BOY SCOUT NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 65, 19 March 1925, Page 16

BOY SCOUT NOTES

"THE MAKE UP OF BOYHOOD"

(By "Scouter.")

The following is a report of the meetinj; of the r."M.(J.A. Xroop Committee', held at the V.M.C.A. buildings on 10th March) there being a fair attendance' of members. Plans for the preparing of Scouts of the troop for the- various exams, was discussed. The annual meet in«; of the committee will be held in the third week in April, and the parents of the Scouts are cordially invited to attend, so as to learn what we as a committee have been doing for the trcop during the year. Parents will have an opportunity to vote at this meeting. We are interested in the boy, and with the parents' help and interest we can do. even greater things in the coming year. A meeting of the troop committee and Assistant Scoutmasters of the- Island Bay Troop, is called for this Friday at 8 p.m., in the club room, St. Hilda's JJall. Humber street, The parents of JScouts of the troop' are also invited to attend.

Tlie Wellington Scouts are fortunate, and will be delighted to know that their "instruction den will commemorate its opening with a series of interesting and instructive work. Dr. Adams, of the Kelburn Observatory, will deal with elementary astronomy. Mr. ID. C. Bates with weather signs, etc. Mr. J. C. Andersen (Turubull Library) 'with bird life, etc, Mr. -Richard Tripo with practical puifuit of nature study of insects, butterflies, etc., Mr. Seely with minerals and simple, tests. The Scouts thank these gentlemen in anticipation, . and promise to do their best to learn and profit J>y these opportunities to study nature. The above will, of course, be alternatedj by instruction in Scout first 'aid, signalling, sea Scout, navigation, enter-' ■ <ainimi. and Scout recreation. A course lor scouters in mapping and journey reporting is already in progress under the Commission. "HOW TO DO IT." What shall it profit a nation if it gains the whole world and lose its own boys. Without Exaggeration, one can safely.say that the nation's most valuable, most hopeful, most potential possession is its boys. The God-given energy of the world's boyhood is only waiting for the touch of the master hand to guide it in the .way it'should go, and he who would know how to guide it must study and understand tire boy in all his ways. The greatest manifestation of boy life is boyhood's activity, and. he who would serve'his country well can do no better than accept the aoble. task of seizing the boy's Ted hot enthusiasm, and guiding it along the right lines. The problem is "how to do it." So many try and become discouraged because of failure. Let's get to-' gelhor and find, out how to go about it. .Here is our little Scout anywhere between eight and twelve years, full of "go," and red hot enthusiasm. What is the most noticeable thing about his life? 7.he real boy's Scoutmaster will tell you that the first thing that strikes him about his little Scout is his resemblance to savagery. If lie does not say so in as many words he acts to: wards the boy as though he understood it, anyway. Just think a little, and you will'see that it is true.

The boy loves to fight, to run,' to pilfer, and to explore. He is a creature of God's great outdoors, a creature of the woods and the open, of the camp fire, and the tent under the stars.. The man who has never'taken a crowd of boys to camp, the man who ■ has-never gazed into their eager faces, as lie talked to them round the' camp fire under the stars, has missed one of the greatest things in life. Too often when our boys display these savagelike tendencies, when, they want to fight, to run, to explore, to "be dashing about on some wild adventured we crush them, and all this boundless energy goes to waste. The boy revels in sava cry, and if his tribal; hunting, fishing, fighting, playing proclivities could be indulged they could be so organised and directed as to give far more than the best modern school can give. What a huge bulk of energy stored up in these tendencies lies waitir^ to be used. What a pity it is that so many people, have'tried to crush these natural. interests, and have only succeeded in' harming; the boy, for, mark you, if the boy is not permitted to live his life naturally, then his life has been robbed of its dearest possession. The Scoutmaster who does not understand his boys will say. that to allow a boy to act like a savage is the height of lolly. Nothing can be truer^ but remember that to go against the stream is harder than to go with it. and what the world wants to-day is a man who can take a boy's savage interests and tendencies, and direct them, in such a way, as to produce a man who can claim to be a good citizen. We want an organisation which can take the boy into the open, which can allow him to run, to fight, to explore, to rish, to hunt, to gang together with his mates, to be, m fact, a savage, and yet which can direct these .interests in such a way as to make a good citizen of him. And now. comes the most important point of this article.

The genius of Baden-Powell has provided us with a system which takes the boy into God s great out-of-doors, which allows him to indulge his savage instincts, yet gives him a high ideal to live up to. When the boy becomes a. Scout he can still fight, and hunt, and explore; he can still fish and row, and dash about on wild adventures in the 'company of his .mates, because tho Boy Scout movement hns taken the sav;fgelike tendencies which Mother Nature has' placed in the boy, and is guiding the world's boyhood towards one of "the highest ideals the world has ever known. Scouting has taken the boy out into the open, and there it has enabled him to indulge his natural interests. Do we realise that? In every phase of our work are we striving to give the boy an opportunity of expressing those interests which are his very life's blood? We want to give the boy the opportunity of doing this, because by so doing the boy will pet far more out of life. As Baden' Powell says, "We want to make the boy feel that he is a young backwoodsman not an imitation soldier. ' Romance of the ritual, the patrol emblems and calls, may appear to us respectable mid-dle-aged persons, as all tosh, but to the boy they appeal, and what is more, have an educational value in the bands of those who know how to use them." One of the first steps towards success as a/good Scoutmaster is a realisation of the great fact that the Boy Scout movement is a system which allows the" boy to express his natural instincts, yet tises them to enable him to attain a -high standard of character. Scouters have not realised to the full the enormous value of the movement which is theirs. We have mistaken means for ends, and placed too much emphasis on Scout work alone, and allowed our real aims to be lost sieht of. The world te-day is crying out for men who can cope with the most baffling problems the world haseyer known. It wants leaders—men of strong _ character, who can face calmly the crisis that is coming. Such men seem very few and far between, but the Hoy bcout movement enn help to pro-, cluce them, and for this mercy high heaven be thanked

■Watch out for next week's iivlicle, winch will be entitled "Patrol and the Gang. _ ' Articles for l|,j s cn l llnln should be sent to S.M 56, Roxburgh street, on or beloro Jionday ol each week. '