SCOUTING IN BORN

Scouting in Born

                

                                           It was a geo of men and boys that he returned to England from South Africa in 1901, to be showered with honors and to discover, to his amazement, that his personal popularity had given popularity to his book for army men --  Aims to Scouting. It was being used as a textbook in boy’s schools.

                                    

                                                   B.P. saw a great challenge in this. He realized that here was his opportunity to help the boys  of this country to grow into strong menhood. If a book for men on scouting practices could appear to boys and inspire them, how much more would a book written for the boys themselves! He set to work adapting his experiences in India and in Africa among the Zulus and other savage tribes. He gathered a special library of books and read of the training of boys through all ages—from the Spartan boys, the accident British, the Red Indians, to our own day.

                                    

                                     Slow and carefully B.P. developed the Scouting idea. He wanted to be sure that it would work, so in the summer of 1907 he took a group of twenty boys with him to Brownsea Island in the English Channel for the first Boy Scout camp the world had ever seen. The camp was a great success. And then, in the early months of 1908, he bought out in six fortnightly parts, illustrated by himself, his handbook for training, Scouting for Boys ----- without dreaming that this book would set in motion, a Movement which was to affect boyhood of the entire world.

                                   

                                                       Scouting for Boys had hardly started to appear in the book shop and on the newsstands before Scout patrols and Troops began to spring up- not just in England, but in numerous other countries.

Learn to Look after yourself

            The truth is that men brought up in a civilized country have no tranining whatever in looking after themselves out on the veldt or plains, or in the backwoods. The consequence is that when they go into wild country they are for a long time perfectly helpless and go through a lot of hardship and trouble which not occur if they learned, while boys, to look after themselves in camp, They are just a lot of “tenderfoots”.

            They have never had to light a fore or to cook their own food- that has always been done for them. At home when they wanted water, they merely had to turn to the tab- therefore they had no idea of how to set about finding water in a desert place by looking at the grass, or bush, or by scratching at the sand till they found signs of dampness. If they losts their way, or did not know the time, they merely had to ask somebody else. They had always had houses to shelter them and beds to lie in.  They had never had to make them for themselves, nor to make or repair their own boots or clothing.

            That is why “ tenderfoot” often has a tough time in camp. But living in camp for a Scout who knows the game is a simple matter. He knows how to make himself comfortable in a thousand small ways, and then when he does come back to civilization, he enjoys it all the more for having seen the contrast.

            And event here, in the city, he can do very much more for himself than the ordinary mortal, who has never really learned to provide for his own wants. The man who has to turn his hand to many things, as the Scout does in camp finds that when he to many things as the Scout does in camp finds that when he comes into civilization he is more easily able to obtain employment, because he is ready for whatever kind of work may turn up.