BOY SCOUTS

Hokitika Guardian, 23 November 1928, Page 2

BOY SCOUTS

HOW THEY WERE FOUNDED

(By Sir ROBERT BADEN POWELL.)

TWenly-ono years ago tlie acorn was planted on Rrownsen Island, in Dorset, in the shape of a little group of twenty-one boys. These were taken from all grades and places. Eton, Harrow, Eeast Lon don, and village homes sent their sons. They were well mixed up and put into camp together to learn things—that is through practicing the life of backwoodsmen and the arts of the jungle they picked up health of mind and spirit as well as of .body, and they learnt the great art of playing the the game, of playing.to,the rules with fairness and good temper ,and of playing for the side and not for self. It was a rough-and-ready experiment. In the hands of “boy-men ” that is, of leaders with sympathy and understanding—it panned out a success. One of .those pioneer leaders in that absurd adventure is still one of the veteran leaders in its big advance, Mr P. W. Everett.

A cheap explanatory handbook was next produced. Before many months were passed boys in different parts of the kingdom had been reading it and had taken up scouting for themselves, Tlius the start was automatic. And girls too took it up to the extent that we had to form a special organisation, the Girl Guides, for them. Thus from the one acorn there grew up untended a plant with two steins; and the girl stem grew almost (faster than the other. So that her tree today is bigger by 90,000 than that of the boys.

Then came the war. The Scouts proved themselves. Their services in coast-watching, guarding communications .alarm posts, Government and hospital orderly duties, etc., are too well known to need repetition. Ten thousand of,them laid down their lives at the front.

In spite of this blow, the oak tree went on growing. It pushed its roots the deeper and more widely into the soil not only of England but of the Empire as well. It developed itself in many directions. The training centre for officers established .at Gillwell Park, in Epping Forest, was unique in its methods of education, and has now supplied trained instructors able to form training camps (for officers not only in the United Kingdom but in most of tl]e countries and Dominions overseas.

Thus the training, has been brought to the doors of the scoutmasters with a definite standard to aim for and with the readiest steps for getting there. . Developments have gone on in training the senior or Rover Scouts, whose duty it is to take up some definite form of service for the community. We have, too, our Sea Scout branch; and also a branch dealing with the physically, mentally, and morally defective, whose participation is bi inging them a new atmosphere of health and happiness-giving occupation. Our migration department is placing over 80 boys a month in better openings overseas than they would find within the limits of the Old Country. More especially we are getting hold of the slum boy, and by developing his character and abilities are giving him hop© and opportunity for making his life ft success. In Africa and India, Burma, Ceylon, and the West Indies the boys of the country are linking up through scouting in a new spirit of understanding with the white brother subjects of the King. In these and other ways our tree is growing in bulk and value. But beyond this also it has spread its branches far and wide until, in addition to the British Empire, they overshadow some 42 foreign countries and embrace a brotherhood numbering today a million and three-quarters of active members. It is a brotherhood in something more than name, since the boys interchange correspondence and visits. Over 7,000 British Scouts are visiting their friends across the Channel this summer, and troops from five different countries are at present in England. And this means millions more of men in the population who have been trained as Scouts in the same ideals of mutual peace and 1 good will. These again are backed by the Girl Guides with like aims among the women voters and nation-leaders of the future. One may see here a true League of Nations in the making. A League where the spirit of good will from the heart prevails and not one brought about for protection through Hear—the dread of war. The surviving members ol the acorn of Brownsea Camp of 1907 are meeting to-day to realize the phenomenal yet healthy growth which their tree has made in this short space of years. In August 1929 it will be possible to seo the tree itself, for its members foregather then in their thousands from all the corners of the earth to celebrate the coming of age of the happy family of the Boy Scouts.