The table shows the increase of Merit Badges awarded during six years of scouting.

It is interesting to note that after swimming, a larger number of scouts qualified for Merit Badges in personal and public health than in any other subject offered. The requirements in these two subjects are here given as an illustration of the thoroughness and scope of the work demanded.

To obtain a Merit Badge for personal health, a scout must:

1. Write a statement on the care of the teeth, and show that his teeth are in good condition as a result of proper care.

2. State a principle to govern in eating; and state in the order of their importance five rules to govern the care of his health.

3. Present satisfactory evidence that he has not been absent from school or work for a period of at least six months as a result of his failure to observe these rules.

4. Tell the difference in effect of a cold and a hot bath.

5. Describe the effects of alcohol and tobacco on the growing boy.

6. Tell how to care for the feet on a march.

7. Describe a good healthful game and state its merits.

8. Describe the effects of walking as an exercise.

9. Tell the dangers of specialization and overtraining in the various forms of athletics, and the advantages of an all-round development.

To obtain a Merit Badge for public health, a scout must:

1. State the chief causes and modes of transmission of each of the following diseases: Tuberculosis, typhoid, malaria.

2. Draw a diagram showing how the house fly carries disease.

3. Tell what should be done to a house which has been occupied by a person who has had a contagious disease.

State what

4. Describe the method used in his community in disposing of garbage. 5. Tell how a city should protect its milk, meat, and exposed foods. are the laws in his community covering this subject, and to what extent they are being enforced.

6. Tell how to plan the sanitary care of a camp.

7. State the reason why school children should undergo a medical examination. 8. Tell how he may cooperate with the health authorities in preventing disease. 9. Produce satisfactory evidence that he has rendered service in some effort recommended by the public health authorities in the interest of public health.

When one considers that in one year nearly 2,000 scouts qualified for Merit Badges in each of these important subjects, the cumulative effect upon the general health, hygiene, and sanitation of the Nation at large, can hardly be overestimated. This is but one of many phases of scouting education but a vastly significant one.

It is noticeable that firemanship and first aid follow next in popularity, both of them subjects the intelligent study and practice of which are of incalculable service in the prevention of and coping with emergencies, education of the most practical and invaluable

sort.

ADVANCED SCOUTING.

A first-class scout who passes, to the satisfaction of the local Court of Honor, Merit Badge tests in first aid, physical development or athletics, personal health, public health and life saving becomes a life scout. A life scout who passes five additional Merit Badge tests becomes a star scout. A first-class scout who passes the tests in first aid, life saving, personal health, public health, cooking, camping, civics, bird study, pathfinding, pioneering, athletics or physical development with 10 additional tests becomes an eagle scout.

These requirements are sufficiently rigorous and demand a considerable amount of specialized training as well as perseverance, determination, and enthusiasm. That boys count the gains worth the pains the facts prove. In 1917, 529 scouts qualified as life scouts, 508 as star scouts, and 219 as eagle scouts.

SCOUTING AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

In 1917, 2,237 troops of Boy Scouts were organized in connection with schools, and 1,557 scoutmasters were also school-teachers, statistics that show the entire compatibility of scouting with other educational interests.

All over the country schools are following Dr. Eliot's hint that the "Boy Scout movement is setting an example that our whole publicschool system ought to follow."

In the high school of Austin, Tex., the Boy Scouts' Handbook is used as a textbook, and scouting may be credited toward graduation, as per specific and detailed conditions set forth in the official course. of study. The State University of Texas offers annually three scholarships to Boy Scouts who have attained the rank of eagle scout. This is a type of close correlation of scouting with the public-school system, which is on the increase, and which is most desirable from the standpoint both of the school and of the Boy Scout movement. Toledo, Ohio, and Chicago, Ill., are among the cities wherein boards of education have by formal resolution, indorsed scouting and recom-. mended its incorporation into the school program.

In Hartford, Conn., the problem of coordination between the scout movement and the public schools was complicated by the system. under which the schools are operated. This system places a committee of three in charge of each school, so that besides winning the approval of the board of education, the movement had to meet and overcome a different set of objections or prejudices with each school, and yet scouting is established in 71 per cent of the public schools in Hartford.

