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EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE BOY SCOUTS.

By LORNE W. BARCLAY.

Director of the Department of Education, Boy Scouts of America.

CONTENTS.-The scout movement.-Democratic character of the movement.-Nonsectarian and nonpartisan.-Scout leaders.-The plastic age.-Growth and extent of the movement.-Scouting and education. The scout program.-Scouting and the public schools.-Scouting courses in colleges and universities.-The department of education.-Scout handbooks, etc.-The library department.-Scouting and the movies.-Scouting and war service.-Scouting and juvenile delinquency.-Scouting and soldier making.

THE SCOUT MOVEMENT.

The scout movement makes no claim to supersede the work of home or school or church. On the contrary, it aims to supplement these institutions and to cooperate with them in every practicable way in a sane, all-around development of American youth. Scouting has been described as the process of making real boys into real men by a real program that works. This program is adapted to the boy's leisure hours, but its principles are the kind that permeate every phase of his life, becoming part and parcel of himself. Character development is the keynote of scouting. By precept and practice it instills ideals of courage and honor, cheerfulness and kindness, loyalty and obedience, cleanliness of mind and body, faithfulness to duty, devotion to country, reverence to God. By his oath the scout pledges himself to "help other people at all times," to keep himself "physically strong, mentally awake, morally straight."

He is a better son and brother, a more alert student, a heartier adherent to the church of his affiliation because he is also a good scout. Later on he will be a more responsible and valuable American citizen for his scout training now.

DEMOCRATIC CHARACTER OF THE MOVEMENT.

Scouting knows no bounds of class, or creed, or race. It speaks the universal language of world boyhood. It is the great melting pot of American youth. It aims not to run every boy into one groove, but to help every boy to develop into the fullest manhood of which he is capable, an individual in the truest sense, with recognized responsibility to himself and society.

NONSECTARIAN AND NONPARTISAN.

The scout movement is nonsectarian and attempts no formal religious instruction. Nevertheless, its ideals are in substantial accord with those of the modern church, in their emphasis upon the

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service of God, the brotherhood of man. Though having no sectarian bias, the movement numbered among its scoutmasters in 1917, 1,394 Sunday school teachers, 964 Y. M. C. A. workers, and 103 ministers; 7,319 troops were on record in 1917 as organized under the jurisdiction of religious institutions. Thus the cordial mutual relation between the church and the Boy Scouts of America is attested.

From the beginning the Boy Scouts of America was conceived and has since been developed on the broadest possible lines. The movement has kept itself free from all party or political predilections, though holding itself ready at all times to cooperate cheerfully with all institutions and causes dedicated to community and national welfare. Its sponsors are men representing the widest variety of interests, viewpoints, and professions.

SCOUT LEADERS.

Scoutmasters and their assistants are chosen with great care, for the movement recognizes the importance of the quality of leadership offered, and that the success or failure of the scout program in a given troop must depend to a considerable degree upon this leadership.

A scoutmaster must be at least 21 years of age, of proved moral worth and patriotism. He must be an American citizen (or must have taken legal steps to become such) and must be willing to subscribe to the Scout Oath and Law. He must have some experience in boy work and is preferably an "outdoor man," with a fund of nature lore and campcraft at his disposal. Above all, he must be a man of strong personality, with power to command the respect and liking of his boys. He must be the kind of man who practices good scouting as well as preaches it.

THE PLASTIC AGE.

Fifteen

Twelve years is the minimum age requirement for scouts. and a half is the average scout age. Boys of 18 or over are encouraged to stay in the movement as assistant scoutmasters, or as associate or veteran scouts. The fact remains, however, that the boy in the early teens is the one with whom the scoutmaster has largely to deal. This means that the boy is in the scoutmaster's hands, in very close personal relationship at the most impressionable and plastic period of his development, when he is most susceptible to influences, good and bad, when the imagination is most open to appeal, when hero worship is the very breath of life.

GROWTH AND EXTENT OF THE MOVEMENT.

Scouting was started in the United States in 1910. In the eight years since a far-sighted group of men met to consider ways and means by which the scout movement could be adapted to meet the needs of American boys progress of the movement has been little short of phenomenal.

