round which is so much needed for breaking down class prejudice in our people.

Once more let me repeat, do not be appalled by any imaginary magnitude of the task. It will disappear when once you see the aim. You have then only to keep that always before you and adapt the details to suit the end. As in Peveril of the Peak: “It matters not much whether we actually achieve our highest ideals so be it that they are high.”

The Boy

The first step towards success in training your boy is to know something about boys in general and then about this boy in particular.

Dr. Saleeby, in an address to the Ethical Society in London, said:

Public opinion is to-day realising that the views expressed by Walt Whitman, George Fox, Spencer and Riskin are correct, viz. that the first requisite for a successful teacher is knowledge of the nature of the boy. The boy or girl is not a small edition of a man or woman, not a piece of blank paper on which the teacher should write, but every child has his own peculiar curiosity, his inexperience, a normal mysterious frame of mind which needs to be tactfully helped, encouraged and moulded or modified or even suppressed.

It is well to recall, so far as possible, what your ideas were when a boy yourself, and you can then much better understand his feelings and desires. It has been truly said that “there is no such things as the ordinary working boy; each of them is quite out of the common, with abilities and weaknesses of his own.” The Rev. H. S. Pelham, in his book, The Training of the Working Boy, enumerates the following qualities which have to be taken into consideration:—

Humour.—It must be remembered that a boy is naturally full of humour; it may be on the shallow side, but he can always appreciate a joke and see the funny side of things. And this at once gives the worker with boys a pleasant and bright side to his work and enables him to become the cheery companion, instead of the taskmaster, if he only joins in the fun of it.

Courage.—The poorer boy, who has a life of hardship, generally manages to have pluck as well. (Jack Cornwell, like many other hero of the war, was a boy Scout belonging to a poor city Troop.) He is not by nature a grumbler, though later on he may become one, when his self-respect has died out of him and when he has been much in the company of “grousers.”

Confidence.—A boy is generally supremely confident in his own powers. Therefore, he is rather adverse from being treated as a child and being told to do things or how to do them. He would much rather try for himself, even though it may lead him into blunders, but it is just by making mistakes that a boy gains experience and makes his character.

Sharpness.—The town boy is generally as sharp as a needle. I know in the Army how easy it was to train a town recruit as compared with one from the country, in matters appertaining to observation and noticing things and deducing their meaning.

Love of Excitement.—The town boy is generally more unsettled than his country brothers by the excitements of the town, whether they are “an arrest, or a passing fire engine, or a good fight between two of his neighbours—especially if one is a woman.” Cricket is too dull for him, he demands football or a gambling game, and he cannot stick at a job for more than a month or two because he wants change.

Responsiveness.—The poorer boy, as a rule, gets very little attention at home, so that when he finds somebody who takes an interest in him he responds and follows where he is led, and it is here that hero-worship comes in as a great force for helping the Scoutmaster.

Loyalty.—This is a feature in a boy’s character that must inspire boundless hope. The poor are loyal friends to each other, and thus friendliness comes almost naturally to a street boy. It is the one duty that he understands. He may appear selfish outwardly, but, as a general rule, he is very willing under the surface to be helpful to others, and that is where our Scout training finds good soil to work upon.

“One hears people condemning the exaggerations of working men who are Socialist, while Labour members are treated with distrust and are accused of a lack of statesmanship and foresight. One seldom finds these critics willing to take the trouble to go and train the future Labour member and, by personal contact and mutual understanding, to give him a wider outlook and healthier motive.”

If one considers and studies these different attributes in the boy one is in a far better position for adapting the training to suit his different propensities. Such study is the first step to making a success of the training. I had the pleasure, during one single week, of coming across three boys in different centres who were pointed out to me as having been incorrigible young blackguards and hooligans until they came under the influence of Scouting. Their respective Scoutmasters had, in each case, found out the good points which underlay the bad ones in them, and having seized upon these had put the boys on to jobs which suited their peculiar temperaments; and there are now these three, fine hulking lads, each of them doing splendid work, entirely transformed in character from their old selves. It was worth the trouble of having organised the Troops just to have had these single successes.

Mr. Casson, writing in the magazine Teachers’ World, 25th December, 1928, thus describes that complicated work of understanding the Nature of the boy:—

“Judging from my own experience, I would say that boys have a world of their own—a world that they make for themselves; and neither the teacher nor the lessons are admitted to this world. A boy’s world has its own events and standards and code and gossip and public opinion.

“In spite of teachers and parents, boys remain loyal to their own world. They obey their own code, although it is quite a different code to the one that is taught to them at home and in the schoolroom. They gladly suffer martyrdom at the hands of uncomprehending adults, rather than be false to their own code.

“The code of the teacher, for instance, is in favour of silence and safety and decorum. The code of the boys is diametrically opposite. It is in favour of noise and risk and excitement.

“Fun, fighting, and feeding! These are the three indispensable elements of the boy’s world. These are basic. They are what boys are in earnest about; and they are not associated with teachers nor schoolbooks.

“According to public opinion in Boydom, to sit for four hours a day at a desk indoors is a wretched waste of time and daylight. Did anyone ever know a boy—a normal healthy boy, who begged his father to buy him a desk? Or did anyone ever know a boy, who was running about outdoors, go and plead with his mother to be allowed to sit down in the drawing room?

“Certainly not. A boy is not a desk animal. He is not a sitting-down animal. Neither is he a pacifist nor a believer in safety first; nor a book-worm, nor a philosopher.

“He is a boy—God bless him—full to the brim of fun and fight and hunger and daring mischief and noise and observation and excitement. If he is not, he is abnormal.

“Let the battle go on between the code of the teachers and the code of the boys. The boys will win in the future as they have in the past. A few will surrender and win the scholarships, but the vast majority will persist in rebellion and grow up to be the ablest and noblest men in the nation.

“Is it not true, as a matter of history, that Edison, the inventor of a thousand patents, was sent home by his school teacher with a note saying he was ‘too stupid to be taught’?

“Is it not true that both Newton and Darwin, founders of the scientific method, were both regarded as blockheads by their school teachers?

“Are there not hundreds of such instances, in which the duffer of the classroom became useful and eminent in later life? And doesn’t this prove that our present methods fail in developing the aptitudes of boys?

“Is it not possible to treat boys as boys? Can we not adapt grammar and history and geography and arithmetic to the requirements of the boy’s world? Can we not interpret our adult wisdom into the language of boyhood?

“Is not the boy right, after all, in maintaining his own code of justice and achievement and adventure?

“Is he not putting action before learning, as he ought to do? Is he not really an amazing little worker, doing things on his own, for lack of intelligent leadership?

“Would it not be vastly more to the point if the teachers were, for a time, to become the students and to study the marvelous boy-life which they are at present trying vainly to curb and repress?

“Why push against the stream, when the stream, after all, is running in the right direction?

“Is it not time for us to adapt our futile methods and to bring them into harmony with the facts? Why should we persist in saying dolefully, boys will be boys,’ instead of rejoicing in the marvelous energy and courage and initiative of boyhood? And what task can be nobler and more congenial to a true teacher than to guide the wild forces of boy nature cheerily along into paths of social service?”

Environment

As I have said, the first step to success is to know your boy, but the second step is to know his home. It is only when you know what his environment is when he is away from the Scouts that you can really tell what influences to bring to bear upon him that may counteract the evil ones which assail him directly he is out of your sight: and that is where the schoolmaster has his main difficulty educating his boys. He can only teach inside the school walls a modicum of the three R’s in the same proportion to every boy according to his age, but he knows very little of the outside environment of the lad, and it is really upon this that depends so much of his character; and it is, therefore, beyond the powers of the schoolmaster really to develop his education in his particular. In school the boys are only taught collectively in class, there can be but very little individual drawing out, which is really education. Their only test is examination in knowledge and not the display of character or skill. Examination in itself may be bad for a boy. For finding out the minimum of knowledge is useful enough, but if it is to be the aim of his training then it is, as has been described by Professor Sandiford, of Toronto University, “cramping and degrading.” The marvel is that schoolmasters succeed so well considering their difficulties, and it is here that the Schoolmaster can, by co-operating with them, do so very much for them and for their pupils.

In addition to evil surroundings in many a home, there are the following temptations to the bad which the instructor of the boy must also be ready to contend with. But, if he is forewarned, he can probably devise his methods so that the temptations fail to exercise an evil influence on his lads; and in that way their character is developed on the best lines.

Boyish Vices.—One of the powerful temptations is that of the cinema palace. The cinema has undoubtedly an enormous attraction for boys, and people are are constantly cudgelling their brains how to stop it. But is one of those things which would be very difficult to stop even if it were altogether desirable. The point, rather, is how to utilise it to the best advantage for our ends. To stop it one would have to provide some counter-attraction, and to do this would be by no means easy. On the principle of meeting any difficulty by siding with it and edging it in one’s own direction, we should endeavour to see what there is of value in the cinema and what possibilities lie before it, and should then utilise it for the purpose of training the boy. No doubt it can be a powerful instrument for evil by suggestion, if not properly supervised; but steps have been taken in the chief cities to insure a proper censorship, and perhaps the best way of doing this is where the citizens themselves are asked to report any films which they do not consider desirable for children to see and where three such complaints made against a picture palace, if properly founded, will endanger its licence. But, as it can be a power for evil, so it can just as well be made a power for good. There are excellent films now on Natural History and Nature Study, which give a child a far better idea of the processes of Nature than its own observation can do, and certainly far better than any amount of lessons on the subject. History can be taught through the eye as is already being done by such films as Queen Victoria’s Sixty Years of a Queen, The Life of Charles I., and many others of the kind. There are dramas of the pathetic or heroic kind, and others of genuine fun, humour, and laughter. Many of them bring what is bad into condemnation and ridicule. There is no doubt that this teaching through the eye can be adapted so as to have a wonderfully good effect through the children’s own inclination and interest in the cinema palace.

Juvenile smoking and its destruction to health; gambling on football and races, and all the dishonesty that it brings it its train; the evils of drink; of loafing with girls; uncleanness, etc., can only be corrected by the Scoutmaster who knows the usual environment of his lads.

It cannot be done by forbidding or punishment, but by substituting something at least equally attractive but good in its effects.

Juvenile crime is not naturally born in the boy, but is largely due either to the spirit of adventure that is in him, to his own stupidity, or to his lack of discipline, according to the nature of the individual.

Natural lying is another very prevalent fault amongst lads; it does not come entirely from the idea of evading punishment, but almost as a habit, for when a slum boy is asked a question his first impulse is to tell a lie, possibly to find out what you are driving at by asking the question. This is unfortunately a prevailing disease all over the world. You meet it particularly amongst uncivilized tribes, as well as in the civilized countries of Europe, and perhaps it is a distinguishing characteristic about the Englishman that he, of all nations, is less prone to this habit and may be most easily cured of it, if only it is taken in time. Truth speaking, and its consequent elevation of a man into being a reliable authority, makes all the difference in his character and in the character of the nation. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to do all we can to raise the tone of honor and truth speaking amongst the lads.

Club and Camp

The main antidote to a bad environment is naturally the substitution of a good one, and this is best done through the clubroom and the cam for Boy Scouts. By clubroom I do not mean half-an-hour’s drill once a week in a big schoolroom lent for the occasion - which has so often appeared to be the aim of those dealing with boys - but a real place which the boys feel is their own, even though it may be a cellar or an attic; some place to which they can resort every evening, if need be, and find congenial work and amusement, plenty of varied activity and a bright and happy atmosphere. If a Scoutmaster can only arrange this, he will have done a very good work in providing the right environment for some of his lads which will be the best antidote for the poison that otherwise would creep into their minds and characters.

At the same time, one of our most experienced Boys’ Club men, the late C. E. Russell, was not in favour of them unless they were run by exceptional men, and on lines that gave the members plenty of strenuous and varied activity.

Then the occasional camp (and this should be as frequent as possibly can be managed) is a still further and even more potent antidote than the clubroom. The open and breezy atmosphere and the comradeship of continued association under canvas, in the field, and round the camp fire, breathes the very best of spirit amongst the lads, and gives the Scoutmaster a far better opportunity than any other of getting hold of his boys and of impressing his personality upon them.

The Scoutmaster’s Duty

Success in training the boy, as I have said before, largely depends upon the Scoutmaster’s own personal example. It is easy to become the hero as well as the elder brother of the boy. We are apt, as we grow up, to forget what a store of hero worship is in the boy. Personally, I happen to remember it is by the fact that when at school I had a fight with another boy because I did not share his everlasting hero worship of Henry Irving. It was not on the question of his ability as an actor that we differed, but as regards his physical perfection down to his finger-tips. It was actually on the question as to whether he had taper fingers or not that we quarreled.

The Scoutmaster who is a hero to his boys holds a powerful lever to their development, but at the same time brings a great responsibility on himself. They are quick enough to see the smallest characteristic about him, whether it be a virtue or a vice. His mannerisms become theirs, the amount of courtesy he shows, his irritations, his sunny happiness, or his impatient glower, his willing self-discipline or his occasional moral lapses - all are not only noticed, but adopted by his followers.