Portland, Oreg., is another city in which scouting is strongly entrenched as an extra school program, the troops meeting in the school buildings, without charge by the board of education for heat, light or janitor service. School swimming tanks have been turned over to the scouts certain evenings of the week, as a result of which 200 scouts were taught to swim. Scouts have voluntarily taken charge of playgrounds, have kept order in the halls of the schools, taken charge of fire drills, and of the raising and lowering of flags on school buildings, have given supervision in lavatories, and made themselves generally helpful. On the other hand, the local Boy Scout organization has actively cooperated with the schools to raise the standard of scholarship, by giving a gold and enameled button to each scout who attained an average of 85 per cent in school studies, or to each scout who improved upon his previous month's record, no matter how poor the record. This button could only be retained from month to month, by meeting the conditions named above. If at the end of the school year it was still in the scout's possession he became the permanent owner of the emblem.

The fact that but one button was forfeited indicates the stimulative value of this cooperation.

The limitations of this report preclude a more extended statement of this development of scouting, but the geographical distribution of the cases cited suggests that the incorporation of scouting in the public schools is not limited to a particular section, but is a very general development.

The following points characterize most troops organized in connection with public schools:

1. Scouting is voluntary on the part of the scout leader and the boy.

2. Scouting is a supplementary activity to the regular school program, the church, and the home.

3. The program of scouting is so planned by the scoutmaster as to cover as much of the boy's leisure time as possible, especially during the period when the scout is acting under the direction of the leader, or when he is practicing scouting on his own initiative.

4. The play spirit should characterize scouting.

5. The formalism of school programs should not be imposed upon scouting. In its flexibility, freedom of choice, and adaptability to individual needs, preferences, and abilities rests much of the appeal of the scouting program.

6. Scouting comprises a set of activities in which the boy is anxious to participate, and which have behind them the principles of the Scout Oath and Law.

7. In the leadership of the troop, character building as the end of scouting must be ever kept in mind.

SCOUTING COURSES IN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.

Courses in scoutcraft and recreational leadership are offered in many univertities and colleges, including the Universities of California, Virginia, Wisconsin, Boston, Columbia, and New York, Reed and Rutgers Colleges and many other schools. These courses are especially designed for the training of scout leaders and others interested in the movement and are planned in cooperation with the National Headquarters Department of Education. They are particularly significant in that they prove that the scout program and method are regarded by authorities as an educational asset.

Boston University offers two $500 scholarships (1918-19) to students whose major interest is the field of leisure time and vocational occupations for boys of scout age.

THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.

Since 1916 the Boy Scouts of America has maintained a department of education whose province it is to promote the interests of scouting in schools and universities, to offer leadership and guidance to scout officials in arranging for scout training courses under local councils, to hold conferences throughout the country in matters connected with the educational aspects of scouting. The establishment of this department has helped greatly to rouse popular interest in the movement and to interpret scouting as a community asset.

SCOUT HANDBOOKS, ORGANS, AND OTHER LITERATURE.

THE BOY'S HANDBOOK.

Since the founding of the scout movement the Boy Scout Handbook has been increasingly in demand. It is already in its seventeenth printing. Two editions of 100,000 each were required in 1917. It is said to be the most popular boys' book in the world and we are told it is not only boys who find its pages worth while, for it is in great demand among the soldiers of our new army, who are given preliminary training similar to that required of scouts. The handbook is the official interpretation of scouting.

SCOUTING AND BOYS' LIFE.

Scouting, the official organ of the movement for scout officials, and Boys' Life, the official scout magazine for boys, also play an important part in interpreting and disseminating scouting.

Boys' Life has an extensive circulation and aims to give boys inspiring and entertaining fiction of the right sort, as well as biography, current history, nature lore, and other worth-while matter attractively presented. A new department conducted by the chief scout executive, "What Every Scout Wants to Know," deals particularly with the war program of the Boy Scouts of America.

Besides these regular publications the editorial, educational, and publicity departments are constantly issuing new pamphlets and articles interpreting the scout movement from educational and other points of view. The war work of the Boy Scouts of America has been so extensive this last year that it has called for a whole set of literature by itself, as well as taking a large proportion of space in Boys' Life and Scouting.

THE LIBRARY DEPARTMENT.

No survey of the educational work attempted by the Boy Scouts of America would be complete without reference to the library department, which is performing an important function in giving leadership to schools and libraries, by making available lists of really worth while boys' books and helping to weed out the cheap and unwholesome so-called "literature" which falls into youthful and undiscriminating hands and sows evil seed.

Every boy's library, the selected list of boys' books which are published in Scout Edition under the supervision of a group of our country's leading librarians, continues in popularity with the boys themselves and has met with so much approbation from libraries that the department is greatly encouraged as to the value of what it is endeavoring to accomplish in giving boys the right sort of reading

matter.