Boy Scouts as a Worthy Organization for Young Men All Over The World

The Boy Scouts of America have had a profound effect on American history. They as a group have done community service beyond any other group, and best of all, the boys themselves enjoyed doing their service for it helped other people. Sir Robert Baden-Powell originally founded Boy Scouts in Great Britain in the year 1907. He started the Boy Scouts by recruiting 12 boys from the upper class and 9 workingmen s sons from Poole and Bournemouth on England s southern coast and he took them Camping. They went camping on the Brownsea Island in Poole Harbor for two weeks, where they were given instructions on how to camp, observation and tracking, woodcraft, life saving, and first aid. They were also taught to have good citizenship, honor and chivalry. They were divided into groups, or patrols, and they worked together as a team and competed with the other teams to test their comprehension of their newly learned skills . Boy Scouts then made their way to America by word of mouth and three men, Daniel Carter Beard, Earnest Thompson Seton, and William D. Boyce all decided that Boy Scouts was a worth while organization and they decided to start their own camps. It was February 8, 1910 when William D. Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America under the laws of the District of Columbia . Later that year, the first organization plans were developed by a group of thirty-four national representatives of boys work agencies and they opened a temporary national headquarters in a YMCA office in New York. It was unclear why they decided to found Boy Scouts under the laws of the District of Columbia and then make the national headquarters in New York. But, from then on, groups of Scouts throughout the entire Untied States sprung up and Boy Scouts became a well-known organization all around the country and the world. Scouts were involved in the fight to win the war and recruit soldiers for the American Army. Cans, Clothing, Food, and even scrap rubber were collected in service to the communities of the Scouts and to benefit the less fortunate. Without the intense work and devotion of the Scouts, America may have possibly lost WWI and WWII or many unfortunate families may have remained in poverty if the Scouts did not gather food and shelter for these people .

Sir Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell was born in Oxford, England, on February 22, 1857 and died in 1941. His father died when he was three and his mother traveled teaching children honor, duty and reverence. He learned about the forest and nature from his brothers, which he had four of (and two sisters). He played the bugle and the violin and often the cadet corps asked him to play his bugle for them to help them to train. As a child, he was always looking for adventure. Once, when he was nine-years-old, Stephe ran away from home and spent the night in the wilderness, which was his favorite place to be and he said it gave him a healthy body and mind . While there, he built himself a shelter out of sticks, which he then covered with leaves in case of rain. He brought with him his bow and arrow, which he used to kill a rabbit, which he cooked and ate as his dinner. When he returned home, he bragged to his brothers of his adventure and told them stories of everything that happened that night.

After he graduated from Charterhouse School, Stephe joined the British Army (1876). On the entrance exam that he took, Stephe placed 2nd out of 718 that took it. On September 11, 1876, Steph became Sub-lieutenant Baden-Powell. He served in India, Afghanistan, and in South Africa. He was always the first one to go Scout lands in his regiment and he drew maps of a six-hundred-mile area to help the soldiers find their way around. During the Boer War in South Africa, B-P, which is the name his fellow soldiers called him, lead a famous defense of Mafeking, in spite of famine and sickness that both he and his soldiers had. He bluffed the enemy and then defeated them. He planted fake mines all around the area and the set one mine off to show that they are all real . This honorable war that he won got him promotions all the way up to Major General and made him the nation s hero. It was also that battle that inspired B-P to found Scouting .

