Boy Scouts: It Was Fun While It Lasted

“A boy is not a sit-down animal.” – Robert Baden-Powell, Founder of the Boy Scouts

By David Churchill Barrow

Baden-Powell’s military career was controversial, but that was inevitable, given that his wars were not against the conventional armies of Western European nations, but against Matabele, Ashanti and Zulu tribesmen, as well as the resourceful and tough-as-nails Dutch Boers of South Africa, who were pioneers in irregular warfare. (Note: kommando is a Boer word). It sickened him to see young lads from the slums of Liverpool and Manchester get killed far from home, for want of simple skills like reading a compass, following or disguising a trail, camouflage, etc., and so he wrote manuals such as Reconnaissance and Scouting and Aids to Scouting. Upon returning home, he was surprised to find these works popular with boys and various boyhood organizations, and so he converted them more directly for this purpose with his seminal work, Scouting for Boys, and thus the Boy Scouts were born.

Photo by Internet Archive Book Images