THE BOY SCOUTS.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1640, 12 May 1925, Page 4

THE BOY SCOUTS.

NOT much has been heard of late months of the activities of the Te Awamutu branch of the Boy Scouts organisation, but probably they are still doing their good work quietly. Every boy accepts as an obligation the exhortation to do at least one worthy deed daily. It is announced in the southern papers that there is to be a great impetus given the Boy Scout movement this year, owing to the intention of a party of Boy Scouts representative of all parts of Australia to attend the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition at Dunedin in a few months' time, and all being well, there will be a large scouting pilgrimage from various parts of the Dominion to Dunedin to attend the Grand Jamboree so peculiar to Scout assemblies. We read that the 'New Zealand Government is very properly giving material encouragement to the project, so that if the local troop is in active being and •there is a desire that Te Awamutu should be represented -at the Jamboree arrangements should be put in train right away. That any representatives from this part of the Dominion will receive a warm welcome at the assembly is assured. No doubt we shall soon hear what form.the Government's assistance is to take, but probably it will be in the direction of some reduction in the fares. There are few in this Dominion who have no goodwill towards the Boy Scout movement, but some are a little hazy as to the aims and objects of the organisation. It is seventeen years since Sir Robert Baden-Powell, happily inspired, started the Boy Scouts' movement, to which the Girl Guides' branch was subsequently attached. The enterprise quickly engaged public approval, and though it has had its incidental ups and downs, there can be little doubt that it is permanently established. The founder's avowed object was to promote good citizenship in the rising generation; and, regarded as a broad generalisation this was an effective way of expressing, the ideal which he had in view. Dr Arnold, the famous head master of Rugby, once remarked: "It is all very well to say that 'boys will be boys,' but it is necessary to impress them with the fact that they will be men." Scouting teaches that lesson, while fully recognising the breezy privileges belonging to boyhood. It does not engeider priggishness or precocious self-

importance, though it teaches that the spirit of willing service cannot be kindled too early, and that youth may envisage and anticipate some of the responsibilities of manhood without losing a jot of its gladsome freedom "You see that boy smiling; you think he's all fun; but the angels smile, too, at the good he has done." It has been said, with general truth, that "scouting will make a man of your boy, and the sort of man you would wish him to be." Loyalty (in the largest sense) self-reliance, sensitive conscientiousness, handiness, width of outlook, cheery and helpful camaraderie, are all within the province of the scout mission. And —a point which has to be strongly emphasised encouragement to militaristic views is not within that province. The imputation of militarism is a libel which has undoubtedly had an injurious effect upon the movement. Critics, more concerned with partisanship of one kind or another than with patriotism, have tried to spread the notion that the Boy Scouts inevitably become imbued with the glamour of m'artial ideas. We are convinced that there is no basis for this legend. "Scouting is not a military movement: we are out to make good individual citizens, not a crowd of imitation soldiers," to quote one of the twelve salient points that have been mentioned in an instructive prospectus. It is true that the training for good citizenship includes a recognition of defensive responsibilities. Most of the scouts know, without systematic teaching, that they may be called upon to help in protecting their country in some hour of peril, and that it is their sacred duty to make and keep themselves physically and morally fit for such an emergency. If that is "militarism," the more we have of it the better. No misgivings need be entertained in regard to the wisdom of supporting the Boy Scouts' movement, and it may be conjectured that whatever financial assistance may 'be required in support of the Exhibition Jamboree project will be readily forthcoming.