Therefore, to get them to carry out the Scout Law and all that underlies it, the Scoutmaster himself should scrupulously carry out its professions in every detail of his life. With scarcely a word of instruction his boys will follow him.

Loyalty to the Movement

Let him remember that in addition to his duty to his boys the Scoutmaster has a duty also to the Movement as a whole. Our aim in making boys into good citizens is partly for the benefit of the country, that it may have a virile trusty race of citizens whose amity and sense of “playing the game” will keep it united internally and at peace with its neighbours abroad. Just now we have before us, as an object lesson, the danger of internal dissension, where exaggeration of party politics and disregard of the wants of others are making for social disruption, and thus causing commercial depression and financial panics to the weakening of the nation in its progress and prosperity.

Charged with the duty of teaching self-abnegation and discipline by their own practice of it, Commissioners and Scoutmasters must necessarily be above petty personal feeling, and must be large-minded enough to subject their own personal views to the higher policy of the whole. Theirs is to teach their boys to “play the game,” each in his place like bricks in a wall, by doing the same themselves. Each has his allotted sphere of work, and the better he devotes himself to that, the better his Scouts will respond to his training. Then it is only by looking to the higher aims of the Movement, or to the effects of measures ten years hence that one can see details of today in their proper proportion. Where a man cannot conscientiously take the line required, his one manly course is to put it straight to his Commissioner or to Headquarters, and if we cannot meet his views, then to leave the work. He goes into it in the first place with his eyes open, and it is scarcely fair if afterwards, because he finds the details do not suit him, he complains that it is the fault of the Executive. Fortunately, in our Movement, by decentralisation and giving a free hand to the local authorities, we avoid much of the red tape which has been the cause of irritation and complaint in so many other organisations. We are also fortunate in having a body of Scoutmasters who are large-minded in their outlook and in their loyalty to the Movement as a whole. This feature has been very abundantly proved at recent conferences, and has given me a new feeling of confidence and hope towards tackling the great future which lies before our Movement.

A man dared to tell me once that he was the happiest man in the world! I had to tell him of one who was still happier. You need not suppose that either of us in attaining this happiness had never had difficulties to contend with. Just the opposite. It is the satisfaction of having successfully faced difficulties and borne pin-pricks that gives completeness to the pleasure of having overcome them. Don’t expect your life to be a bed of roses; there would be no fun in it if it were. So, in dealing with the Scouts, you are bound to meet with disappointments and setbacks. Be patient: more people ruin their work or careers through want of patience than do so through drink or other vices. You will have to bear patiently with irritating criticisms and red tape bonds to some extent but your reward will come. The satisfaction which comes of having tried to do one’s duty at the cost of self-denial, and of having developed characters in the boys which will give them a different status for life, brings such a reward as cannot well be set down in writing. The fact of having worked to prevent the recurrence of those evils which, if allowed to run on, would soon be rotting our youth, gives a man the solid comfort that he has done something, at any rate, for his country, however humble may be his position.

Programme for Study Patrol

Subject I.—How to Train the Boy

II. Character

Character Training Through Scouting

“A nation owes its success, not so much to its strength in armaments, as to the amount of character in its citizens.”

“For a man to be successful in life, character is more essential than erudition.”

So character is of first value whether for a nation or for the individual.

Erudition—that is, reading, writing, and arithmetic—is taught in the schools; but where is the more important quality, character, taught? Nowhere in particular. There is no authorised training for children in character. Yet, if it is going to make a man’s career for him, it ought to be developed in him before he starts out; while his is still a boy and receptive. Character cannot be drilled into a boy. The germ of it is already in him, and needs to be drawn out and expanded. How?

Character is very generally the result of environment or surroundings. For example, take two small boys, twins if you like. Teach them the same lessons in school, but give them entirely different surroundings, companions, and homes outside the school. Put one under a kindly, encouraging mother, among clean and straight playfellows, where he is trusted on his honour to carry out rules of life and so on. On the other hand, take the second boy and let him loaf in a filthy home, among foul-mouthed, thieving, discontented companions. Is he likely to grow up with the same amount of character as his twin?

There are thousands of boys being wasted daily through being left to become characterless, and therefore, useless wasters, a misery to themselves and an eyesore and a danger to the nation.

They could be saved if only the right surroundings or environment were given to them at the receptive time of their lives. And there are many thousands of others who may not be placed on quite so low a level (for there are wasters in every class of life), but who would be all the better men and more valuable to the country and more satisfactory to themselves if they could be persuaded, at the right age, to develop their characters.

Here, then, lies the most important object in the Boy Scout training - to educate; not to instruct, mind you, but to educate, that is, to draw out the boy to learn for himself, of his own desire, the things that tend to build up character in him.

One Reason Why a Troop Should not Exceed 32

I have said in Scouting for Boys that so far as my own experience went I should not train individually more than 16 boys—but allowing for my having only half the capacity of the experienced boy worker, the Scoutmaster, I allowed for his taking on 32.

Men talk of having fine Troops of 60 or even 100—Cadet Companies even run to 120—and their officers tell me that their boys are equally trained as in smaller Troops. I express admiration (“admiration” literally translated means “surprise”), and I don’t believe them.

Why worry about individual training? they ask. Because it is the only way by which you can educate. You can instruct any number of boys, a thousand at a time if you have a loud voice and attractive methods of disciplinary means. But that is not training - it is not education.

Education is the thing that counts in building character and in making men.

The incentive to perfect himself, when properly instilled into the individual, brings about his active effort on the line most suitable to his temperament and powers.

It is not the slightest use to preach the Scout Law or to give it out as orders to a crowd of boys: each mind requires its special exposition of them and the ambition to carry them out.

That is where the personality and ability of the Scoutmaster come in.

Character

Let us consider a few of the qualities, moral and mental that go to make character, and then see how the Scoutmaster can get the boy to develop these for himself through Scouting.

This list practically includes all that is taught in Scouting. Therefore, the whole of Scouting is practically directed to character-making, as the chief step to good citizenship.

But the qualities, which go to make a good citizen, are, as before pointed out:

1. Character.
2. Physical health.
3. Handicraft for making a career.
4. Service to others.

So that from the table we may take out (a) and (d), which will more properly be dealt with when we come to the subject of Service to Others; also (c) and (h), which will apply when we come to Health and to Making a Career.

That leaves us b, e, f, g to consider here—namely:

(b) Sense of Honour
(e) Self-reliance
(f) Intelligence
(g) Enjoyment of Life.

(b) Sense of Honour

Trustworthiness inculcated in the Boy Scout by Responsibility, Scout Promise, Scout Law, Giving Responsible Charge.

The Scout Law is the foundation on which the whole Scout Training rests.

Its various clauses must be fully explained and made clear to the boys by practical illustrations of its application in their everyday life.

There is no teaching to compare with example. If the Scoutmaster himself conspicuously carries out the Scout Law in all his doings, the boys will be quick to follow his lead.

This example comes with all the more force if the Scoutmaster himself takes the Scout Promise, in the same way as his Scouts.

The first Law, namely, A Scout’s honour is to be trusted (A Scout is Trustworthy), is one on which the whole of the Scout’s future behaviour and discipline hangs. The Scout is expected to be straight. So it should be very carefully explained, as a first step, by the Scoutmaster to his boys before taking the Scout Promise.

The investiture of the Scout is purposely made into something of a ceremony, since a little ritual of that kind if carried out with strict solemnity, impresses the boy; and considering the grave importance of the occasion, it is only right that he should be impressed as much as possible. Then it is of great importance that the Scout should periodically renew his knowledge of the Law. Boys are apt to be forgetful, and it should never be allowed that a boy who has made his solemn promise to carry out the Scout Law should, at any time, not be able to say what the law is.

Once the Scout understands what his honour is and has, by his initiation, been put upon his honour, the Scoutmaster must entirely trust him to do things. You must show him by your action that you consider him a responsible being. Give him charge of something, whether temporary or permanent, and expect him to carry out his charge faithfully. Don’t keep prying to see how he does it. Let him do it his own way, let him come a howler over it if need be, but in any case leave him alone and trust him to do his best. Trust should be the basis of all our moral training.

Giving responsibility is the key to success with boys, especially with the rowdiest and most difficult boys.

The object of the Patrol System is mainly to give real responsibility to as many of the boys as possible with a view to developing their character. If the Scoutmaster gives his Patrol Leader real power, expects a great deal from him, and leaves him a free hand in carrying out his work, he will have done more for that boy’s character expansion than any amount of school-training could ever do. And the Court of Honour is a most valuable aid to this same end if fully made use of.

(e) Self-Reliance

By means of First-Class Scouts’ Tests. Sea Scouting. Swimming. First Aid. Lone Scouting. Camping.

The tests for First-Class Scouts are laid down with the idea that a boy, who proved himself equipped to that extent, might reasonably be considered as grounded in the qualities which go to make a good, manly citizen.

He could not but feel himself a more capable fellow than before, and, therefore, he should have that confidence in himself which will give him the hope and pluck in time of stress in the struggle of life, which will encourage him to keep his end up, and to stick it out till he achieves success.

Handiness and use of wits are most easily developed by the practice of boat handling; germs of pluck, of making up the mind quickly, of coolness and activity, of ready obedience to orders—all come in, in doing the work of Sea Scouts.

First Aid or Fire Brigade work, or Trek Cart or Bridge Building are of value for handiness and use of wits, since the boy, while working in co-operation with the others, is responsible for his own separate part of the job.

Swimming has its educational value—mental, moral, and physical—in giving you a sense of mastery over an element, and of power of saving life, and in the development of wind and limb.

When training the South African Constabulary I used to send the men out in pairs to carry out long distance rides of two or three hundred miles to teach them to fend for themselves and to use their intelligence.

But when I had a somewhat dense pupil he was sent out alone, without another to lean upon, to find his own way, make his own arrangements for feeding himself and his horse, and for drawing up the report of his expedition unaided. This was the best training of all in self-reliance and intelligence, and this principle is one which I can confidently recommend to Scoutmasters in training their Scouts.

Of all the schools the camp is far and away the best for teaching boys the desired character-attributes. The environment is healthy, the boys are elated and keen, all the interests of life are round them, and the Scoutmaster has them permanently for the time, day and night, under his hand. In camp the Scoutmaster has his greatest opportunity for watching and getting to know the individual characteristics of each of his boys, and then apply the necessary direction to their development; while the boys themselves pick up the character-forming qualities incident to life in camp, where discipline, resourcefulness, ingenuity, self-reliance, handcraft, wood-craft, boat-craft, team sense, nature lore, etc., can all be imbibed under cheery and sympathetic direction of the understanding Scoutmaster. A week of this life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room, valuable though that may be.

As the boy becomes conscious of no longer being a Tenderfoot, but of being a responsible and trusted individual with power to do things, he becomes self-reliant. Hope and ambition begin to dawn for him.

Therefore, it is most advisable that Scoutmasters who have not had much experience in that line should study the subject of camp in its various bearings.

Its cost, including railway fares, transport of stores, equipment, etc.

Its locality, including facilities for Scouting games and exercises, handiness to doctor, cover in event of bad weather, etc.

Its site as regards healthiness, water supply, sanitary arrangements, etc.

Its management as regards catering, cooking, camp routine, and discipline, programme of work, campfire amusements and talks, camp games, etc.

(f) Intelligence

By means of Tracking. Reading sign. Finding way by Map. Landmarks. Heights and Distances. Mapping. Reporting. Signalling. Ambulance. News of the Day. Plays.

Observation and deduction are the basis of all knowledge and can be taught directly through tracking and sign-reading (see Scouting for Boys, Chapter IV.), and by the reproduction of Sherlock Holmes stories in scenes.

The general intelligence and quickwittedness of the boys can very considerably be educated by their finding the way with a map, noticing landmarks, judging heights and distances, and noticing and reporting all details of people, vehicles, cattle, etc. Signalling sharpens their wits, develops their eyesight, and encourages them to study and to concentrate their minds. Ambulance instruction has also similar educative value.

Winter evenings and wet days can be usefully employed by the Scoutmaster reading the principal items of news in the day’s newspaper, illustrating them by map, etc. The getting-up of plays and pageants bearing on the history of the place is also an excellent means of getting the boys to study, and to express themselves without self-consciousness.

(g) Enjoyment of Life

Development of humour. Appreciation of wit rather than buffoonery. Higher thought. Appreciation of beauty. Wonder of Science: Art, Literature, Music, Poetry.

Why is Nature Lore considered a Key Activity in Scouting?

That is a question on which hangs the difference between Scout work and that of the ordinary Boys’ Club or Brigade.

It is easily answered in the phrase quoted, I think, by Sam Harrison, in an excellent article in the Scout Headquarters Gazette. “We want to teach our boys not merely how to get a living, but how to live” —that is, in the higher sense, how to enjoy life.