Because of the little knowledge that his soldiers had of survival, and the enjoyment B-P got from teaching them, he decided that he would create a group that would inform younger boys of the essential knowledge of survival. He assembled a group of twelve boys from upper class families, all whom had a great deal of money, and then he recruited nine boys from the workingman s family. All of the boys were recruited, but not forced to go camping on the Brownsea Island in Poole Harbor for a period of two weeks. When they arrived there, the first thing that they did was pitch their army tents and prepare themselves for the first night. Food was brought with them but the boys had the opportunity if the chose to hunt for more food. The next day, they began to learn all of the necessary information about survival. They were taught how to camp, how to observe and track down animals as well as the way around the forest, lifesaving in both swimming and in first aid. But along with their education in survival skills, they were also taught to have good citizenship, honor, and chivalry. They were taught to think of others before themselves, and to always Do a good turn daily. For the rest of the two weeks that the boys spent at the Brownsea Islands, they were divided into groups, which they called patrols, and the worked together as teams for daily competitions. Before dinner every night, the Scouts would get together in their teams and they would compete using their newly acquired skills. The reason for the competition was to test their comprehension of the skills they needed to remember for further use. After the two weeks were up, the Scouts came home and their reactions to their journey were astonishing. One boy named Arthur Primmer, a Poole working-class boy who was fifteen when the Brownsea camp was held told a reporter :

It was a great adventure; you have to think back to

what it was like in those days. I don t think I d ever

seen a motorcar when we went to Brownsea no television,

no wireless, and everything was primitive compared to

what it is today. Nobody went camping not boys. The

only camping that was done then was by the Army. But when

we returned, it seemed that we had endless stories to tell our

friends and families.

Later in his life, B-P wrote many books such as Aids to Scouting and his well known, Scouting For Boys. Scouting For Boys was the first ever Scout handbook that outlined all of the techniques and ideas that he had on survival and as soon as it was published in 1908, it was in instant success . It contained chapters such as Scout craft, Campaigning, Camp Life, Tracking, Woodcraft, Endurance for Scouts, Chivalry, Saving Life, and Our Duties as Citizens. The book gave all the information needed to survive in the wilderness, but it also told how to become a Boy Scout and explained the Scout Promise, Law, the motto Be Prepared, and the Scout sign, salute, and handshake. It suggested a uniform, which included a broad-brimmed hat, loose shirt with neckerchief, shorts, and knee-length stockings with garters. With the instant success of this book, fourteen countries (Belgium, France, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Chili, Brazil Argentina, United States) translated the book into their language and the Scouting became a worldwide function . Juliette Low, one of B-P s friends, traveled along with B-P and she became so intrigued by what he was doing for the young male population, she decided to found Girl Scouts .

In the year 1909 in London, England, an American visitor, William D. Boyce got lost in the dense fog of the night. He stopped under a street lamp and tried to figure out where he was. A boy approached him and asked if he could be of help. He told the boy that he wanted to find a certain business office in the center of the city and the boy took him right to his destination. When they arrived, Boyce handed the boy a tip, but he refused it. He told him that he was a Scout and he wouldn t take anything for his help. Boyce asked him questions about what a Scout was and after hearing the story, he became very interested in Scouting. He had the boy take him to the British Scouting office where he met Baden-Powell and because he was so impressed with what he learned, he decided to bring Scouting home with him . On February 8, 1910, Boyce and a group of leaders including Daniel Carter Beard and earnest Thompson Seton started the Boy Scouts of America. This Unknown Scout will remain as the true founder of the Boy Scouts of America for he informed Boyce of the great things that come from Scouting.

Daniel Carter and Earnest Seton then took interest in the Boy Scouts of America. They were both British immigrants and considered themselves progressivists. They met with President Theodore Roosevelt and very soon received funding from the government to publicize Scouting. On January 2, 1911, the National Council office was established at 200 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. The Scout Oath, Law, and Motto were adopted for B-P s handbook and Scouting officially began.

By 1912, Scouts were enrolled in every state and the Scouts mobilized for the first of a series of national civic Good Turns, which included the promotion of a safe and sane Fourth of July. The magazine Boys Life was purchased and it became the official BSA (Boy Scouts of America) magazine. Seton and Beard wrote their version of B-P s Scout handbook and they called it The Boy Scout Handbook. It contained many of the same chapters that B-P s did and it was published and became an instant sell out.

