YOUTH OF WORLD HAS NOT CHANGED

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 112, 5 February 1935, Page 8

YOUTH OF WORLD HAS NOT CHANGED

Lord Baden-Powell’s Ideals

HELPING HANDICAPPED IN LIFE

The youth of to-day is not very much different from the youth of the world when he initiated the Boy Scout movement, said the World Chief Scout, Lord Baden-Powell, of Gilwell, who arrived at Auckland yesterday, in a recent interview.

The war years had made a difference for a time, but the effects of strain and stress had been overcome. Many fathers and brothers who could have trained boys had been killed in the war, but scoutmasters, in many instances, were doing their work. “My belief is that we are put into this world, with all its wonders and beauties and opportunities, to be happy and to enjoy life,” he said. “It is easy enough to give the youngsters pleasure by taking them to cinemas and tea-and-bun parties, but that is merely giving them a momentary enjoyment; it is not happiness. To take themput to live with nature and to see something of the remainder of the world, to give them individually the insight to appreciate the beauties and wonders around them, to give them health and happy companionship, to introduce to them tlie satisfaction to be gained from helping others—those, and other scout activities, all contribute to bring happiness and content as an integral part of their character. Helping the Handicapped. “But it is not merely to the poorer youngsters that we are able to hold out a hand in this direction. For the unemployed young men we can, and do, run camps. Rescued from the danger of becoming human wastage, these lads have picked up hope and health, together with vocational training and the happiness of becoming assets to the nation. We have scouts and guides in large numbers now among those handicapped in life, and, in many cases, for life—among the cripples, the blind, the lepers, and the deaf and dumb. For all these it is a new and exhilarating experience to realise that they are no longer forlorn outcasts, but comrades in a friendly world-wide brotherhood.

“The international aspect of our work has developed entirely automatically, and it holds wonderful promise of possibilities • for the future. In all our British overseas Dominions and protectorates the oncoming generation already shows a considerable leaven of boys and girls linked iu this personal tie. The policy of the movement is to disregard differences of class, creed, colour, or country. All are welcomed into our brotherhood. Supernationalism, party politics, sectarian differences, and class war are such patent dangers to the welfare of a country that they have led to the establishment of dictators in some places to enforce unity. ’ Part of our aim, therefore, in the scouts and guides is to widen the outlook of our future citizens, so that they may see beyond such narrows mindedness, and aim for the good of the country and their fellow-men, rather than for one mere section of a community. International Comradeship.

“The spirit which we have seen growing out of the international comradeship in the Scout and Guide movement gives us every reason to hope that the further development of such feeling is now by no means an impossibility, and that, bj' promoting the movement - yel more widely, we are making at least some practical contribution toward the establishment of peace in the woHd.

“The.standard of our national physical soundness is lamentably low. The conspicuous need in the upbringing of British youth to-day is an adequate system of health culture. Mussolini has shown how, by proper organisation, it is possible, within a generation, completely to alter for the better the health and stamina of a nation. Hitler is organising the training of German j'outh with the same intent. In both cases the training is imposed obligatorily, and with military aims. In the principal Scandinavian countries the remarkable national health and physique are gained by organised education for health’s sake.

“In Britain the Education Department has done much recently to improve matters, but our standard is still regrettably poor. The Scout and Guide movement has steadily practised openair culture, and it is now, as Lloyd George would say, ‘exploring fresh avenues’ for further development. Our aim is not military. We want to make healthy citizens, We want’to extend this culture where it is most needed — to the children of the slums. It-is here that we need the help of more young sportsmen and women willing to take up the crusiade to save lives, and to spread the sunshine of health and happiness in dark places.”