Nature lore, as I have probably insisted only too often, gives the best means of opening out the minds and thoughts of boys, and at the same time, if the point is not lost sight of by their Scoutmaster, it gives them the power of appreciating beauty in nature, and consequently in art, such as leads them to a higher enjoyment of life.

This is in addition to the realisation of God the Creator through His wondrous work, which when coupled with active performance of His will in service for others constitutes the concrete foundation of religion.

I was in the sitting-room of a friend who had just died, and lying on the table beside his abandoned pipe and tobacco pouch was a book by Richard Jefferies—Field and Hedgerow, in which a page was turned down which said:

“The conception of moral good is not altogether satisfying. The highest form known to us at present is pure unselfishness, the doing of good not for any reward now or hereafter, nor for the completion of any imaginary scheme. That is the best we know, but how unsatisfactory! An outlet is needed more fully satisfying to the heart’s inmost desire than is afforded by any labour of self-abnegation. It must be something in accord with the perception of beauty and of an ideal. Personal virtue is not enough. Though I cannot name the ideal good it seems to me that it will in some way be closely associated with the ideal beauty of Nature.”

In other words, one may suggest that happiness is a matter of inner conscience and outward sense working in combination. It is to be got where the conscience as well as the senses together are satisfied. If the above quoted definition be true, the converse is at least equally certain - namely, that the appreciation of beauty cannot bring happiness if your conscience is not at rest. So that if we want our boys to gain happiness in life we must put into them the practice of doing good to their neighbours, and in addition, the appreciation of the beautiful in Nature.

The shortest step to this last is through Nature lore:—

”… books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

Among the mass of boys their eyes have never been opened, and to the Scoutmaster is given the joy of bringing about this worth-while operation.

Once the germ of woodcraft has entered into the mind of a boy, observation, memory and deduction develop automatically and become part of his character. They remain whatever other pursuits he may afterwards take up.

As the wonders of nature are unfolded to the young mind, so too its beauties can be pointed out and gradually become recognised. When appreciation of beauty is once given a place in the mind, it grows automatically in the same way as observation, and brings joy in the greyest of surroundings.

If I may diverge again, it was a dark, raw, foggy day in the big gloomful station at Birmingham. We were hustled along in a throng of grimy workers and muddy travel-stained soldiers. Yet, as we pushed through the crowd, I started and looked around, went on, looked round again, and finally had a good eyefilling stare before I went on. I don’t suppose my companions had realised it, but I had caught a gleam of sunshine in that murky hole such as gave a new pleasure to the day. It was just a nurse in brown uniform with gorgeous red-gold hair and a big bunch of yellow and brown chrysanthemums in her arms. Nothing very wonderful you say. No, but for those who have eyes to see, these gleams are there even in the worst of gloom.

It is too common an idea that boys are unable to appreciate beauty and poetry; but I remember once some boys were being shown a picture of a stormy landscape, of which Ruskin had written that there was only one sign of peace in the whole wind-torn scene. One of the lads readily pointed to a spot of blue peaceful sky that was apparent through a rift in the driving wrack of clouds.

Poetry also appeals in a way that it is difficult to account for, and when the beautiful begins to catch hold, the young mind seems to yearn to express itself in something other than everyday prose.

Some of the best poetry can of course be found in prose writing, but it is more generally associated with rhythm and rhyme. Rhyme, however, is apt to become the great effort with the aspiring young poet, and so you get the most awful doggerel thrust upon you in your efforts to encourage poetry.

Switch them off doggerel if you can. It is far too prevalent, when even our National Anthem itself amounts to it. I have a lovely “poem” amongst my many treasures which is the acme of striving for rhyme at the expense of everything else; and the author of it wrote to explain that, though I might think he was a poet, (which was very far from my imagination) he was in reality only a coachmen to Upper Tooting.

I love good doggerel too—in its place:

"Grandma's fallen down a drain.
Couldn't get her up again.
Now she's floating out to sea—
Thus we save her funeral fee."

Rhythm is a form of art which comes naturally even to the untrained mind, whether it be employed in poetry or music or in body exercises. It gives balance and order which has its natural appeal even and especially among these closes to nature—savages. In the form of music it is of course most obvious and universal. The Zulu War Song when sung by four or five thousand warriors is an example of rhythm, in music, poetry and bodily movement combined.

The enjoyment of rendering or of hearing music is common to all the human family. The song as a setting to words enables the soul to give itself expression which, when adequately done, brings pleasure both to the singer and to his hearer.

Through his natural love of music the boy can be linked up with poetry and higher sentiment as by a natural and easy transition. It opens a ready means to the Scoutmaster of teaching happiness to his lads and at the same time of raising the tone of their thoughts.

Our Artist’s Badge is devised under a rather misleading name I fear, to lead boys on to express their ideas graphically from their own observation or imagination without attempting thereby to be or to imitate artists. By drawing or modelling, many a careless young soul has become interested, and finally amenable to ideas of beauty in nature and art.

Programme for Study Patrol

Subject II.—Character Training

Week-end Camp.—Tramp out, finding way by map. Noticing landmarks, pitch tent, cook food, salute flag, camp prayers. Practise instruction learnt during previous four weeks.

III. Health and Physical Development

The value of good health and strength in the making of a career and in the enjoyment of life is incalculable. That is pretty obvious. As a matter of education one may take it to be of greater value than “book-learning” and almost as valuable as “character.” Yet in our present system of education in Great Britain it comes a very long way after “book-learning,” while “character” is left out altogether.

Our system is exactly upside down.

Education authorities and school teachers generally recognise this and are doing their best, under the circumstances, until the right system comes round for them, as it will do—some day. Meantime, we in the Scout Movement can do a great deal to help the school authorities by giving to the boys some of the training in health and personal hygiene which is so essential to their efficiency as citizens. Our great aim is to show the lad the best way of developing his strength and health, and what errors he should avoid, and to teach him to be Personally Responsible to Himself for His Health.

In Chapter IV. of Scouting for Boys I have dealt with this subject, and I would especially commend the introductory remarks of that chapter to close study by the Scoutmasters, as showing the very urgent national need for such education. They are unfortunately as true to-day as they were when first written ten years ago. The hygenic questions of food, clothing, sobriety, cleanliness, and chastity are touched upon, and also the minor but important details of development, and care of body, eyes, ears, nose, teeth, nails, etc. But I will in these notes give a few more ideas for consideration on these points.

I feel that, thanks to their innate love of sport, a great deal of the physical training is not difficult to get into practice among the boys. And I know that young men of the present day are inclined to treat their bodies to a good deal of physicking, so that it should not be a hopeless task to get them also to listen to idea on that subject.

I would further commend again to the attention of Scoutmasters the book of lectures entitled The Scoutmasters’ Training Course (London), of which four bear on the subject of this paper, viz. :

“Continence,” by Dr. Schofield. “Physical Exercises,” by Dr. Wallis. “Health and Food,” by Eustace Miles. “Swimming,” by H. R. Austin.

And The Scoutmasters’ Training Course (2nd series).

Training the Boy’s Character, by Alex. Devine. Also that excellent book by Dr. Schofield and Dr. Vaughan-Jackson, What a Boy Should Know (Cassell, 2s.).

And those who can get the Annual Report (price 2s. 6d.), by Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education, will find it interesting and suggestive.

Now, in continuation of my previous method of tabulating the points of the subjects to show how they can be got through Scouting, I submit the following:

Health and Strength

C3 Men and an Ai Empire

Physical education is not the same as physical training, but is badly needed to remedy the above weakness in our nation.

In recruiting our great modern army, recruiting returns have shown what has consistently been pointed out in Scouting for Boys—namely, that there is an immense percentage of unfit men among our citizens who, with reasonable care and understanding, could have been healthy efficient beings.

Sir George Newman, in his most valuable report on the health of our school children, shows that one in every five suffer from defects that will prevent them from being efficient in after-life—defects, mind you, which might have been prevented.

These returns are immensely suggestive, and point at once to the need and the remedy ; if we took the boys in time tens of thousands could be saved every year to become strong and capable citizens instead of dragging out a miserable semi-efficient existence.

It is a matter of national as well as individual importance.

There is consequently much talk of developing the physical training of the rising generation on a much more general basis, and in this direction lies a tremendous opening for our work.

But I want to warn Scoutmasters against being led by this cry on to the wrong tack.

You know from our diagram on page 18 how and why Character and Physical Health are our two main aims in Scouting, and also the steps by which we endeavour to gain them.

But bear in mind physical health is not necessarily the result of a physical drill.

With a number of our men coming back from the Army where they have gone through the excellent scheme of Swedish drill and other forms of physical training, and have seen its practical effects upon themselves and on weedy fellow recruits, they will necessarily feel that this is the very thing that is wanted in Scout training, and that by their experience they are the very men to apply it.

I would say hang on for a minute and think. They would be quite right up to a point.

The physical training given in the Army has been carefully thought out, and is excellent for those who have never had proper physical development as boys. It is suited to the more formed muscular system of the man, and soldiers improve tremendously under this intensive form of training.

But it is entirely artificial, designed to make up for what has not been naturally acquired.

God didn’t invent physical “jerks,” The Zulu warrior, splendid specimen though he is, never went through Swedish drill. Even the ordinary boy, who has played football and has kept himself fit by training exercises between whiles, seldom needs physical drill to develop him afterwards.

It is good open-air games, hiking and camping, and healthy feeding coupled with adequate rest which bring to the boy health and strength in a natural and not an artificial way.

Nobody will disagree with this. It is quite simple in theory, but in its practice we find some few difficulties to overcome.

Your city boy or the factory hand who is at work all day cannot get out to play games in the open. The outdoor worker and country boy should by right have a better chance since he lives more in the open air, but it is seldom that even a country boy knows how to play a game, or even how to run!

When inspecting Scouts, Comissioners make a point of seeing them run in single file, when time and space allow, in addition to merely walking down the line themselves to look at the boys’ faces and their dress.

They do this in order to judge to what extent the lads have been physically trained by their Scoutmaster. The running tells its own tale.

It is perfectly astonishing to see how few boys are able to run.

The natural, easy light step comes only with the practice of running. Without it the poor boy develops either the slow heavy plod of the clod-hopper or the shuffling paddle of the city man (and what a lot of character is conveyed in the gait of a man!).

Organised Games.—The practice of running is best inculcated through games and sport.

A usual objection raised is that the poorer boys don’t care about games—can’t play them.

This is mainly because they have never been taught or encouraged. They very soon get keen when shown how, and through good team games you can not only train them physically but morally as well.

The foreigner’s criticism of Englishmen is that they make games their fetish.

With the public schoolboy this is to a certain extent true, and if you look at it from the purely physical point of view, the result is not so bad.

But with his poorer brother the fetish takes the form of looking on and betting on games.

This is where we in the Scouts can come in. We can show him how to be a player of games, and so to enjoy life and at the same time to strengthen his physical as well as his moral fibre.

Football, baseball, basketball, paper-chases, swimming and Scout games are to my mind the best form of physical education, because most of them bring in moral education as well, and most of them are inexpensive and do not require well-kept grounds, apparatus, etc.

Physical Jerks—Physical exercises or “jerks” are an intensive form of development where you cannot get good or frequent opportunity of games, and may well be used in addition to games, provided that:

1. They are not made entirely a drill, but something that each boy can really understand and want to practise for himself because of the good that he knows it does him.
2. The instructor has some knowledge of anatomy and the possible harm of many physical drill movements on the young unformed body.

Games having physical as well as moral values are being more and more taught in our Army gymnasia, and our returning soldiers can give valuable help in bringing these into play in our Scout clubrooms so long as they do not overtax immature boys.

To the same end I am telling the boys in the Scout how to get up amateur clown stunts.

Anything to get the boy to interest himself in steadily exercising his body and limbs, and in practising difficult feats with pluck and patience until he masters them.

Then a team uniform of sorts is an attraction to the boys, promotes esprit de corps in his athletic work, and incidentally involves changing his clothes before and after playing, encourages a rub down - a wash - cleanliness.

“How to keep fit,” soon becomes a subject in which the athletic boy takes a close personal interest, and can be formed the basis of valuable instruction in self-care, food values, hygiene, continence, temperance, etc., etc. All this means physical education.

Oxygen for Ox’s Strength.—I saw some very smart physical drill by a Scout Troop quite recently in their dub headquarters.

It was very fresh and good, but, my wig, the air was not! It was, to say the least, “niffy.” There was no ventilation. The boys were working like engines, but actually undoing their work all the time by sucking in poison instead of strengthening their blood.

Fresh air is half the battle towards producing results in physical exercises and it may advantageously be taken through the skin as well as through the nose when possible.

Yes—that open air is the secret of success. It is what Scouting is for—viz., to develop the out-of-doors habit as much as possible.

I asked a Scoutmaster not long ago, in a great city, how he managed his Saturday hikes, whether in the park or in the country?