There is to-day not a single State, and scarcely a county, in this country in which the movement is not firmly established. In crowded cities, in the small village, in isolated rural communities, scouting is solving the ever present and ever complex boy problem, and solving it effectively. On September 6, 1918, 343,248 scouts were registered at national headquarters, an increase of over 82,000 since the 1st of January of the same year and of nearly 100,000 since the same date of the previous year.

War time made heavy inroads on scout leadership, but even so, in September, 1918, there were 89,640 adult scout leaders on record, which means that over 89,000 American men believe sufficiently in scouting and the scout program to give it their personal sponsorship, time, interest, and leadership.

SCOUTING AS EDUCATION.

Dean Russell, of Columbia University, claims that the movement is the "most significant educational contribution of our time," with "program that appeals to a boy's instincts and a method adapted to a boy's nature."

The scout method is the laboratory method. It is learning by doing. It gives the boy a host of interesting worth-while things to do at the time when he is most restless and pines most for activity. Moreover, it gives him something he likes to do. It is learning made attractive. It works along the line of normal boy interests and activities. It interprets and gives life and meaning to what might otherwise be dry-as-dust book stuff. It is an eye opener in a hundred directions.

Scouting is literally education. It does not aim to plaster something on from outside. It draws out and cultivates what is already latent within the boy. It provides an outlet for his exuberant energy. It gives direction to his random impulses and crude abilities. It shows him the why and how of things. It makes use of his love of adventure, his chivalry, his passion for outdoors. It teaches him to use his eyes and ears and hands and feet to the best advantage. Above all, it teaches him to use his head.

A scout learns to take care of himself and the other fellow. He knows what to do in case of accident and how to prevent accident. He knows how to build fires in the open, even in wet weather and without matches. He knows how to pitch a tent and how to make himself comfortable under the open sky. He knows how to find his way by night or day in the woods without a compass. He understands fire fighting and fire prevention. He knows the laws of health and obeys them, follows "safety-first" rules himself, and looks after the other fellow who doesn't. He practices signaling and craftsmanship. He studies nature, animate and inanimate. He ties knots that hold. His fires burn. His stews are edible. He learns to do things not

"somewhere near right" but just right. The emphasis is on thoroughness, efficiency, out-and-out trained skill. The scout is deft, quick-witted, level-headed, resourceful. In short, he is "prepared."

There are no "don'ts" in scouting. It is all "do." Perhaps that is the secret, at least one of the secrets, of its success as an educational method. And all the while he is having a real boy good time, hardly aware he is being taught at all. Scouting is recreation plus education. As a school principal once said, "Scouting has done what no scheme has ever done before-made the boy want to learn."

THE SCOUT PROGRAM.

ITS ADAPTABILITY.

One of the chief excellencies of the scout program is its adaptability. It was not devised for a particular type of boy--a city boy, a country boy, a boy with a full purse, a boy with empty pockets, a boy with wise parents, a boy whose home is the street, or the reformatory-but all kinds of boy, any kind of boy, the scout program fits, if rightly applied by a true leader and lover of boys.

ITS PROGRESSIVE QUALITY.

The scout program is progressive and provides its own rewards and incentives for advancement. The scout is always trying to beat his own record. There is no standing still. There is always something just ahead to conquer and achieve. Having passed the tenderfoot stages, the boy goes on to master the second-class scout requirements and after these to the more complicated and difficult attainments of the first-class scout.

MERIT BADGE POSSIBILITIES.

The first-class scout has by no means reached the summits of scouting. The Merit Badge possibilities for further development are practically limitless. They are the electives of scouting, so to speak. They offer 58 different subjects for intensive study, covering such widely diversified boy interests as photography, beekeeping, taxidermy, signaling, astronomy, scuplture. The plan of the Merit Badges is not meant to develop specialists, but to provide an opportunity for every boy to follow up his hobbies and try out his natural gifts and aptitudes. There is something here for boys of every bent of mind. If along the line of any of these subjects the boy finds his destined vocation so much the better. What is perhaps more likely to happen is that the Merit Badge program will have opened the boy's eyes to an almost endless variety of interesting possibilities for side studies and avocations. Merit Badges studies are open gateways to wide fields, which the scout may explore at will.