Posts Tagged ‘Baden-Powell’


Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouting movement, had a lot to say about the program. A good source of his thoughts can be found in his book, “Scouting For Boys”. Now that we are in the summer camp season, there is one of B-P’s thoughts that I thought would be a good choice to share with you:

The Value of Camp Life

I CANNOT impress on Scoutmasters too highly the value of the camp in the training of Scouts; in fact, I think that its whole essence hangs on this.

Many Scoutmasters who value the moral side of our training are almost inclined to undervalue the importance of the camp, but the camp is everything to the boys. We have to appeal to their enthusiasm and tastes in the first place, if we are ever going to do any good in educating them.

An eminent educational authority assured me only to-day that our school education is all on wrong lines; that book learning was introduced by the monks in order to kill the more manly training in skill at arms and hunting which, in the Middle Ages, occupied the time of the boys, and which undoubtedly produced so large a percentage of men of character among them. It was done with a narrow-minded aim, and although it has done some good in certain lines, it has done infinite harm to our race in others.

He said: “You should first of all develop the natural character of the boy by encouraging him in the natural athletic exercises which tend to make him manly, brave, obedient, and unselfish; later give him the desire for reading for himself which will eventually lead him on to study for himself. The fallacy of trying to force him to read what the pedagogue wants him to know is the secret of so much ignorance and absence of studious work amongst our lads to-day.”

This same authority would like to see Scouting or some similar scheme introduced into our continuation schools, and attendance at these made obligatory for all boys of fourteen to sixteen.

I hope that his wish may yet be gratified. I believe it will be if Scoutmasters continue in the way in which they have begun and prove to the education authorities in their neighbourhood the educative value which underlies our Movement.

April 1911.

On this Memorabilia Monday I would like to present four books of my collection that share a theme of Scouting History.

The first book is The Boy Scouts: An American Adventure, written by Robert W. Peterson, and published in 1984. It was a book printed for the 75th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. The book is broken down into four parts: 1900-1915, 1915-1935, 1935-1970, and 1970-present (1984). The book is full of black and white and color pictures covering the decades of Scouting. One of my favorite parts of the book shows how to build a tree house designed by Dan Beard.

Scouting With Baden-Powell, written by Russell Freedman in 1967, is a biography of Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouting movement. The book does a good job of covering his life. You need to get through two thirds of the book before it starts talking about Scouting. I received this book for free. The librarian of the junior high school library gave it to me when they were discarding old books they did not feel they needed any longer.

The Boy’s Life Treasury, printed in 1958 by the Boy Scouts of America, is a great book to have in any collection. This 480 page book features  a selection of the best stories and articles from Boy’s Life magazine.My copy of this book is in excellent condition, even if the book jacket is beat up a bit. Amazingly, this book retailed for only $4.95 when it was released. I also own The Best Of Boy’s Life which was published in 2010 for the B.S.A.’s 100th anniversary.

The pride of my Scout history collection is The History of the Boy Scouts of America. It was written by William D. Murray in 1937. This 574 page volume is rich in Scouting history to that point in time, and contains a lot of photographs and sketches. The first photo in the book features William Murray presenting the 5,000,000th handbook to President F.D. Roosevelt. Four Eagle Scouts stand behind the President. I was lucky enough to find a copy of this book that is in excellent condition. If you really want to know the details about the first thirty years of the Boy Scouts of America, this is the book for you.

Do you have any books about Scouting history? Leave a comment and tell us about it.

100 Days of Scouting: Day 14.