He did not have them at all. Why not? Because his boys did not care about them. They preferred to come into the clubroom on Saturday afternoons!

Of course they preferred it, poor little beggars; they are accustomed to being indoors. But that is what we are out to prevent in the Scouts-our object is to wean them from indoors and to make the outdoors attractive to them.

“If I were King.“—Alexandre Dumas fils has written: “If I were King of France I wouldn’t allow any child of under twelve years to come into a town. Till then the youngsters would have to live in the open-out in the sun, in the fields, in the woods, in company with dogs and horses, face to face with nature, which strengthens the bodies, lends intelligence to the understanding, gives poetry to the soul, and rouses in them a curiosity which is more valuable to education than all the grammar books in the world.

“They would understand the noises as well as the silences of the night; they would have the best of religions—that which God himself reveals in the glorious sight of His daily wonders.

“And at twelve years of age, strong, high-minded, and full of understanding, they would be capable of receiving the methodical instruction which it would then be right to give them, and whose inculcation would then be easily accomplished in four or five years.

“Unfortunately for the youngsters, though happily for France, I don’t happen to be King.

“All that I can do is to give the advice and to suggest the way. The way is—make physical education of the child a first step in its life.”

Camp Grounds.—It would be difficult not to agree with Alexandre Dumas, especially in the light of the reports of the recruiting officers and of Sir George Newman (which everybody ought to read).

In the Scouts especially, if we adhere to our proper métier, we ought to make a big step in this direction.

To you who are Scout Presidents and Patrons, as well as to Local Associations, here is a special opportunity.

We want open-air space, grounds of our own, preferably permanent camp grounds easily accessible for the use of Scouts. As the Movement grows these should form regular institutions at all centres of Scouting.

As Army huts become available funds should, in the meantime, have been saved up for buying them to be re-erected as permanent camps. Can you not do this?

Besides serving this great purpose such camps would have a double value. They could form centres of instruction for officers, where they could receive training in camp craft and Nature lore, and above all could imbibe the spirit of the out-of-doors-the Brotherhood of the Backwoods.

This is the real objective of Scouting, and the key to its success.

With too much town life we are apt to underlook our aims and revert to type.

We are not a brigade—nor a Sunday School—but a school of the woods. We must get more into the open for the health, whether of the body or the soul, of Scout and of Scoutwaster.

Temperance.—Temperate eating is almost as necessary with the boy as temperate drinking with the man. It is a good lesson in self-restraint for him to curb his appetite, both as regards the quantity and the nature of his food-few have fathomed the extent of a boy’s capacity when it comes to tucking away food of whatever variety. The aim to be held out to him is fitness for athletics.

Temperance thus becomes a moral as well as physical detail of training.

Continence.—Of all the points in the education of a boy the most difficult and one of the most important is that of sex hygiene. Body, mind, and soul, health, morality, and character, all are involved in the question. It is a matter which has to be approached with tact on the part of the Scoutmaster, according to the individual character of each case. It is not as yet dealt with adequately by the Education authorities. But it is one that cannot be ignored in the education of a boy, still less in that of the girl.

There is a great barrier of prejudice and false prudery on the part of parents and public still to be overcome, and this has to be recognised and handled tactfully. It is, of course, primarily the duty of parents to see that their children receive proper instruction, but a very large number of them shirk their duty and then build up excuses for doing so. Such neglect is little short of criminal.

As Dr. Allen Warner writes:—

“Fear has often been expressed in the past that such teaching will lead to vicious habits, but there is no evidence that this is true, whilst experience proves that ignorance on this subject has led to the moral and physical wreckage of many lives.”

This is only too true, and I can testify from a fairly wide experience among soldiers and others. The amount of secret immorality that is now prevalent is very serious indeed.

The very fact that the subject is taboo between the boy and grown-ups is provocative, and the usual result is that he gets his knowledge, in a most perverted form, from another boy.

In What a Boy Should Know, Drs. Schofield and Jackson write:—

“The sexual development of boys is gradual, and it is an unfortunate fact that habits of abuse are begun and constantly practised at a much younger age. If safety lies in the adage that ‘to be forewarned is to be forearmed,’ then boys must be told what is coming to them, for the critical period of puberty lies ahead of them, and no boy should be allowed to reach it in ignorance.”

A Scoutmaster has here a tremendous field for good. He must in the first instance ascertain whether the father of the boy has any objection to his talking to him on the subject.

Then he will best enter into it in a matter-of-fact way among other subjects on which he may be advising him, placing himself on the footing of an elder brother in doing so. To some Scoutmasters who have never done it the question seems a very difficult one to approach. It is in reality as easy as shelling peas. And the value of it cannot be exaggerated.

Personally, apart from explaining as a preliminary how plants, and fishes, and animals reproduce their species, I have found it appeal to boys, as it did to me when I first heard it, to tell them how in every boy is growing the germ of another child to come from him. That germ has been handed down to him from father to son from generations back. He has it in trust from God; it is his duty to keep it until he is married and passes it to his wife for reproduction. He cannot honourably forget his charge and throw it away in the meantime. Temptation will come to him in many forms to do so, but he has got to be strong and to guard it.

The actual details can be dealt with as in the books suggested in Chapter VI., Scouting for Boys.

But every different boy at each age may need a different way of treatment in the matter. The main thing is for the Scoutmaster to have the lad’s full confidence as a first step, and to be to him in the relation of an elder brother—where both can speak quite openly.

I know how greatly the boys need it. I know how grateful they are afterwards for the help. Even my very vague allusion to the subject in Scouting for Boys is continually bringing me letters of thanks from lads to whom it has appealed in time.

Non-Smoking.—Somebody once wrote an improved edition of Scouting for Boys, and in it he ordered that “Scouts are on no account to smoke.” It is generally a risky thing to order boys not to do a thing; it immediately opens to them the adventure of doing it contrary to orders.

Advise them against a thing, or talk of it as despicable or silly, and they will avoid it. I am sure this is very much the case in the matter of unclean talk, of gambling, of smoking, and other youthful faults.

It is well to establish a good tone and a public opinion among your boys on a plane which puts these things down as “what kids do, in order to look smart before others.”

Walking the Tight Rope.—This may strike some readers as a curious means of teaching self-discipline or health. But it has been found by experience to do so.

You may see it being practised in Army gymnasia in the form of men walking a plank fixed up sideways it a height of some feet above the floor. It is found that by getting them to concentrate their whole attention on this ticklish test, they gain a close hold over themselves and their nerves. The experiment has been carried further to the extent that it has been found that if a soldier is making bad practice on the rifle-range a few practices in “walking the plank” readily bring back for him the necessary self-control and power of concentration.

It is an exercise that appeals to boys. They can bind several Scout staves together as a balancing pole, which will give them additional power of balance in their first efforts.

Rifle Practice

So, too, marksmanship is an excellent means of physical and mental training for a boy. It interests him, strengthens his eyesight, and induces quiet, insistent concentration of mind, together with control of the nerves and thoughts.

Dr. Kerr, the Medical Officer to the Education Branch of the London County Council, wrote:—

“The powers of spontaneous action, self-respect, and moral esteem must be called into action in the boy. This is done in the secondary schools chiefly by games. The recently introduced ‘Boy Scouts’ have had an extraordinarily good effect in this direction.

“Also light rifle-shooting appears to be almost as powerful a factor in developing self-respect . . . it gives the boy something to strive for in attaining perfection.”

Physical Development Drill

One hears a great many people advocating drill as the way to bring about better physical development among boys. I have had a good deal to do with drilling in my time, and if people think they are going to develop a boy’s physical strength and set-up by drilling him for an hour a week, they will meet with disappointing results.

Drill as given to soldiers, day by day, for month after month, undoubtedly does bring about great physical development. But the instructors—these are well-trained experts—have their pupils continually under their charge and under strict discipline, and even they occasionally make mistakes, and heart-strain and other troubles are not infrequently produced even in the grown and formed man.

Furthermore, drill is all a matter of instruction, of hammering it into the boys, and is in no way an education where they learn it for themselves.

Colonel Petersen, the Director of Physical Training in Australia, had a talk with me on that subject, and told how much is being done in Australia and in foreign countries in that line, while we in England are very much behind-hand. But in no case does the Government rely upon compulsory cadet or soldiering to supply the physical training, although such service is prevalent in those countries; it is done entirely in the schools. And the teachers have to be trained experts with a proper knowledge of anatomy, otherwise the danger of overstrain for the children is very great.

As regards drill for Scouts, I have frequently had to remind Scoutmasters that it is to be avoided—that is, in excess. Apart from militarist objections on the part of some parents, one is averse to it because a second-rate Scoutmaster cannot see the higher aim of Scouting (namely, drawing out of the individual), and not having the originality to teach it even if he saw it, he reverts to drill as an easy means of getting his boys into some sort of shape for making a show on parade. At the same time, Scoutmasters occasionally go too far the other way, and allow their boys to go slack all over the place, without any apparent discipline or smartness. This is worse. You want a golden mean—just sufficient instruction to show them what is wanted of them in smartness and deportment, and a fund of esprit de corps, such as makes them brace themselves up and bear themselves like men for the honour of their Troop. Occasional drills are necessary to keep this up, but these should not be indulged in at the expense of the more valuable Scout training.

I know a very smart regiment in which the recruits received very little barrack-square drill; when once they had been shown how to hold themselves they were told that as soon as they could do it habitually they would be allowed to go out and take their pleasures and their duties as ordinary soldiers. It was “up to them” to smarten themselves up instead of having deportment drilled into them week after week for months. They drilled themselves and each other, and passed out of the recruit stage in less than half the ordinary time.

Education as opposed to instruction once more! The result was obtained by putting the ambition and responsibility on to the men themselves. And that is exactly the way by which, I believe, that you can best produce the physical development among boys.

But, after all, natural games, plenty of fresh air, wholesome food, and adequate rest do far more to produce well-developed healthy boys than any amount of physical or military drill.

Measurement Card.—With a view to promoting this sense of responsibility for his own physical development, we have published a card for the use of each boy. It gives the average size and weight for each year of age; the boy’s own measurements are recorded and compared, and if he does not come up to .the average in any one particular, tho Scoutmaster shows him which exercises he should take to build him up to supply the deficiency.

Swimming.—Denmark is perhaps the foremost country in the physical training of its rising generation. Norway and Sweden are not far behind. I have seen the remarkable proficiency of the children in swimming, which is there considered the best means to physical development. In Copenhagen are four large swimming schools. Each can accommodate from 1,000 to 1,500 children at a time. In Stockholm the ordinary schools have their swimming baths for the children, and practically every one of the pupils can swim as part of the scheme of education.

The advantages of swimming among many other forms of physical training are these:—

• The boy delights in it, and is keen to learn.
• He gets to enjoy cleanliness.
• He learns pluck in attaining the art.
• He gains self-confidence on mastering it.
• He develops his chest and breathing organs.
• He develops muscle.
• He gains the power of saving life and locks for opportunities of doing it.

Signalling.—Signalling practice, while it is educating the boy’s intelligence, is at the same time giving him valuable physical exercise hour after hour in body-twisting and arm-work, and in training the eye.

So, too, boat-rowing is an excellent muscle developer, and appeals very greatly to the Scout. It is only allowed after he has qualified in swimming, so induces a good lot of boys to train themselves in that line.

Body Exercises.—The six exercises given in Scouting for Boys (Chapter VI.) are all that are essential, for the reasons there stated. They can be taught without any danger to the lad by Scoutmasters who are not experts in anatomy, etc., and this is more than can be said of many other body exercises which are sometimes put into practice.

Health and Hygiene

Cleanliness.—Cleanliness inside as well as out, as described in Scouting for Boys (Chapter VI.), is of prime importance to health.

That rub down with a damp rough towel, where baths are impossible, is of very big importance to inculcate as a habit in your boys. Also, the habit of washing hands before a meal and after the daily rear. The need for scrupulous cleanliness may well be inculcated by the practice of “Kill that fly,” not merely as a useful public service which Scouts can perform, but also as a means of introducing them to the minuteness of disease-germs as conveyed on flies’ feet, and yet of such effect as to poison people.

Fresh Air.—I have drawn attention in Scouting for Boys to the value of breathing fresh air. Few people realise how poisonous is the air of a shut room or railway carriage where many are congregated.

Food is an all-important consideration for the growing lad, yet there is a vast amount of ignorance on the subject on the part of parents, and, therefore, on the part of the boys. It is helpful towards the energy and health of his boys—especially in camp—that the Scoutmaster should know something about the matter.

As regards quantity, a boy between thirteen and fifteen requires about 80 per cent of a man’s allowance. He will gladly put down 150 per cent if permitted.

The meal should be as simple and unmixed as possible, all vegetable (i.e. bread, oatmeal, vegetables, and fruit) or all animal (soup, meat, and cheese). The latter gives him the greater amount of protein to the ounce, and protein is the essential for body-building. The former gives him a greater amount of the natural salts needed. Cheese is for some indigestible though sustaining—if cooked it is much more easily assimilated.

