SCOUTS AND GUIDES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26746, 15 April 1948, Page 4

SCOUTS AND GUIDES

It is given to few people to initiate a movement which has won in their own life-times a firm following in almost every part of the world. There are still fewer of whom it can be said that the work of the husband has been so fully shared by the wife that it has virtually doubled its appeal. This is the achievement of the late Lord Baden-Powell and of Lady Baden-Powell in connection with the Scout movement. They have created something" which will continue to be a unique living memorial to their lives and work. They have also founded a movement which has been of real importance in the world for 40 years and which can exercise an increasing influence in the cause of internationalism. In 1907, when General Baden-Powell retired from the army, the highest military rank was within his grasp but he had already perceived a task to which his energies and his talent for organisation could be usefully devoted. In that yezfr the first Scout camp was held, and within 12 months he had embarked on the task of organising the movement throughout the Empire. During the war his military knowledge was brought to bear on the territorial forces, but when peace came he returned gladly to the Scout movement and the work of extending it throughout the world. In 1920 the first International Scout Jamboree was held, and in that same year he secured the charter of the Girl Guides. He himself was World Chief Scout; Lady Baden-Powell became World Chief Guide. The Scout movement was founded on laws which General BadenPowell had himself evolved during his long years of campaigning but its inspiration was the direction and development of the natural energies of youth. It taught “self-reliance and honour in the honourable ways of peace.” It demonstrated to the world what a, useful and necessary factor the youth of a country could be in time of stress—a lesson which Hitler was later shamefully to pervert. The value of the Scout movement was revealed during the First World War, and in the recent war both the Scouts and the Guides performed work of national importance. The survival of the movement as a world force was proved by the holding of an international jamboree soon after the cessation of hostilities. To-day, as Lady Baden-Powell said at a civic gathering in her honour, Scouting and Guiding were no

longer merely activities for children but a mode of life doing something to uphold the hopes and the courage of young people and developing the sterling qualities which they would require in the work of the future. The visit of Lady Baden-Powell, her third to this country, is another ex ample of the tireless activity she has displayed in her self-imposed task and demonstrates how fully she has identified herself with the ideals of her late husband. She has justified her position as World Chief Guide to the full and has set an example by her energy and enthusiasm which should be rewarded by a renewed life in the movement in New Zealand.