BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18510, 22 March 1922, Page 8

BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT

INTERESTING A DDR ESSES. (From Odr Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, March 21. Tn addresses to the local Rotary Club to-day General Russell and Mr L. M. Isitt. M.P., spoke of the necessity for helping along the Boy Scout movement. General Russell, in tho course of his remarks, said Bible classes, Sunday schools, and secular education bad failed, through no fault of the teachers, to balance the tendencies of the present time to upset established law and order. Character training could not he carried out when boys were grouped in forties and fifties, ami that was why Sir Robert Baden-Powell had insisted that but eight or nine boys should he under the troop officer. Our men must bo taught to' bo not only loyal citizens of New Zealand but loyal citizens of the Empire. for loyalty to the Sovereign means confidence in Ins rule. The Scout movement. he argued l , was doing good work in that direction. Mr Isitt remarked upon the imperative necessity of giving the country’s youth an ethical training, which would break the growth of a sabotage of the most dangerous type. A man who threw a handful of sand into a moving machine might destroy the machine, but that damage was infinitesimal compared with tho injury wrought upon an apprentice by those who dinned into his head : “Don’t, bo a damned young fool, take your time." The impression on the mind of that, youth after two years or so was not to be wiped away in many years. One of the great foundations of character was almost wholly neglected by the average parent, and there wore thousands of children wlio had not tho slightest knowledge of Biblical history, that factor in character training being almost wholly eliminated. There remained love of and pride in country, and love of and pride in work. Mr Isitt spoke of the evidences of the “infernal doctrine of Goslow,” wherever one cared to look, on tho wharves, in Government works, in private enterprises. There still remained the love of country. For yenre be hud watched a section of the House of Representatives, and bad listened and striven to understand their attitude towards the Empire. All that time he had listened for one word of appreciation of their country. , Never bad he beard it.