Oatmeal is a grand food for boys. The Report of the National Food Inquiry Bureau gives results of inquiry among—

• 21,000 school children and Boy Scouts.
• 490 athletes.
• 547 medical men.
• 83 matrons of hospitals.
• 2,000 private families.

The very large proportion of these are strongly in favour of oatmeal as a good all-round food.

Eleven out of twelve athletes use it when training. Five hundred and fourteen out of the 547 doctors recommend it. One Boy Scout even writes poetry about it:

"I used to be so pale and thin,
  But now I'm fat and stout.
'Tis porridge that has changed me to
  A strong and healthy Scout."

Physically Defective Scouts.—Through Scouting there are numbers of crippled, deaf and dumb, and blind boys now gaining greater health, happiness and hope than they ever had before.

The reports we receive from medical officers and matrons in charge of them give me even greater pleasure than those recording big rallies or improvement in efficiency of the sound boys. The desire to obtain badges of proficiency seems to lead them on from one hobby to another with excellent results upon them, physically as well as morally.

It is astonishing what a number of badges crippled Scouts can take, and even for the blind the following are apparently not impossible:—Ambulance, Basketmaking, Bugler, Musician, Clerk, Interpreter, Master-at-Arms (Wrestling and Ju-jitsu), Pioneer, Poultry Farmer, Morse Signaller.

Scoutmasters can co-operate with Schoolmasters.—According to the Report of the Board of Education, the principal ills among school children are due to the following causes:—

Food-insufficiency and unsuitability, bad home surroundings and neglect, lack of fresh air and sunlight, unsuitable sleeping arrangements, insufficient sleep, employment out of school hours, want of cleanliness, unhealthy school conditions, congenital debility, disease (mouth-breathing, decayed teeth, adenoids, bronchitis, tuberculosis, heart disease, rheumatism, weakness).

Scoutmasters can in many cases help the schoolmasters in remedying these, and similarly schoolmasters can help Scoutmasters by informing them of results of the medical officer’s inspection of their boys as regards condition of heart, eyesight, hearing, teeth, etc. Working in co-operation in this way they should between them be able to do a great deal for the health of the lads under their charge.

From the Education Report one gathers that, of the children leaving school to take up work in the world :—

• 10 per cent. suffer from defective eyesight.
• 1 per cent. suffer from tuberculosis.
• 40 per cent. suffer from extensive decay of teeth (only about 10 per cent. have sound teeth).
• 3 per cent. suffer from deafness.
• 2 per cent. suffer from heart disease.

A large percentage of weaklings in our country could, if taken in hand in time by Scoutmasters and others, be developed into valuable citizens instead of becoming a misery to themselves and a burden to the nation. H. G. Wells describes Nelson as “a one-eyed, one-armed, fragile adulterer, prone to sea sickness.” So he may have been, but he had the robust courage of a wild boar, and he saved our country. General Wolfe was another weakling. Voltaire was thrown into a chair as dead when born, but his father accidentally sat down on him, and so revived him. Napoleon Bonaparte was another weakling as a child, and so was Theodore Roosevelt also, and many others who by exercise of their will and character afterwards overcame their physical defects and rose to be valuable men for their country.

Programme for Study Patrol

Subject III.—Physical Health

IV. Making a Career

From a national point of view we have too many drones in our social hive, both among our well-to-do classes and among the poor.

We are a comparatively small nation in numbers, and we need the services of every man of our race if we are to keep our place in the heavy competition of trades and manufactures that is coming on around us. Yet there is a fearful waste of human material in Great Britain to-day. This is mainly due to ineffective training. The general mass of boys are not taight to like work. Even when they are taught handicrafts or business qualities, they are not shown how to apply these to making a career, nor is the flame of ambition kindled in them. Where they happen to be square pegs they are too often placed in round holes. Whether it is the fault of the schoolmaster, or the parent, or the system of education, one cannot say, but the fact remains that it is so. Consequently, those boys who have not got these gifts naturally are allowed to drift and to become wasters. They are a misery to themselves and a burden—even in some cases, a danger—to the State. And the large proportion of those who do make some sort of a success would undoubtedly do better were they trained in a more practical way. In the Boy Scouts we can do something to remedy these evils. We can take some steps towards giving even the poorest boy a start and a chance in life equipped, at any rate, with hope and a handicraft.

How? Naturally one’s thoughts run to handcraft Badges. Though we call these “Handicrafts,” they are, with our standard of tests, little more than “Hobbies.” This, however, is part of our policy of leading the boys on with small and easy beginnings; and these Hobbies become more specialised as vocational training for the Senior Scouts. In the meantime, hobbies have their value; through these the boy learns to use his fingers and his brain, and to take a pleasure in work. For one boy these may remain his hobbies for years; for another they may lead to craftsmanship which will give him a career. In either case, the boy is not so likely to become a waster later on. Hobbies are an antidote to Satan’s little games.

But hobbies or handicrafts are not likely to make a career for a boy without the help of certain moral qualities. Thus, the craftsman must have self-discipline. He must adapt himself to the requirements of his employer and of his fellow-workers, he must keep himself sober, and efficient, and willing.

He must have energy, and that depends on the amount he has of ambition, of skill, of resourcefulness, and of good health.

Now, how do we apply these in the Boy Scout’s training? The progressive steps by which you work up to them with the boys, begin on the right of the table.

The Scoutmaster’s Share

So much for the lines on which a boy can be practically prepared through Scouting for making a career.

But this only prepares him. It is still in the power of his Scoutmaster to give him further help to making that career a successful one.

First, by showing the lad ways by which he can perfect the superficial instruction received as a Scout; whereby, for instance, he can develop his hobbies into handicrafts. The Scoutmaster can show him where to get higher technical education, how to get scholarships or apprenticeships, how to train himself for particular professions, how to invest his savings, how to apply for jobs, and so on.

Secondly, by himself knowing the different kinds of employment agencies and how to use them, the terms of service in various professions, the Scoutmaster can give the lad invaluable help, by advising him, on his knowledge of his qualifications, as to which line of life he is best fitted for. All this means that the Scoutmaster must himself look around and inform himself fully on these and like points. By taking a little trouble himself he can make successful lives for many of his boys.

All this means that the Scoutmaster must himself look round and inform himself fully on these and like points. By taking a little trouble himself he can make successful lives for many of his boys.

The Necessary Qualities for Success

Mr. Gordon Selfridge has very kindly given me some ideas on training lads for careers in large business houses. He is a great believer in the saying of Robert Louis Stevenson: “To travel hopefully is a better thing to arrive, and the true success is to labour.”

“One of the best things in this world is progress in the right direction.”

One of the maxims which Mr. Selfridge impresses on his employees in this: “A man should always act as if he had a serious and clever competitor close behind him, so that he is continually putting forth his best efforts to keep the imaginary competitor from winning his place.”

The guide book which Mr. Selfridge issues for the assistance of his employees shows how the following points, which we inculcate in the Boy Scouts, are of greatest value to a young fellow in getting on in his career in a big business house. Strict adherence to instructions, with the feeling that such obedience is “playing the game” for the good of the business.

Energy and making best use of the time available. “Waste of time where so many are employed is a very serious matter. If one hundred people waste only five minutes each day, the loss is more than eight hours, or a hundred days in a year.”

Courtesy: “We would have the members of our staff courteous to one another.” “Impress visitors or customers that they are welcome.”

“It is attractive to customers to be served by assistance whose manners show happiness in what they are doing.”

“Those who come merely to look, may become good customers if merchandise is shown them tactfully and cheerfully.”

Intelligence: “An employee should not be content merely to know his own groove in the business, but should develop some general knowledge of its other branches, and so be able both to advise customers and to quality himself for higher posts.”

Neatness in dress and appearance: “These go a long way to commending an applicant for employment or for promotion.”

Perseverance: “In my opinion, two of the qualities which will undoubtedly carry one far along the path of success are concentration and perseverance.

“You cannot succeed by making an effort in fits and starts; on the contrary, a sustained and steady effort is necessary. Hence it comes about that the ‘sticker’ beats the merely clever man so often in the race of life.”

Personally, I fully endorse these ideas, and if I were asked to sum up all in a single motto for guiding a boy to success in his profession, I should say—

“Stick to it, and make yourself indispensable.”

On that text, you can preach a very practical sermon and frame a useful training. It is encouraging to a lad, even if he is only an errand boy, to know that if he does his errands so well that his master feels he could not get a better boy, he is safely on the road to promotion. But he must stick to it, and not be led aside by fits and disinclination or annoyance; if he gives way to these he will never succeed. Patience and perseverance win the day. “Softly, softly catchee monkey.”

“Pioneering” as a First Step

The first step towards getting a Scout to take up handiwork is most easily effected in camp, in the practice of hut-building, tree-felling, bridge-building, improvising camp utensils, such as pot-hooks and plate-racks, etc., tent-making, mat-weaving with the camp-loom, and so on, as suggested in Scouting for Boys. The boys find these tasks to be practical and useful to their comfort in the camping season. After making a start on these, they will be the more keen to go in for such hobbies in the winter evenings, in the club, as will bring them badges in return for proficiency, and money in return for skilful work. In that way they soon grow into ardent, energetic workers.

I commend to your notice the practical suggestions on this head, given by Mr. Ben Wilde, in the Scoutmaster’s Training Course (No. 2 Birmingham), on the subject of “Badges and How They Should be Won.”

Technical Training

The following extract from Ye Handi-craft Booklet, by Leader A. Pruden, of the Kent Street (London) Troop, gives a sample of what Scoutmasters can do in the direction of hobby training, which may be suggestive.

In hints for helping a Scout to take up handicrafts the author writes—

“Let him first see the list of various hobbies for which Scout badges are granted, then let him carefully read in the Boy Scout Test Book all about the particular badges which most appeal to him. Having done this, it will not be difficult for him to decide which he will choose for his hobby.”

“His Scoutmaster can probably put him in touch with some expert who will be pleased to help him forward. If he be fourteen years of age, in London, the County Council will let him join an evening class for his particular hobby, where will be unfolded to him some of the secrets of his craft.

“Even when only thirteen years of age, if he is skilled in his hobby, if he has the sanction of his headmaster, and provided he is in the seventh standard, he can gain entrance to the London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts, Southampton Row, for Silversmiths’ Work and allied crafts, which include Silversmithing, Goldsmiths’ and Jewellers’ Work, Diamond Mounting and Gem Setting, Art Metal Work, Chasing, Repoussé Work, Engraving, Die Sinking, Designing, Modelling, Metal Casting, Enamelling, etc.; further, if only in the sixth standard, he is eligible to join the school and learn the craft of Book Production, Printing, Binding, etc. There are small fees to pay, but in cases where the parents are poor, these are reduced or remitted. Then there is the Westminster Technical Institute of Cookery, where he can be trained as a chef.

“At the age of sixteen, when he leaves, his Scoutmaster should have little difficulty in arranging a five years’ apprenticeship for him with a business firm of standing, where, for the whole of the period he will be receiving a wage. During this five years he can meet with success on every hand; he can gain London County Council money scholarships at the evening classes he would still attend; his friends would recognise his skill, and in spare time he would be able to make saleable articles of artistic merit.

“At the age of twenty-one, when he arrives at man’s estate, he should be able (according to his skill and talent) to secure a position at any figure between £100 and £300 per annum. It will thus be seen by every Scout who reads this booklet, that by the development of a hobby, he has the opportunity of laying the foundation for a successful and happy career.”

Employment

The Scoutmaster, knowing his boy’s character, can best advise him and his parents as to what line to take up.

In the first place, he should discriminate between those employments which offer a future to the boy and those which lead to nothing (so-called “Blind-Alley jobs”). These latter often bring in good money for the time being, to increase the weekly income of the family, and are, therefore, adopted for the boy by the parents regardless of the fact that they give no opening to him for a man’s career afterwards.

Those which promise a future need careful selection with regard to the lad’s capabilities, and they can be prepared for, while he is yet a Scout. A skilled employment is essentially better than an unskilled one for the boy’s future success in life.

Employment Agencies

Employment agencies, and the means of getting suitable occupations for lads, differ according to localities, and the Scoutmaster, therefore, has to make himself acquainted with those prevailing in his neighbourhood.

But in many centres it is found, by experience, best for the Scout authorities to form their own employment agencies. They can then place their lads out in situations best suited to their respective individual characters, and this give them unusually good chances of getting on.

All this may, no doubt, give some little extra trouble to the Scoutmaster or to the Association, President, or Commissioner, but it is repaid by the consciousness that he has thereby been the means of staring the boy in life, with every prospect of success, where, in many a case, he would otherwise have drifted into a wasted existence.

Surely such result would in itself be a sufficient reward to most men.

