BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18760, 13 January 1923, Page 10

BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT

OVERSEAS MIGRATION SCHEME. PAPER BY SIR ALFRED PICKFORD. IMMIGRATION OF GIRL GUIDES SUGGESTED. IFrom Oub Own Cokbespondent.l LONDON, November 30. Before a meeting of tho Royal Colonial Institute this week, Sir Alfred D. Pickford, who is on the eve of a visit to Australia and New Zealand, read a paper on The Boy Scout Movement; What it ia and, Especially, What it is Not.” As Commissioner for Oversea Scouts and Emigration, Sir Alfred is especially interested in a movement to settle Scouts of this country in the overseas dominions, and the presence of Mr T. C. M'Naughten, vicechairman of the Overseas Settlement Committee, added interest to the meeting. Although Scout law is familiar to a very large section of the younger generation throughout tho world, the speaker’s explanation of the movement, its methods, its aims and objects, probably came as something new to the adult audience. “You will notice,” he said, “that there is not a single negative in the code. -he Chief Scout is constantly urged to add to tho law that a Scout may not swear, may not smoke, may not tench alcohol, and so on. The chief’s refusal to accept such suggestions seems to show true insight into, boy psychology, for obviously there can iit be a better way of making a boy want to do a thing than by telling him not to. He was dealing with boys, not angels, and felt that if a Scout succeeded in being true in the main to ilia Scout law, ,he had the best chance of avoiding habits of unwisdom. There is the further reason that the law is as binding on tho Scout officer as on tho hoy, and it would be folly to pretend that tobacco or alcohol are regarded by the majority of men as wrong. GOOD CITIZENSHIP.

“The claim has already been made that the method of training to good citizenship constitutes a revolution in educational method. It may bo argued that the idea is not entirely no"’. Bo it eo. It is still true that the bcout movement can claim to be the first to introduce it on a large scale and show it to the world in terms of actuality. That method is based on procuring discipline from within as opposed io authority from without, whether with a stick or otherwise. It is founded on the belief that there is always good in every boy, a great deal of good in most boys, and that many apparently bad boys are the very best hoys, and are only suffering from misdirected energy. It opposes strongly the still prevalent belief that if a boy is doing what he wants he is probably doing wrong. It holds firmly to the opinion that a boy is meant to be happy, and it shows him how happiness is to be pursued in a right way, and that that form of happiness is the real one.”

The lecturer pointed out that the movement was non-military but emphatically not anti-military. “The duty of every citizen to take his part in the defence of the security and honour of his country is recognised and insisted on,” he said. “Were it otherwise wo would have no reason to be proud of the fact that 10,000 Scouts are known to have given theix lives in the Great War, and that the record of war honours won by Scouts is high. Wo perpetuate, by the award, on a very high test, of the Cornwall badge, the memory of the sailor boy of that name, who, mortally wounded in the Battle of Jutland, stood by his gun and calmly awaited death. • But all this is _ consistent with a strictly non-military attitude. Our object is citizen training, and it is obvious that, if w© succeed in this our boys will in time of need make better soldiers, but equally they will be better clerks, lawyers, doctors, artisans, clergymen, or whotever they may adopt as their calling.

