THE CHIEF SCOUT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21431, 4 September 1931, Page 16

THE CHIEF SCOUT

FURTHER VOYAGES EDUCATION IN NEW ZEALAND. (From Oub Own Correspondent.) LONDON, July 16. Someone With a journalistic bent was fortunate enough to see the Chief Scout when he came up to London for a few hoifrs, and has recorded some of the latter’s observations in the Evening News. Lord Baden-Powell is naturally pleased to have a few days’ rest at his home in Hampshire. His desk at the Boy Scout headquarters was covered with maps and time-tables (writes the contributor to the Evening News). London has become to him merely another port of call. ' ■

“ For the next two or three days,” said Lord Baden-Powell, “ I shall be busy dealing with routine matters and clearing up the accumulation of work after my tour. “ Then I shall be off again, heading for Austria and other countries on the Continent.” He jumped up from his chair at the desk and paced the office with a springy stride. “I ffind it difficult to sit down for any length of time,” he said. “ When you have once fallen to the lure of travel it makes you feel eager to be wandering again—even at 74.” Lord Baden-Powell has the traveller’s eye for detail. During his tour, he has covered thousands of miles, met every type of personality and lias compared conditions abroad with those at home. “ They are fine boys and girls in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa,” he said, “but I cannot understand why, in those countries, where opportunities for expansion are so great, they should be herded together in crowded communities.

MASS-PRODUCTION METHODS. “In Australia and New Zealand they are following the example of this country and bringing up children by mass-production methods of education.

“ That system is all wrong. In this country the education authorities are making a great mistake, and it is a mistake which is being copied the world over.

“ The mind of the modern boy and girl has changed. I have watched it changing since the Scout movement began 23 years ,ago. But the minds of those" who minister to their education are in the same old rut.

“ Modern youth demands freedom and the "absence of .irksome restrictions. It has no use for reading,, writing and arithmetic. It wants to be unfettered and unrestrained.

“ Our boys and girls clamour for self-expression,” be said, “ and our education authorities pack them together in class-rooms and evolve a mass production model. “ Can we survive if we continue to hold the theory that children should be equipped for the world by a process similar to that used for turning out a cheap motor car?

“ There should be smaller classes in, schools and every child should be carefully nurtured.” Lord Baden-Powell smiled as ho concluded: “It is about 23 years since the world said that the youngsters who were then joining the Scout movement would grow up to be wild and irresponsible. Those boys are the best type of men in the world.”