Industrial Ignorance

I often wonder whether it is not possible for some business-headed Scoutmaster to introduce into his Troop work some form of co-operative manufacture or industry—say, for one instance, toy-making—in which each Patrol would have its definite share, and which should be organised and carried on in such a way as to give practical insight and experience of running an industrial concern, showing how increased output brings increased returns, etc.

Sir Lynden Macassey has lately pointed out in the Times that after conducting some 3000 industrial conferences, he is impressed with the fact that economic ignorance and fallacies among both employers and employed is largely responsible for the ruinous unrest now prevalent.

Workmen seem unable to grasp the principle that security of employment, good “real” wages, reasonable hours, and fair conditions of employment can be assured only by production.

Employers generally have no conception of the demonstrable money value of treating the man as entitled to a voice in regulating the conditions of his employment, nor of the definite mistake of treating him as an economic unit. Workmen tenaciously cling to the fallacy, long exploded in America, that restricted output relieves unemployment, enhances wages, and raises the status of labour.

Wrong ideas and fallacies are actually and deliberately taught to children to Socialist schools. False doctrine, heresy, and schism are definitely preached to workers by means of leaflets and addresses so that antagonism is the prevailing spirit. It is all based on wrong grounds. We don’t, in the Scouts, want to join in the politics which somehow get mixed up with the economic question, which somehow get mixed up with the economic question, but we do want to educate the coming man as to where his best interests lie and how, in serving his country’s commercial interests, he is also serving his own.

Employment

Programme For Study Patrol

Subject IV. “Making a Career”

Week-end Camps

A trek cart to carry equipment. Cut your own wood for fires. Make your own bed with camp loom and other camp expedients. Camp fire yarns on theories. Practise details. Camp games.

V. Service for Others

The attributes which we have so far been studying in the course of training, as tending to make our boys into manly, healthy, happy working citizens, are, to a great extent, selfish ones designed for the good of the individual. We now come to the fourth quality, and that is where, by developing his outlook, he gives out good to others.

Here is a summary of the steps by which Scouting helps to attain this object.

Development of Outlook: Reverence

Development of outlook naturally begins with a respect for God, which we may best term “Reverence.”

Reverence to God and reverence for one’s neighbour and reverence for oneself as a servant of God, is the basis of every form of religion. The method of expression of reverence to God varies with every sect and denomination. What sect or denomination a boy belongs to depends, as a rule, on his parents’ wishes. It is they who decide. It is our business to respect their wishes and to second their efforts to inculcate reverence, whatever form of religion the boy professes.

It must be remembered that we have in our Movement boys of almost every religious belief, and it is, therefore, impossible to lay down definite rules for guidance in religious teaching.

The following is the attitude of the Scout Movement as regards religion, approved by the heads of all the different denominations on our Council:—

“(a) It is expected that every Scout shall belong to some religious denomination, and attend its services.

“(b) Where a Troop is composed of members of one particular form of religion, it is hoped that the Scoutmaster will arrange such denominational religious observances and instruction as he, in consultation with its Chaplain or other religious authority, may consider best.

“(c) Where a Troop consists of Scouts of various religions they should be encouraged to attend the service of their own denomination, and in camp, any form of daily prayer and of weekly Divine service should be of the simplest character, attendance being voluntary.”

If the Scoutmaster takes this pronouncement as his guide he cannot go far wrong.

Training.—I am perfectly convinced that there are more ways than one by which reverence may be inculcated. The solution depends on the individual character and circumstances of the boy, whether he is a “hooligan” or a “mother’s darling.” The training that may suit the one may not have much effect on the other. It is for the teacher, whether Scoutmaster or Chaplain, to select the right one.

While I am speaking on religious training in England, please don’t think that I am reiterating the theory which is so lavishly written on this particular subject. I speak from a fairly wide personal experience, having had some thousands of young men through my hands, and my experience only tallies with that of most authorities whom I have consulted. The conclusion come to is that the actions of a very large proportion of our men are, at present, very little guided by religious conviction.

This may be attributed to a great extent to the fact that often instruction instead of education has been employed in the religious training of the boy, and that in some instances the teaching is undertaken by people who have no real experience or proper training for the work.

The consequence has been that the best boys in the Bible-class or Sunday School have grasped the idea, but in many cases they have, by perfection in the letter, missed the spirit of the teaching and have become zealots with a restricted outlook, while the majority have never really been enthused, and have, as soon as they have left the class or school, lapsed into indifference and irreligion, and there has been no hand to retain them at the critical time of their lives, i.e. sixteen to twenty-four.

The disappointing results in religious training have been recognised by the authorities, and the more thorough training now inaugurated for teachers in Sunday Schools and the like promises a very different result for religious education in the future.

It is not given to every man to be a good teacher of religion, and often the most earnest are the greatest failure—and without knowing it.

We have, fortunately, a number of exceptionally well-qualified men in this respect among our Scoutmasters, but there must also be a number who are doubtful as to their powers, and where a man feels this, he does well to get a Chaplain, or other experienced teacher, for his Troop.

On the practical side, however, the Scoutmaster can in every case do an immense amount towards helping the religious teacher, just as he can help the schoolmaster by inculcating in his boys, in camp and club, the practical application of what they have been learning in theory in the school.

In denominational Troops there is, as a rule, a Troop Chaplain, and the Scoutmaster should, as stated in Clause 2 of our Headquarters Religious Policy, consult with him on all questions of religious instruction.

It should be clearly understood that a Troop can be confined entirely to one particular church or denomination (for example, Church of England officers and boys, Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, or the like).

For the purpose of its religious training, a service or class can be held, called a “Scouts’ Own,” “Scout Guild,” or other such name as may be thought best. I commend to your careful consideration and study the valuable and interesting results of the Manchester Conference on the subject of “How to Run a Scouts’ Own.”

The majority, however, of our Troops are interdenominational, having boys of different forms of belief in their ranks.

For these Troops a Chaplain seems hardly required, because the boys should be sent to their own clergy and pastors for denominational religious instruction.

Still, for many of these Troops a “Scout’s Own” or class of some kind on a Sunday has been found very helpful for inspiring the right scout spirit, but they need to be organised and carried on with care and tact. The Scoutmaster should always consult the parents and the boys, clergy and pastors, as a first step.

Other Troops in slums have lads of practically no religion of any kind, and their parents are little or no help to them. Naturally, these require different handling and methods of training from those boys in whom religion has been well grounded.

Here, again, Scouting comes very practically to the aid of the teacher, and has already given extraordinarily good results.

The practical way in which Scouting can help is through the following:—

(a) Personal example of the Scoutmaster.

(b) Nature study.

(c) Good turns.

(d) Missioner service.

(e) Retention of the older boy.

(a) Personal example.

It is a common saying that an Englishman hates parading his religion; that he is often a man who does his duties from a religious conviction, but does not “for a pretence make long prayers” in public.

There is no doubt whatever that in the boys’ eyes it is what a man does that counts and not so much what he says.

A Scoutmaster has, therefore, the greatest responsibility on his shoulders for doing the right thing from the right motives, and for letting it be seen that he does so, but without making a parade of it.

Here the attitude of elder brother rather than of teacher tells with the greater force.

(b) Nature study.

It has been said that “more men have been led to God through His handiwork than have ever been introduced by the preacher.”

“Sermons in stones?” Yes, there are sermons in the observation of Nature, say, in bird life, the formation of every feather identical with that of the same species 10,000 miles away, the migration, the nesting, the colouring of the egg, the growth of the young, the mothering, the feeding, the flying power—all done without the aid of man, but under the law of the Creator; these are the best of sermons for boys.

The flowers in their orders, and plants of every kind, their buds and bark, the animals and their habits and species; then the stars in the heavens, with their appointed places and ordered moves in space, give to every one the first conception of Infinity and of the vast scheme of his Creator where man is of so small account. All these have a fascination for boys, which appeals in an absorbing degree to their inquisitiveness and powers of observation, and leads them directly to recognise the hand of God in this world of wonders, if only some one introduces them to it.

The wonder to me of all wonders is how some teachers have neglected this easy and unfailing means of education and have struggled to impose Biblical instruction as the first step towards getting a restless, full-spirited boy to think of higher things.

(c) Good Turns.

With a little encouragement on the part of the Scoutmaster the practice of daily Good Turns soon becomes a sort of fashion with boys, and it is the very best step towards making a Christian in fact, and not merely in theory. The boy has a natural instinct for good if he only sees a practical way to exercise it, and this Good Turn business meets it and develops it, and in developing it brings out the spirit of Christian charity towards his neighbour.

This expression of his will to good, is more effective, more natural to the boy, and more in accordance with the Scout method than his passive acceptance of instructive precepts.

(d) Missioner service.

The development is then carried on to a higher and wider standard through the practice of the test-items of the Missioners’ Social Service Badge.

(e) Retention of the older boy.

So soon as the ordinary boy begins to get a scholastic knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic, he is sent out into the world, at the age of fourteen, as fit and equipped for making his career as a good working citizen.

Excellent technical schools are open to him, as well as continuation classes, if he likes to go to them, or if his parents insist on his attending after his day’s work is over. The best boys go, and get a good final polish.

But what about the average and the bad? They are allowed to slide away—just at the one period of their life when they most of all need continuation and completion of what they have been learning, just at the time of their physical, mental and moral change into what they are going to be for the rest of their life.

The new Education Act is to correct this, but only promises to do so in a technical and partial manner.

This is where the Scout Movement can do so much for the lad, and it is for this important work that we are doing all we can to organise the Senior Scouts in order to retain the boy, to keep in touch with him, and to inspire him with the best ideals at this, his crossroads for good or evil.

Self-Respect

In speaking of the forms of reverence which the boy should be encouraged to develop, we must not omit the important one of reverence for himself, that is self-respect in its highest form. This can well be inculcated through nature study as a preliminary step. The anatomy of plants, or birds, or shell-fish may be studied and shown to be the wonderful work of the Creator. Then the boy’s own anatomy can be studied in a similar light; the skeleton and the flesh, muscle, nerves, and sinews built upon it, the blood flow and the breathing, the brain and control of action, all repeated, down to the smallest details, in millions of human beings, yet no two are exactly alike in face or finger prints. Raise the boy’s idea of the wonderful body which is given to him to keep and develop as God’s own handiwork and temple; one which is physically capable of good work and brave deeds if guided by sense of duty and chivalry, that is by a high moral tone.

Thus is engendered self-respect.

This, of course, must not be preached to a lad in so many words and then left to fructify, but should be inferred and expected in all one’s dealings with him. Especially it can be promoted by giving the boy responsibility, and by trusting him as an honourable being to carry out his duty to the best of his ability, and by treating him with respect and consideration, without spoiling him.

Loyalty

In addition to reverence to God and to one’s neighbour, loyalty to the King as head of our national government and of the British race is essential.

Loyalty to the King signifies loyalty to our country and our kind. Political excitement is apt to turn ecstatic people’s minds to such a degree that, in seeing their own point of view, they are apt to forget that of others, and therefore they fail to realise the danger it may bring to the welfare and happiness of their fellow countrymen later on. Loyalty to Kind and country is of the highest value for keeping men’s views balanced and in the proper perspective. The external signs, such as saluting the flag, cheering the King, and so on, help in promoting this, but the essential thing is the development of the true spirit which underlies such demonstrations. I had a little argument lately with one who as a free-born Briton did not see why he should promise allegiance to the King. I asked him whether he proposed to be loyal to the Empire or would he be willing to let down one of the Overseas British States if it were in danger? Oh no, he was all for the national prosperity. But then an Empire, like every other national organisation, needs a head to it: even the Bolsheviks, with their equality for all, have a leader (who besides having unlimited motor cars and wives, has the power of life and death over his subjects). Yes, that’s right, a head is necessary, but he should be elected by the voice of the people. Well, do you think Canada will agree to have as their head a man from Australia, or would Australia accept a favourite Conservative M.P. from England? I don’t think. Has the office of King ever been abused or failed in success under its present limiting constitution? He could not, for instance, have attended the Peace Conference at Versailles and have laid down a policy for his country to follow, in the way that a more autocratic ruler was able to do.

[Indeed it is whispered that when President Wilson was in Paris a message was sent to him from New York to the effect that if he did not return at once they would be starting to form a Republic in America!]

Loyalty to himself on the part of the boy—that is, to his better conscience—is the great step to self-realisation. Loyalty to others is proved by self-Service for others and self-sacrifice must necessarily include readiness to serve one’s country should the necessity arise for protecting it against foreign aggression; that is the duty of every citizen. But this does not mean that he is to develop a blood-thirsty or aggressive spirit, nor that the boy need be trained to military duties and ideas of fighting. This can be left until he is of an age to judge for himself. At the same time rifle practice is a good preparation and does a boy no harm morally; on the contrary, it does him good, since it promotes concentration, steadiness of nerve eyesight, exactness, etc. More-over, it will stand him in good stead should he ever be required to help in the defence of his country, or, as will frequently be the case in a colony, in defence of his home against raids by savages, or, on board ship, by pirates.

