Robert Robert - Scouting for Boys

Ears

A Scout must be able to hear well. Generally the ears are very delicate, and if they are once damaged you may become incurably deaf.

People are too apt to fiddle about with their ears in cleaning them, by putting the corners of handkerchiefs, hairpins, and so on into them, and also stuffing them up with hard cotton wool. All of this is dangerous because the drum of the ear is a very sensitive tightly-stretched skin which is easily damaged. Many children have had the drums of their ears permanently injured by getting a box on the ear.

Eyes

A Scout, of course, must have particularly good eyesight—he must be able to see a long way off. By practising your eyes in looking at things at a great distance, they will grow stronger. While you are young you should save your eyes as much as possible. Avoid reading by poor light, and sit with your side to the light when doing any work during the day. If you sit facing the light it strains your eyes.

Eye strain is a common failure with growing boys, although very often they do not know it. Headaches come frequently from the eyes being strained. If a boy frowns, it is generally a sign of eye strain.

A Scout, besides having good eyesight, must be able to tell the colour of things which he sees. Colour blindness is a great affliction from which some boys suffer. It takes away a pleasure from them, and it makes them almost useless for certain trades and professions. For instance, a railway signalman or engine-driver or a sailor would not be much good if he couldn’t tell the difference between red and green.

It can sometimes be overcome. A way of doing this, if you find you are rather colour blind, is to get a collection of little bits of wool, or paper, of different colours, and pick out which you think is red, blue, yellow, green, and so on, and then get someone to tell you where you were right and where wrong. Then go at it again, and in time you will find yourself improving, until you have

no difficulty in recognising the colours.

Teeth

A would-be recruit came up to an Army recruiting officer to he enlisted. He was found to be a sufficiently strong and well-made man, but when the doctors examined his teeth they found that these were in bad condition, and he was told that he could not he accepted as a soldier. To this he replied: “But, sir, that seems hard lines. Surely we don’t have to eat the enemy when we’ve killed them, do we?”

Good teeth depend upon how you look after them when you are young, which means that you should keep them carefully clean. Brush them at least twice a day—when you get up in the morning and when you go to bed, both inside and out, with a tooth-brush and tooth powder. Rinse them with water, it possible, after every meal.

A bushman makes a si mple tooth br ush by fraying the end of a dry stick, about six inches long.

Scouts in the jungle cannot always find tooth-brushes, but they make substitutes out of dry sticks, which they fray out at the end, and make an imitation of a brush.

Nails

Soldiers, as well as other people, often suffer great pain and lameness from the nail of their big toe growing down into the toe at the side. This is generally caused by permitting the nail to grow too long, until by pressure of the boot it is driven to grow sideways into the toe. So every Scout will be careful to cut his toenails frequently, every week or ten days. They should be cut square across the top, not rounded, and with sharp scissors.

Finger-nails should also be cut about once a week with sharp scissors, to keep them in good order. Biting the nails is not good for them.

PATROL PRACTICES IN HEALTH

Example will teach much—not just the Patrol Leader’s personal actions but the example given by having open windows when meeting indoors, and open tent doors when camping.

Health can best be taught in camp where there is time and opportunity to give close attention to cleanliness and sound habits.

In camp, remember the importance of rest and plenty of sound sleep. There should be an hour’s rest after the main meal.

Teach the six exercises given in the Yarn, but don’t use them as a drill. Encourage the Scouts to do them daily.

Give each Scout a card on which he can keep a record of his physical measurements. Make arrangements for these measurements to be taken every three months.

GAMES TO DEVELOP STRENGTH

Boxing, wrestling, rowing, swimming, skipping, cock-fighting, are all valuable health aids to developing strength, but climbing is best of all.

Wrist Pushing

Stand with both your arms to the front about level with the waist, cross your wrists so that one hand has knuckles up, the other knuckles down. Clench the fists.

Now make the lower hand press upwards and make the upper hand press downwards.

Press as hard as you can with both wrists gradually, and only after great resistance let the lower push the upper one upwards till opposite your forehead, then let the upper press the lower down, the lower one resisting all the time.

These two exercises, although they sound small and simple develop most muscles in your body if carried out with all your might. They should not be carried on too long at a time, but should be done at frequent intervals during the day for a minute or so.

Staff Tossing

With your right hand grasp your staff near the butt and hold it upright. Then toss it straight up in the air a short distance at first, and catch it with the left hand near the butt as it comes down. Toss it straight up again with the left and catch it with the right, and so on, till you can do it one hundred times without dropping it.

Follow the Leader

The leader goes ahead, doing different exercises. The others follow him, doing everything he does.

The Struggle

Two players face each other about a yard apart, stretch arms out sideways, lock fingers of both hands, and lean towards each other till their chests touch, push chest to chest and see who can drive the other back to the wall of the room or on to a goal line.

Wrist Pushing by Two Boys

Two boys face each other. Each puts out the wrist nearest to his opponent, at arm’s length, presses it against the other’s wrist, and tries to turn him round backwards.

Leg pushing between two boys helps to strengthen the leg muscles

CAMP FIRE YARN NO. 18

HEALTH-GIVING HABITS

Keep Clean - Don’t Smoke - Don’t Drink

Keep Pure - Rise Early Smile

All the great peace scouts who have succeeded in exploring or hunting expeditions in wild countries have only been able to get on by knowing how to keep themselves and others healthy. They had to, because diseases, accidents, and wounds might be suffered by them or their men, and they couldn’t find doctors in the jungles to cure them. A Scout who does not know something about taking care of himself would never get on at all; he might just as well stay at home for all the good he will be.