Scouting deeds and projects began spring up all over the country. First was in Pearl Harbor, which the Scouts played a huge part in WWII. They aided the troops in Hawaii by giving them water, helping out with the first aid, and refueling their mobiles. There were many records of the Scouts fighting fires, aiding in sending messages from post to post, and controlling traffic. One of the most significant actions of the Scouts was the enforcement of the blackouts and the building of log cabins. If the blackouts were not enforced, the armies of the enemy could have seen the camps and possibly attacked them causing us to lose the war. The log cabins were built to give soldiers protection and shelter for the hard winter nights during WWII .

The Scouts also helped out in the hospitals during the war. They built hundreds upon hundreds of stretchers that were used by the first aid officials of the war to take the wounded out of battle. They also used their common learned skills in first aid to treat minor wounds. The applied splints to broken bones, cleaned out cuts and scratches, and they even acted as assistants to the doctors who were doing surgery.

Not only did the Scouts help in WWII, they were also very active out of the war. They were responsible for the majority of the propaganda that was printed and posted all over town. They fought for people to volunteer for the war effort with the slogan Help Win the War . Their full resources were placed at the service of the government, under the slogan, and within twenty-four-hours, Scouts throughout the United States were so advised and posters began to appear all over the country. They also fought with posters for equality for black and other minorities, and two of the most successful campaigns led by the Scouts were the Get Out and Vote campaign and the Stamp and Bond Purchasing campaign. After they placed posters over every town, record numbers of Americans were now voting and the government was making much more money to support the country in the war with the miraculous amounts of Stamps and Bonds that were being purchased .

But the most carried out and still present today activity of the Boy Scouts is conservation and recycling. After the end of the WWII, the Scouts got together in groups all over the country and they began to clean the areas of trash. They numbers that they got were outstanding. With a total of over 700,000 Scouts participating, over 5,000 tons of scrap metal was gathered along with 17,400 tons of aluminum cans. Also as they cleaned our country, 5,898 tons of tires and 591,000 tons of paper were collected and then given to the proper people and it was recycled and reused . With these amounts of products begin taken off of the streets and reused from all over the country by every Scouting Troop in every town, the Boy Scouts as a whole saved the American economy a great deal of money both in obtaining needed materials, and it took care of waste that needed to be dealt with. Also, every year is the annual foods drive in which all Scouts participate. It is not only a collection of food for the poor and less fortunate, but they also collect clothing articles to be donated to agencies, which will distribute them to families. They collect over 1.8 million articles of clothing and almost triple that amount in food each year.

Also within the community, the Scouts build shelters for animals, medically care for the animals, and find food for them to eat. They cleaned streets of litter collection 192 pounds of nails and 61 pounds of glass. They also go to visit the elderly and they help them enjoy life. They read to them, entertain them, teach them, and they even go just to talk to the elderly people.

Scouting has had such an impact on United States history that it could have been much different today if that Unknown Scout never introduced Scouting to Mr. Boyce. I from personal experience know the good deeds of Scouting for I myself completed every rant of Scouting. I have had the pleasure of working with elderly and entertaining them, and it is amazing what you can learn from other people if you just take the time to talk to them. I have participated in all food and clothing drives and I have done more than 50 hours of conservation work and more than 200 hours of community service. I also know that hospitals depend greatly on volunteers to keep everything running smoothly. Without Scouting, the hospitals would have suffered without adequate space and helping hands to serve all of the patients during WWII. Many people would not know the common first aid, which could save lives of many in everyday occurrences. I personally have taken many courses and done many merit badges in first aid techniques and I believe that if I were to be in a situation that I needed to help another person, I would be able to do so. But most of all, the Boy Scouts taught me leadership. I learned to be not just a leader, but a good leader. The American Army may not have had as many leaders (most of whom learned their skills from being Boy Scouts) . Overall, Boy Scouts has proven to be a worthy organization for young men all over the world including myself.