Go by the Pace of the Slowest

Once I asked a Scout coming away from a special Scout church service what was the text on which the preacher had spoken?

“Quit ye like men,” the boy replied.

“Yes, and what does that mean?”

“Well, I am not quite sure, but I think that it means that going on quitting the church we were to go out like grown-ups.”

The preacher had had his opportunity with a boy who noticed the text, but he had travelled into phrases and ideas far above the understanding of his audience. It is a mistake so obvious that one might think that few would fall into it, but, unfortunately, the opposite is the case. High-flying is not only common, but usual. I have seen prayer books for boys full of long erudite supplications. I would rather hear the familiar, “Oh, Lord, grant there may be some of the pudding left for me when it has gone the round,” than hear a little fellow recite by heart petitions which are meaningless to him.

Let his prayers come from the heart, not said by heart.

The main principles which I personally prefer in prayers are that they should be short, expressed in the simplest language, and based on one of two ideas—

To thank God for blessings or enjoyments received.

To ask for moral protection, strength, or guidance in something for God in return.

There may be many difficulties as regard the definition of the religious training in our Movement where so many different denominations exist, and the details of expression of duty to God have, therefore, to be left largely in the hands of the local authority. But there is no difficulty at all in suggesting the line to take on the human side, since direct duty to one’s neighbour is implied in almost every form of belief. Scouting is a real help in the practice of this. As a first point it is not confined to giving charity—it needs more than that—it often demands self-sacrifice to be effective.

Selfishness

If I were asked what is the prevailing vice in the world I should say—Selfishness. You may not agree with this at first sight, but look into it and I believe you will come to the same conclusion. Most crimes, as recognised by law, come from the indulgence of selfishness, from a desire to acquire, to defeat, or to wreak vengeance. The average man will gladly give a contribution to feed the poor and will feel satisfied that he has then done his duty, but he is not going to dock himself of his own food and good wine to effect a saving for that purpose.

Selfishness exists in a thousand different ways. Take, for instance, party politics. Men here get to see a question, which obviously has two sides to it, exactly as if there were only one possible side, namely, their own, and they then get to hate another man who looks upon it from the other side. The result may lead men on to commit the greatest crimes under high-sounding names. In the same way, wars between nations have come about from neither party being able to see the other’s point of view, being obsessed entirely by their own interests. Strikes, too, and lock-outs are frequently the outcome of developed selfishness. In many cases, employers have failed to see that a hard-working man should, in justice, get a share of the goods of the world in return for his effort, and not be condemned to perpetual servitude simply to secure a certain margin of profits for the shareholders. On the other hand, the worker has to recognise that without capital there would be no work on a large scale, and there can be no capital without some return to the subscribers for the risks they face in subscribing.

In one’s newspaper every day one sees examples of selfishness when one reads the letters of these small-minded men who, at every little grievance, rush headlong to “write to the papers.” And so it goes on, down to the children playing their games in the streets; the moment that one is dissatisfied at not getting his share of winning he abruptly leaves the scene remarking: “I shan’t play any more!” The fact that he upsets the fun of the others does not appeal to him—unless it be satisfying to his spite.

To Eradicate Selfishness

The Scouting practices suggested in the table of training given in p. 18 tend in a practical way to educate the boy out of the groove of selfishness. Once he becomes charitable he is well on the way to overcome or eradicate the danger of this habit. The minor good turns which are part of his faith are in themselves the first step. Nature study and making friends with animals increase the kindly feeling within him and overcome the trait of cruelty which is said to be inherent in every boy (although, personally, I am not sure that it is so general as is supposed). From these minor good turns he goes on to learn first aid and help to the injured, and in the natural sequence of learning how to save life in the case of accidents, he develops a sense of duty to others and a readiness to sacrifice himself in danger. This, again, leads up to the idea of sacrifice for others, for his home, and for his country, thereby leading to patriotism and loyalty of a higher type than that of merely ecstatic flag-waving.

Fair Play

The idea of fair play is above all the one which can be best instilled into boys and leads them to that strong view of justice which should be part of their character, if they are going to make really good citizens.

This habit of seeing things from the other fellow’s point of view can be developed in outdoor games where fair play is essential, whether it is in “Flag Raiding” or “Dispatch Running.” During the game the strictest rules are observed which mean self-restraint and good temper on the part of the players, and at the end it is the proper form that the victor should sympathise with the one who is conquered, and that the opponent should be the first to cheer and congratulate the winner.

This should be made the practice until it becomes the habit.

These are little points which a Scoutmaster can pay close attention to, since they have a big meaning later on in the character of the boy. The British have always been proverbial for their sense of fair play, whether in prize-fighting or in war. And we have always admired those whom fair play was inherent—even among savages. The Maoris in their war with us in New Zealand showed and instinctive chivalry which appealed strongly to us when we were in the field against them, and it was almost amazing to note the extent to which they expected chivalry in return. On one occasion one heard of their calling for a truce with a white flag because they had run out of ammunition, and asked for time to renew their supply. On another when they had been surrounded for some days in a mountain fastness they sent a messenger under a white flag to inform the British commander that he was camped on their only water supply, and that unless he would let them have some water they would not be able to go on fighting!

Possibly one reason for the ingrained feeling of chivalry in our nation is the fact that the code of the medæval knights took hold of the country so long ago as A.D. 500, when King Arthur made the rules for his Knight of the Round Table which have been the foundation for the conduct of gentlemen ever since that day. He dedicated the Order of St. George. The rules as they were re-published in the time of Henry VII are as follows:—

1. They were never to put off their armour, except for the purpose of rest at night.
2. They were to search for adventures wherein to attain “bruyt and renown.”
3. To defend the poor and weak.
4. To give help to any who should ask it in a just quarrel.
5. Not to offend one another.
6. To fight for the defence and welfare of their country.
7. To work for honour rather than profit.
8. Never to break a promise for any reason whatever.
9. To sacrifice themselves for the honour of their country.
10. “Sooner choose to die honestly than to flee shamefully.”

A further valuable aid to the training in fairness is the holding of debates amongst the boys on subjects that interest them and which lend themselves to argument on both sides. This is to get them into the way of recognizing that every important question has two sides to it, and that they should not be carried away by the eloquence of one orator before they have heard what the defender of the other side has to say on the subject, and that they should then weigh the evidence of both sides for themselves before making up their mind which part they should take.

A practical step in ensuring this is not to vote by show of hands, where the hesitating or inattentive boy votes according to the majority. Each should record his vote “ay” or “no” on a slip of paper and hand it in. This ensures his making up his mind for himself after duly weighing both sides of the question.

In the same way mock trials or arbitration of quarrels, if carried out seriously and on the lines of a law court, are of the greatest value in teaching the boys the same idea of justice and fair play, and also give them a minor experience of what their civic duties may be as jurymen or witnesses later on. The Court of Honour in the Troop is another step in the same direction, and as the boys here have a real responsibility by being members of the Court, the seriousness of their views is brought home to them all the more, and encourages them to think out carefully the right line to take when they have heard all the arguments on both sides.

Thus a Scoutmaster, who uses his ingenuity towards the end of teaching fair play, unselfishness and sense of duty to others, may make ample opportunities, whether indoors or out, for training his Scouts. Of all the subjects with which we are dealing, I believe this to be one of the most important towards self-governing citizenship, though I fear I have only touched upon it in a very sketchy manner.

Service for the Community

Public services offer the best opening for practical training in sense of duty to the community, patriotism and self-sacrifice through expression.

The work of Sea Scouts during peace and during wars in voluntarily taking up arduous duties of Coast-watching was in itself an example among many of the keenness of the lads to do good work, and of their readiness to make themselves efficient where they see a good object. In this direction lies a powerful means of holding the older boy, and of developing on practical lines the ideal of citizenship.

The Boy Scout Accident and Fire Service (Emergency Service) for Towns and Villages is specially applicable to Rovers, and acts as an attractive force to the older boys while giving him public services to train for and to render.

A Troop is organised, equipped, and trained primarily as a fire brigade, but with the further ability to deal with all kinds of accidents that, are possible in the neighbourhood. Such, for instance, as—

• Street accidents, to or through motor-cars, trams, carts, etc.
• Gas, chemical or other explosions.
• Floods or inundations
• Electric accidents.
• Railway accidents.
• Fallen trees or buildings.
• Ice accidents.
• Bathing or boating accidents.
• Savage animals—bulls, dogs, vicious horses, etc.
• Machinery accidents.
• Airplane crashes.
• Shipwrecks, etc.

This would demand, in addition to the drill, rescue and first aid required for fire work, knowledge and practice in methods of extricating and rescuing, and rendering the proper first aid in each class of work; such as—

• Knowledge of gases, and chemicals, both light and heavy.
• Handling of boats, improvising rafts, use of light line.
• Use of lifebuoys, life saving in the water, artificial respiration, etc.
• How to deal with savage animals
• Stopping running machinery.
• How to deal with electric live wires, burning petrol, etc.

In some cases it may be best for each Patrol to specialise in a particular form of accident, but generally if the Patrols practise all in turn they arrive at complete efficiency for the whole Troop.

Organisation for an accident would, however, confer specific duties on each Patrol, e.g., a Patrol of rescuers, first aiders, crowd holders, messengers, apparatus, etc.

The system of calling up on an alarm, and a roster of duty, the collection of necessary apparatus, etc., will vary according to local conditions.

The variety of work to be done supplies a whole series of activities such as should appeal to the boys.

Frequent dummy calls to practise on improvised accidents are essential to attaining efficiency and keenness.

As efficiency becomes evident public interest will be aroused probably to a helpful degree. The scheme will then be recognised as having a double value, an education for the boys, and a blessing for the community.

Programme For Study Patrol

Subject V.—Service to Others

Reconstruction

What Scouting Can Do Towards It

The many questions which have been put to me as to what is our attitude in the Scout Movement towards reconstruction after the war, shows what an amount of interest is already being aroused in that direction among our officers; and this encourages the conviction that is in our power to do a valuable work in that line.

I have often said this before, but have evidently been rather vague in defining exactly what that line is.

Well, considering the difficulty of prophesying what is likely to come after the peace it is not an easy thing even to suggest, much less lay down, a definite scheme.

But a few points are fixed and certain, and they will help us on our way.

In the first place, as someone has said lately, “If the war does not teach lessons that will so dominate those who survive it, and those who succeed them, as to make new things possible, then the war will be the greatest catastrophe… of which mainkind has any record.”

That statement no one will gainsay.

Let us think what is a main evil in our midst that ought to be remedied, and, through the light and experience of war, possibly could be remedied for “those who succeed us,” if proper steps were taken.

To my mind the condition of the lower working (I won’t use the word “class.” I would like to see that word abolished for ever, with all the harm that it has done) men and women must and ought to be bettered.

One obstacle to bringing this about has been the barrier between the “classes,” between Capital and Labour, etc.

And yet we are by nature all fellow-creatures, even of the same blood and family; the class boundary is an entirely artificial erection, and can, therefore, be pulled down if we only set our minds to it. This is one lesson which we may well take to heart from the war.

Indeed, the war has almost done the trick for us with its conscriptions of all, rich and poor without distinction, with its common sharing of hardship and danger, and its common sacrifice for a common ideal at the Front, coupled with the common sorrow and the common service of those behind the scenes at home.

Are we after the war to allow the fellow-feeling thereby engendered to be dissipated by the revival of those miserable party politics and social barriers and industrial quarrels that had brought about such bitter conditions in pre-war days? God forbid!

The war will here have helped us if only we determine to make the best use of it. Our aim should be to mingle class with class, and to bring about a happier and more human life for all, so that the poorer shall reap his share of enjoyment just as much as his more well-to-do brother; the employer should be humanised to the extent of sympathising and dealing squarely and liberally with his employees; the worker should be shown how to use his means to the best advantage in making for himself a better home and a fuller life. Both parties should realise that by combination of effort they can bring about better conditions for each.

Education comes into the question as a key—and mainly education in character.

Unselfishness, self-discipline, wider fellow-feeding, sense of honour and duty should be implanted, and such attributes as enable a man, no matter what his standing, to look beyond his own immediate ledger or bench to see the good of his work for the community, putting into his routine some service for others as well as for himself, developing also some perception of what is beautiful in nature, in art and in literature, so that his higher interests may be aroused, and he may get enjoyment from his surroundings whatever they may be.

These are points of which we in the Scout Movement can do much to impart the elements and to lay the foundations.

The Education Act and the Boy Scout

Character and Culture for All

Lord Crewe spoke recently of the changes which have come over the aims in education. These a few years ago were directed to making children “efficient,” as an improvement on the previous thesis of merely “giving them knowledge”; but this is no longer considered good enough.

Moral qualities are how being aimed at—in fact, character; but the steps for getting these are to a considerable extent nebulous and vague.

Mr. Clynes, during his recent visit to Cambridge, pointed out that “the blot of modern civilisation has been the failure to raise the manual worker from the level of drudge and to secure for him opportunities for culture and recreation.

