300,000 BOY SCOUTS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2622, 2 October 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

300,000 BOY SCOUTS.

Have you seen them ? The boy scouts —young slips of Buffalo Bill, in knickers. broard-brimmed hats, and armed xvith alpenstocks, and all the seriousness that becomes an organisation originated by that great scout-master General Raden-Powell, and noxv numbering 300,000 scouts-—at your service. —To be a First-Class Scout. —

“When the bo- scout movement was inaugurated by Lieutenant-General Baden-Rowcll less than two years ago it xvas intended that it should be used by existing boy organisations,” writes tlie “Telegraph.” “The idea was that scouting should form an auxiliary, and the originator for a moment imagined that in about txventy months nearly 300,000 boys xvould have been brought into the ranks. Such is, however, the case, and it is not too much to say that Bnden-Powoll’s Boy Scouts form the most remarkable instance of a brilliant idea promptly developing into a national movement which history either ancient or modern, affords. “Many people, I know, imagine that all the boy scout does is to march with a long pole,” said Mr. Kyle, the organising secretary, to the “Daily Chronicle.” “There could be no greater mistake. Let me tell you just a few things that a boy has to lie able to do before he can be enrolled as a first-class scout.

“He has to tie four kinds of knots; signal a message in Morse or semaphore at sixteen letters a minute; tell satisfactorily the contents of a shop windoxv after one minute’s observation; go a mile in twelve minutes without scurrying; lay a fire and light it xvitli not more than txvo matches; cook a dish of hunter’s stexv; knoxv the sixteen, principal points of the compass; swim fifty yards; go to a point seven miles axvay and write a report on it; describe the means of saving life in txvo cases of accidents; draxv an intelligible sketch map ; knoxv hoxv to use an axe ; learn to judge distance, size, and numbers xvithin 25 per cent, error; and bring a beginner (or ‘tenderfoot,’ as xvc call them) whom he has trained. —ldeals of the Scouts.—

“So much for practical essentials. From the moral point of view, I may tell you that every scout takes an oath to do his duty to God and tlie King, to help others at whatever cost, and to obey scout-law.

“Stem and exacting as all this may seem,” continued Mr. Kyle, “the mere membership shoxvs hoxv popular is the pursuit of these simple acliiex-ements of efficient manhood. Of course, much of the attraction is the sort of combination of Sherlock Holmes and the bushranger that there is about it all, and the mimic adventures of the training and the camps. Incidentally, hoxvevor, the amount of actual science that a boy learns is enormous, for a good scout must knoxv ex-erv tree and flower, and should ex*en be aide to take the altitude of the stars—with the help of that .much-ridiculed six-foot stick, which is an extremely practical and necessary piece of equipment, xvhether for tent-making, climbing, ditch-jump-ing, or surx r eying.

—To Make Good Citizens. — “One point I should especially like to emphasise, and that is that there is no trace of Jingoism or war-fever about the patriotism that we cultix'ate in the boy scouts. The movement is by no means necessarily military. All that we do is to keep the boys from lounging, listlessness, and bad habits, and to strive to make good citizens of them. One most remarkable thing about the movement lias been the perfect harmony between the classes—sons of xvell-to-do parents and poor boys xvho hax-e to earn an extra penny a xveek to pay for their kit xvorking together like brothers.”—“London Opinion.” ' A corps of boy-scouts has been formed ed in Gisborne, under the leadership of Mr. Gill Inglis, and consists of two patrols, tlie. leaders being E. Forrest and J. Fox. and a corps is to be formed in connection xvitli the Y.M.C.A.