Robert Baden-Powell - Scouting for Boys

Editor’s Note:

The reader is reminded that these texts have been written a long time ago. Consequently, they may use some terms or use expressions which were current at the time, regardless of what we may think of them at the beginning of the 21st century. For reasons of historical accuracy they have been preserved in their original form.

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PREFACE

Scouting has been described by more than one enthusiast as a revolution in education. It is not that.

It is merely a suggestion thrown out at a venture for a jolly outdoor recreation, which has been found to form also a practical aid to education.

It may be taken to be complementary to school training, and capable of filling up certain chinks unavoidable in the ordinary school curriculum. It is, in a word, a school of citizenship through woodcraft.

The subjects of instruction with which it fills the chinks are individual efficiency through development of — Character, Health, and Handicraft in the individual, and in Citizenship through this employment of this efficiency in Service.

These are applied in three grades of progressive training for Wolf Cubs, Scouts, and Rovers. Their development, as this book will show you, is mainly got through camping and backwoods activities, which are enjoyed as much by the instructor as by the boy; indeed, the instructors may aptly be termed leaders or elder brothers since they join in the fun, and the boys do the educating themselves.

This is perhaps why Scouting is called a revolution in education.

The fact is true, however, that it aims for a different point than is possible in the average school training. It aims to teach the boys how to live, not merely how to make a living. There lies a certain danger in inculcating in the individual the ambition to win prizes and scholarships, and holding up to him as success the securing of pay, position, and power, unless there is a corresponding instruction in service for others.

With this inculcation of self-interest into all grades of society it is scarcely surprising that we have as a result a country divided against itself, with self-seeking individuals in unscrupulous rivalry with one another for supremacy, and similarly with cliques and political parties, religious sects and social classes, all to the detriment of national interests and unity.

Therefore the aim of the Scout training is to replace Self with Service, to make the lads individually efficient, morally and physically, with the object of using that efficiency for the service of the community.

I don’t mean by this the mere soldiering and sailoring services; we have no military aim or practice in our movement; but I mean the ideals of service for their fellow-men. In other words, we aim for the practice of Christianity in their everyday life and dealings, and not merely the profession of its theology on Sundays.

The remarkable growth of the Scout movement has surprised its promoters as much as its outside sympathisers. Starting from one little camp in 1907, of which this book was the outcome, the Movement has grown and expanded automatically.

This points to two things: first, the attraction that Scouting has for the boys; secondly, the volume of that innate patriotism which underlies the surface among the men and women of our nation in spite of the misdirection of their education towards Self. Thousands of these form a force of voluntary workers, from every grade of society, giving their time and energies for no reward other than the satisfaction of helping the boys to become good citizens.

The teaching is by example, and the boys are quick to learn service where they have before them this practical exposition of it on the part of their Scoutmasters. The effects of this training where it has been in competent hands have exceeded all expectation in making happy, healthy, helpful citizens.

The aim of these leaders has been to help not merely the promising boys, but also, and more especially, the duller boy. We want to give him some of the joy of life and at the same time some of the attributes and some of the opportunities that his better-off brother gets, so that at least he shall have his fair chance in life.

All countries have been quick to recognise the uses of Scouting, and have in their turn adopted and developed the training exactly on the lines given in this book.

As a consequence there is now a widespread brotherhood of Boy Scouts about the world numbering at present some 6,000,000 (1954) members, all working for the same ideal under the same promise and Law, all regarding each other as brothers, and getting to know each other through interchange of correspondence and personal visits on a considerable scale.

It needs no great imagination to foresee vast international possibilities as the outcome of this fast-growing brotherhood in the near future. This growing spirit of personal friendship and wide-minded goodwill among the future citizens of the nations behind it may not only give it that soul, but may prove a still stronger insurance against the danger of international war in the future. This may seem but a wild dream, but so would it have been a wild dream had anyone imagined forty years ago that this little book was going to result in a Brotherhood of over six million Boy Scouts to-day and a corresponding sisterhood of some three and a quarter million Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

But such is the case.

And such vision is not beyond the range of possibility, if men and women come in to take their share in the promotion of the work.

The co-operation of tiny sea insects has brought about the formation of coral islands. No enterprise is too big where there is goodwill and co-operation in carrying it out. Every day we are turning away boys anxious to join the Movement, because we have not the men or women to take them in hand. There is a vast reserve of loyal patriotism and Christian spirit lying dormant in our nation to-day, mainly because it sees no direct opportunity for expressing itself. Here in this joyous brotherhood there is vast opportunity open to all in a happy work that shows results under your hands and a work that is worth while because it gives every man his chance of service for his fellow-men and for God.

Old Socrates spoke truly when he said, “No man goeth about a more godly purpose than he who is mindful of the right upbringing not only of his own, but of other men’s children.”

B.-P.

N.B.:The statistics on membership have been brought up-to-date (1954) and are three times as large as when B-P. last revised this preface.

EXPLANATION OF SCOUTING

N.B.— Sentences in italics throughout the book are addressed to Scoutmasters (instructors).

By the term “scouting” is meant the work and attributes of backwoodsmen, explorers, and frontiersmen.

In giving the elements of these to boys we supply a system of games and practices which meets their desires and instincts, and is at the same time educative.

From the boys’ point of view Scouting puts them into fraternity-gangs which is their natural organization, whether for games, mischief, or loafing; it gives them a smart dress and equipment; it appeals to their imagination and romance; and it engages them in an active, open-air life.

From the parents’ point of view it gives physical health and developnzent; it teaches energy, resourcefulness, and handicrafts; it puts into the lad discipline, pluck, chivalry, amid patriotism; in a word, it develops “character”, which is more essential than anything else to a lad for taking his way of life.