VALUE OF SCOUT MOVEMENT

Southland Times, Issue 24533, 6 September 1941, Page 11

VALUE OF SCOUT MOVEMENT

Stirring Appeal By Governor-General (P.A.) WELLINGTON,. Sept. 5. ‘However hard pressed we may be strugele we mus *' never forget the young girls and boys who have got to win the peace for , Christian democracy when we have won the war against pagan tyranny,” said the Dominion Chief Scout, Sir Cyril Newall in making a stirring appeal for the Scout movement at the annual meeting of the Dominion Council of the Boy Scouts Association (New Zealand Branch) in Wellington today. “We are fighting this war for the future of mankind, fighting to ensure that succeeding generations shall enjoy that freedom of thought and action without which the whole Englishspeaking world knows that life would not be worth living,” he said. “Our constant care, therefore, must be that the children of today shall be brought up to recognize the value of freedom, and since true freedom demands selfdiscipline we must see to it that they are given a sense of responsibility to the community as a whole without which Democracy must fail. We must ensure that they realize the immense opportunity which will be theirs. We must somehow help young boys and girls to withstand the constant battering of the waves of propaganda and corruption which will inevitably surge from the strongholds of German youth thirsting for revenge. If we do not prepare them fully to play their part oui- victory will be a greater failure than that of 1918, and we shall be to blame.”

His Excellency continued that there was no doubt as to the power which education weilded either for good or evil. What Hitler had done in Germany proved how immense that power was. Hitler had enlisted the honourable instincts of self-sacrifice and devotion to serve his materialist and pagan ends. That was the tragedy of Germany and of the whole world. Everything possible must be done to ensure that those same instincts, which were certainly not lacking in the children of the British Empire, were enlisted in the service of civilization and Christianity. In the Boy Scouts and Girl Guide movements they had a system readymade to carry out their object. “Every child in New Zealand should be a Scout or a Guide or a Wolf Cub or a Brownie. That must be our aim,” His Excellency added. If the country was to derive the full benefit which this great movement could give it they must not lose touch with the Scouts and Guides as they grew up. “Once a Scout always a Scout” must be a reality and not merely a catchword. He hoped, therefore, that an Old Scouts’ Association would be formed as soon as possible.

His Excellency concluded that he was convinced that scouting could do more than anything else to fit the children of New Zealand to carry the vast responsibilties which would face them when they grew up.