BLIND SCOUTS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 109, 9 May 1914, Page 10

BLIND SCOUTS

The fact that when the King and Queen opened the new buildings of tho British and Foreign Blind A«sociation, eight blind scout boys from the Worcester College for the Higher Education of the Blind formed the guard of honour j directs attention to a little known fea* , ture of the Boy Scouts movement. Mr. ' E. Walker, Sir Robert Baden-Powell's secretary, in an interview with a repre ' sentative of the Daily Chronicle, gave some interesting dotails of the Blind Boy Seoutfi' work. "They have come into the movement," he said, "entirely ' on their owh initiative, and can now do j practically all scout work except signalling, and tliis they can do among themselves by sounds and touch. The majority can earn their Scout badges if slight modifications of the conditions are made. All blind boys have a wondertul example of what can be achieved, ' notwithstanding their disability, in Captain Towse, V.C., who lost hie sight in performing ah act of gallantry in the South African war, but who, nevertheless, is an active commissioner for Ox- J {orrt "f th* Scouts. I "Already there are blind scout centrps at Liverpool and in Derbyshire. The Liverpool lads qualified in a, fortnight for their tenderfoot badges, &nd know their knots better than their scoutmaster does. "More than one hundred blind boys of the Pennsylvania Blind Institute have beer formedinto a troop of Boy Scouts, and when Sit Robert Baden-Powell was inspecting the Scoutß in New York he 6aw a similar troop composed half of blind boys and half of boys who could see, the latter acting as guides to their friends."