Editor’s Note:
The reader is reminded that these texts have been written a long time ago. Consequently, they may use some terms or use expressions which were current at the time, regardless of what we may think of them at the beginning of the 21st century. For reasons of historical accuracy they have been preserved in their original form.
If you find them offensive, we ask you to please delete this file from your system. This and other traditional Scouting texts may be downloaded from the Dump.
PREFACE
Scouting has been described by more than one enthusiast as a revolution in education. It is not that.
It is merely a suggestion thrown out at a venture for a jolly outdoor recreation, which has been found to form also a practical aid to education.
It may be taken to be complementary to school training, and capable of filling up certain chinks unavoidable in the ordinary school curriculum. It is, in a word, a school of citizenship through woodcraft.
The subjects of instruction with which it fills the chinks are individual efficiency through development of — Character, Health, and Handicraft in the individual, and in Citizenship through this employment of this efficiency in Service.
These are applied in three grades of progressive training for Wolf Cubs, Scouts, and Rovers. Their development, as this book will show you, is mainly got through camping and backwoods activities, which are enjoyed as much by the instructor as by the boy; indeed, the instructors may aptly be termed leaders or elder brothers since they join in the fun, and the boys do the educating themselves.
This is perhaps why Scouting is called a revolution in education.
The fact is true, however, that it aims for a different point than is possible in the average school training.