“The remedy is partly a matter of wages, and of better understanding between employers and employed, and largely a matter of character-training for the man himself.”

“A liberal education for all” is now very much the cry. The new Education Act, it is hoped, will give an opening in that direction. But one cannot help feeling that, after all, character is the first and essential development, and our other Scout training aims in handicraft, health, and service, are not far behind it in value.

This high value is evidently assigned to character by many in the House of Lords during the passage of the Education Bill.

Only by a margin of eight votes did that Bill fail to include the Boy Scouts’ training in its provisions, as an example of practical character education.

Lord Sydenham moved an amendment to the effect that training in character and citizenship should for a definite part of the scheme “on the lines practised by the Boy Scouts,” etc.

The fact that several noble lords spoke in support and that so good a proportion of those present recorded their vote in our favour is a very gratifying indication that were are working on the right lines.

The Act is a great accomplishment in bringing education more up to the needs of the times, but it will need a further Act to bring it on terms with the future.

The Attitude of Labour Towards Scouting

American Approval of our Principles

A very suggestive book at the present critical time, when we are trying to see the right direction in which to point our boys’ noses is The Problems of Reconstruction, published by Fisher Unwin. One among very many of its themes of thought is the view, quoted in his chapter on “The Influence of Vocation on School Education”—namely, that “Education in Continuation Schools should be directed solely towards the development of the bodies, minds, and characters of the pupils, and should be intimately related to their environment and interest.” Giving due elasticity to the meaning of the word “solely” and “environment” is this statement, one can claim that our aims in the Scout Movement accord very closely with the idea of the Workers’ Education Association. And if these embody the views of the Labour generally we are working as is our aim in sympathy with them.

Indeed, in America the Labour Party have made a definite pronouncement on the Scout Movement. On the personal side their opinion of me was distinctly unflattering, though perhaps natural; but on the whole question it was favourable to us.

The American Federation of Labour held an inquiry in Illinois into the aims, methods, and organisation of the Boy Scouts of America, and this was the conclusion they came to.

“In the Boy Scout Movement part is good and part is bad. The bad part comes from England, and was devised by General Baden-Powell…. He was a commander in the Boer War, and could not help seeing how much inferior the British soldiers were to the Boers. He set to work his Boy Scout Movement, which would give the British soldiers the physical stamina of the Boers, and at the same time hold them in subserviency to the employing interest.”

So there you have the objects that underlie Scouting fully exposed!

I never stated these points to in the Handbook, nor do I think they can be quite correct, for I devised Scouting before the Boer War took place; and in that war I never noticed this marked inferiority of the British soldier to the Boer; nor does subserviency fit in with our expressed aim of developing the individual standing in the initiative of the boy.

However, having vented their objection to me the committee eventually took the right line and approved the principles of the Movement in a resolution to the effect that—”Inasmuch as the Movement of the Boy Scouts of America is under the watchful eye of the officers of the American Federation of Labour, your committee recomend that we approve of this organisation, and that we be guided by the conclusions till we feel justified in following some other course.

“We further recommend that the United States Boy Scout organisation (an imitation Movement) be disapproved of, and all other independent movements of similar character, because of their teachings of militarism and blind obedience and subserviency to the employing interest.

“In recommending approval of the Boy Scouts of America, we suggest that this organisation be urged to a constantly closer sympathetic attitude towards the organized Labour Movement in its work and struggle for the achievement of higher material, political, moral, and social standard for the toilers of our country.”

Barring the political side of the question, that is just what we are after. I feel all the more confident now, that our aims in teh Scout Movement will commend themselves to those who are endeavouring to better the conditions of the working man, since we encourage the boy to develop his individuality in character and intelligence, in skill and handicraft, in health and strength, and in service for his fellows; and these are essentially on the line desired for putting the next generation on to a better footing for carrying out for themselves prosperous careers and for enjoying to greater fullness, the life that God has given them.

We want to give to every boy—especially the poorest—his chance to succeed in life.

Appendix

Note.—The following are sample questions such as an examiner could put to candidates for Scoutmasters’ Diplomas, or students could put to themselves on the different subjects of study given in the foregoing pages.

(Questions to be Answered by Candidates)

I. “How to Train the Boy”

1. What would you consider three of the main difficulties of the present system of school education—and how can Scouting be applied to help the schoolmaster in remedying it?
2. What, from personal observation, do you consider are the chief characteristics of a “working boy”?
3. Mention any “Blind Alley” occupation with which you are personally acquainted, or about which you have information. Suggest how Scouting could be applied to remedy its evils.
4. I have two letters criticising the book, Scouting for Boys. One says it is too full of subjects, that a learner cannot possibly take up all of them, and, therefore, the book is confusing. The other says he has tried the training, but has got through it all, and wants a further book with more subjects in it. State what you consider the functions of the book, and give from your point of view any suggestions as to how it would better fulfil its functions.
5. What do we mean by a “bad environment for boys,” and how can Scouting be applied to counteract it?
6. What do you consider is the greatest factor for success in training boys, and out line how this is to be obtained?

II. Character Training

1. What do you consider to be the difference between “Education” and “Instruction”?
2. What is your view of Military Drill as a means of training boys in character? State briefly its advantages and disadvantages.
3. What are the objects, advantages, and disadvantages of the Patrol System—that is, having Patrols as units in the Troop under full control of their Patrol Leaders?
4. How do you start to teach a boy tracking? What is the object of teaching him?
5. Which Scout Badges do you consider best calculated to develop “character” in the boy?
6. Draw up a programme for a day’s work in Camp, particularly for the purpose of training the boys in character. Give your reasons for the different practices selected.

III. Physical Health and Development

1. Can you suggest any better body exercises for boys than the size given in Scouting for Boys? If so, please describe them briefly and give reasons. If satisfied with those in the book, state why you consider them the best.
2. How would you put the matter of sex-knowledge to an average boy of 12 assuming the parents desired you to do so? Give a brief outline showing how you would explain it, and what advice you would give on the subject of impurity. State whether your reply is based on actual experience of teaching boys or on theory.
3. In selecting a site for camp, what points would you chiefly bear in mind?
4. What food diet would you recommend for a camp of poor-class Scouts? Give reasons for your selection, and estimate quantities and cost for twenty boys for one week.
5. How does the work for Missioner’s Badge help a boy to be healthy?
6. It has been suggested that the Scout Movement might give valuable help in the physical development and health of the boys of the nation if it started a regular physical system. For this purpose it has been proposed to institute an “Athletes” Badge in three classes, viz.:—

   First-class.—Boys who are up to the average standard of their age in various details of physical development and who can swim.

   Second-class.—Boys who are similarly up to the standard, but who cannot swim.

   Third-class.—Boys who fail to pass the tests for second-class, but come up to the modified standard.

   Can you suggest the best practical method for carrying out this scheme, taking into consideration such points as—

   (a) The time, knowledge, apparatus, etc., available to the average Scoutmaster.

   (b) The attractiveness to the boy, such as to induce every boy to go in for it.

   (c) The nature of points on which the boys could best be treated?

IV. “Making A Career”

1. What technical training is available in your neighbourhood for a Scout desirous of becoming a joiner (or any other kind of artisan)? What would you do in the way of starting him in his trade career?
2. Give a rough outline of the chief forms of employment of a profitable character in your neighbourhood which are suitable for Scouts. In the case of some one specific calling, give the conditions, such as length of hours, average wages, prospects, etc.
3. What motto would you give the Scout as one to follow in order to be successful in a business career? Give an outline of the points you would impress upon him, using the motto as your text.
4. In what way can Scoutmasters and schoolmasters collaborate with a view to setting boys working for definite careers?
5. In what way can Scoutmasters use the Local Employment Bureau on behalf of their boys?
6. Criticise the regulations for any one of the Proficiency Badges that concerns a boy’s career, and suggest any alterations that seem desirable to you with regard to making this badge more useful or popular.

V. “Service For Others”

1. Assuming that a Scoutmaster may desire to leave the spiritual training of his boys to their pastors and parents, which Scouting activities can he best employ as a practical training that will be complementary to the religious instruction given by them?
2. Selfishness has been outlined as a prevailing vice in our nation. Can you show examples of this and suggest any methods for eradicating it among boys? Do not necessarily adhere to the illustrations given in this book.
3. Suggest points in which Scouts could be prepared for assisting in the defence of the country in case of invasion without involving actual military training.
4. Outline a lesson for a Scoutmaster to give such as would tend to develop a boy’s self-reverence, continence, and self-respect.
5. State what you consider the chief points of value for organising your Senior Scouts.
6. Suggest any ideas for training for keeping up the interest of Old Scouts in Scouting.

[N.B.—By the term “Senior Scout” is meant a youth who is still a Scout in a Troop, but is growing up—say between sixteen and twenty.

By the term “Old Scout” is meant one who has left his troop either on account of age, or because of work, change of location, or other reason which prevents him continuing in his Troop.]

An Example of a Week-end Training Camp (Held in 1914)

This series of week-end camps is being held, partly to encourage Scoutmaster in running their Troops on the Patrol system, partly to enable them to exchange ideas, and therefore to put new life into their Troops, but chiefly to establish study Patrols, as suggested by the Chief Scout. It will be noticed that each camp is based on some part of Scouting for Boys, and also on one of the articles by the Chief for training Scoutmasters.

Dates

The dates for the camp will be—

Duration

Camp will be open at 2 p.m. on Saturday and be struck at 10 a.m. on Monday.

Patrols will be able to leave on Sunday night, if desirous.

Routine

On Saturday afternoon there will be practical work, and in the evening there will be practical work followed by a Camp-fire yarn.

On Sunday morning there will be a flag-post parade and service. On Sunday afternoon there will be addresses on Saturday’s work—treating rather of he moral aspect—followed by practical displays on those points on which Scoutmasters have asked questions the previous night. On Sunday night there will be an open discussion on Scouting.

Addresses

1st Sunday, “Character training.”

2nd Sunday, “Employment.”

3rd Sunday, “The body.”

4th Sunday, “Training the boys.”

Admission

Associations may send Patrols of five. As the Camp will be run entirely on the Patrol system, single Scoutmasters cannot be accepted. This is immaterial whether these Patrols or circles consist of Scoutmasters, Assistant Scoutmasters, Instructors, or potential Officers

Associations may send as many Patrols as they wish.

Applications to attend must be sent to the London Office, through Association Secretaries.

General Notes

Place

This will be announced later, when it is more certain that the Scheme will be supported. It will be somewhere in or near London.

Speakers, etc.

Each week-end will be run by a different man, as no one man is both competent and available to each all the proposed subjects. The speakers will not be announced until I know the amount of support I may expect.

Smoking

No smoking will be allowed in Camp, except round the Camp-fire at night. Scouting for Boys, pp. 193, 194.

Drinks

No drinks will be allowed in Camp, except such as are made by the Patrols in Camp. Scouting for Boys, pp. 195, 196.

Orders

All orders, as far as possible , will be given by whistle signals. Scouting for Boys, p. 92.

Bugles will not be used.

References

Before attending, every Scoutmaster should read up for—

1st week-end.—Scouting for Boys, Chaps. 2 and 5. Chief’s article on “Character Training.”

2nd week-end.—Scouting for Boys, Chap. 3, Yarns 8 and 9. Article, “Handicrafts.”

3rd week-end.—Scouting for Boys, Chaps. 7 and 8. Article, “The responsibility for health.”

4th week-end.—Scouting for Boys, Chap. 10. Article, “Service for Others.”

Programme

1st Week-end.—Individual Character

3 p.m.—Circular rally. Enrolling a Scout. Tent pitching and camp planning.

5 p.m.—Tea in Patrol camps.

6 p.m.—Map reading. Observation and deduction. Nature study in country and in town.

7:30 p.m.—Camp fire. Signal fire, followed by Yarn on “Scout Law” and Patrol system.

2nd Week-end.—Skill and Making a Career

3 p.m.—Circular rally. Bridge building. Knot tying. Pioneer work.

5 p.m.—Tea in Patrol camps.

6 p.m.—Camp expedients. Cooking.

7:30 p.m.—The rifle, and how to use it. Camp fire. Lamp-signaling. Yarn on “Citizenship.” “Employment Agencies,” etc.

3rd Week-end.—Physical Health

3 p.m.—Circular rally. Scout pace and drill. Physical exercises through games and recreational activities.

5 p.m.—Tea in Patrol camps.

6 p.m.—Anatomy. Punctuality—internal and external. Visual Training.

7:30 p.m.—Sense of smell and touch. Cause of loss of them. Yarn, “How to teach boys continence, cleanliness, anatomy.”

4th Week-end.—Service for Others

3 p.m.—Circular rally. Accidents. Life saving.

5 p.m.—Tea in Patrol camps.

6 p.m.—First-aid in practice.

7:30 p.m.—Nursing. Yarn, “How to Train a Troop.”