KNIGHTS OF PEACE. “ The public is apt to judge us wrongly because we have bugles and ■ bands, and march without confusion. But so do processions of strikers, unemployed, and the like. So far from encouraging militarism, the movement teachce practical brotherhood, the lack of which has been responsible for all wars. We claim that our boys are Knights of Peace, and not of War, and if the movement only receives encouragement enough they will in time to come do much to diminish the risk of war. Thirty-one nations are now members of an institution called the International Scout Bureau, tending to bring the boys of different nations together in the bonds of mutual respect and understanding by the interchange of visits and exchange of letters,” Describing the training centre for Scout officers at Gill well Park, in Epping Porcet, Sir Alfred said: “It ip run as a Scout troop with the camp chief as scoutmaster, and, from grey-haired commissioners to assistant scoutmasters, they all become, not in name but in fact, boys again. You will understand what I mean when I say that that great Imperialist, Lord Meath, at an age which I dare not mention for fear of hie wrath, was one of the first pupils to attend, and there took orders from his patrol leader who was at ordinary times his under-gardener! A portrait of bis Lordship clad in the robes of his high rank, but inscribed ‘ Scout Meath,’ hangs in the house at Gillwell Park. Not only all ages, but all classes, attend the camp. One course included undergraduates from the universities and Yorkshire coal miners at that time on strike. They must have learnt something from each other. The last course of this year included representatives from nine foreign nations, Czechoslovakia, Holland, Finland, France, Egypt, etc. Already the influence of this specialised training has been felt, and ‘knowledge which is power’ will be increasingly at the disposal of the rising generation, A training camp w*s run in Calcutta on Gillwell Park lines last February, and. it shows how fundamental the system of training is that, though there were 12 Europeans and 26 Indians, some of the latter orthodox Brahmins, the brotherly feeling was immediately roused and continues. One schoolmaster at that camp said he had taught boys for 39 years, and had had fo wait for that camp for true inspiration. Another schoolmaster in England, who .had been teaching for 25 years, and has been in the Scout movement for five years, said he had missed much in the first 20 years. Examples could be multiplied indefinitely." AN IMPEBIAL WORK. “In an institute such ns this, which played a noble part in preserving our Empire in days gone by and which does such important work now, it will be of interest to know that wo -have started, experimentally, a migration department at Imperial Headquarters, and already several young men have sailed for Australia, and many are applying. This is Imperial work of the highest character, and in offering to the dominions young men who have had the benefit of Scout training, we shall not appeal in vain for sympathy. But no movement can live on sympathy. 1 am not here to beg, but I would be leaving the picture of our movement unfinished were I not to say that we are grievously in want of money

For love of the work our staff is unoerpaid and I fear we are already mortgaging the future, and yet our Imperial effort is pitifully cramped loir want of 1 funds. The minions and colonics want men from Gillwel' Park to s.asist in starting training schemes. We could employ half ft doyen, whoso work would hasten the development of the movement and knit still closer the bonds of Empire. Then again we have particulars of a training farm in one dominion which v/e could get cheaply, but it i* hardly worth while examining the scheme, for we have no money to purchase or run it. Other needs are-conatantly arising. It is a. remarkable fact that one of the biggest gifts ever received, so far as I can ascertain, wa« the Gillwell Park Eatate, valued at £IO.OOO When it is remembered: that the success or the ideals for which, in common with many other organisations, the Scout movement stands, will mean reduced expenditure m armaments, jails, hospitals, etc., it ia pathetic, when the movement is expanding so rapidlv and naturally requires money for Imperial and world development, it should not be forthcoming.”

SIR JOSEPH COOK’S TESTIMONY. Sir Joseph Ccok, who presided at the meeting, told some amusing and interesting experiences of the effect of the movement on the boys of Australia. He thought that there was no need to stress the fact that the movement was non-military. It was tho fundamental duty of everybody in a country of democratic citizenship to defend it like any other country from marauding hands. It was certain that no man might he a good Scout without being better able to keep intruders out; “I think that the leader of this movement will come to be regarded as one of the greatest personalities of this or any other century.” They wanted men in tho new lands who were capable or hewing their way into the primeval places, and he know of no better training than that the scout received for producing the right stamp of settler. A SUGGESTION TO THE GIRL GUIDES.

Mr M'Naughten, vice-chairman of the Overseas Settlement Comfnittec, spoke of the conditions which necessitated an energetic immigration policy. There were 2000 additional people every week to subsist on the industries of this country. He suggested that if possible reception camps should lie established in the oversets conntries. Boy Scouts going out might then take work with the farmers for two or three months while still under the superintendence of the scout masters. They would thus become conversant with the new conditions and be able to make their own choice of work. Parents in this country would not permit their children to go abroad unless they were assured of a proper official and non-official reception being given to them. Any scheme of juvenile migration would not commend itself to Labour unlees the arrangements provided adequately and * h ° r onghly for the safeguarding and the lutuie care of tho -juvenile overseas. While the Overseas Settlement Committee approved of the Boy Scout Immigration Scheme, they felt _ that it was necessary that provision should be made ter thl Ration of girls in numbers. This was a matter for the author! ties of tho Girl Guides to tako jip. and his message to them would be to let them say whether they could arrange for migrahon on at least as large a scale as the Boy Scouts have in contemplation.