CHARACTER BUILDING

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20639, 30 January 1937, Page 17

CHARACTER BUILDING

FORMATIVE INFLUENCE OF SCOUTING To many people outside the Scout Movement its activities appear to be just another of the many calls on a boy’s time, and a further example of the mans’ ways in which their amusement and interest is catered for. Of course Scouting does interest the boys; hence the extraordinary way in which it has spread among boys all oyer the world, and still continues to draw ever-increasing numbers. However, there is a very great deal more in it than just amusement and interest (writes “Rama'' in the “Congregational Monthly.”) All the activities from the time the small boy of eight years joins the Cubs till the young man of 18 to 25 years is a Rover Scout are specially designed to assist in character building. During the pre-adolescent and adolescent period it is, of course, by doing things rather than hearing about them that the boy learns, and it is by doing things that the Gub and Scout develop the desirable tendencies in their characters. The chief lesson that the Cub has to learn is self-controL “The Cub gives in to the Old Wolf," and “The Cub does not give in to himself.” These, the two laws, are continually inculcated by games, jungle dances, and other activities. As the boy gets older and becomes a Scout, the scope of the training is widened to fit in with the widening horizons of the boy. It is out of doors on the hills, camping and hiking, that the main part of the character training is affected. Courage, initiative, endurance, sense of honour, sense of duty, responsibility, resourcefulness, all these are learned not as lessons from a book or subjects of a lecture, but by practice and experience in the little things which form the life of the boy. The activities are carried out, not with an adult always standing by directing and controlling every move, but by the boys themselves, under their own boy Patrol Leaders. They learn by their mistakes, the most effective form ot education. In camp they cannot get water by just a turn of a tap, or heat for cooking from the gas cooker. They have to fetch their water from the creek, and cook their food by the wood fire laboriously coaxed into efficiency. They have to improvise, to ’makedo’ with whatever

may be available in the neighbourhood. This brings out initiative and all their ingenuity. The Patrol Leader, especially, has to look after all E f is Patrol, which brings out his sense of responsibility; but the fact of mutual responsibility is emphasised among all of them. The boys are trusted on their honour to behave as Scouts when on their own. There are occasional lapses, of course, but no amount of talks or lectures will ever develop the sense of honour as trusting the boys will do. Modern civilisation with all its inventions and labour-saving devices, valuable as they are, does not give the same scope to the growing and gradually developing boy to exercise his own powers of resourcefulness and initiative as a simpler life did in the past. A return to such a form of life generally would be unthinkable, even if it were possible. Scouting, however, provides for the boy, during his most impressionable years, the conditions and environment which enable him to develop the fundamental traits of character, which will be of greatest value to him in later life.