Scouting Ideals

February 22nd is Founder’s Day, the birthday of Lord Robert Baden-Powell the founder of the Scout Movement and is the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM). Nearly all National Scout Associations throughout the world celebrate Founder’s Day as an opportunity to learn more about B.P.’s life and his work. In 1922 Baden-Powell spoke to the 3rd International Congress on Moral Education in Geneva, Switzerland. His speech laid out a vision for Scouting as an education in peace and love in the aftermath of the ordeal of the first world war....

Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself....

Jan Amos Commenius is considered by many to be the father of modern education. Inspired by the concepts of the reformation Commenius asserted that children should be taught to think rather than forced to memorize. Boys ever delight in being occupied in something for the youthful blood does not allow them to be at rest. Now as this is very useful, it ought not to be restrained, but provision made that they may always have something to do....

A Scout is reverent. A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. He respects the beliefs of others. Scouting’s founders recognized spirituality as an central element of the movement. As scouting expanded throughout the world so did the way Scouting defined duty to God. Scouting would fail in its mission if it was limited to the adherents of a certain brand of religious thought. If a world brotherhood is to survive it must be based on a mutual respect for differing concepts of God....

Scout is clean. A Scout keeps his body and mind fit. He chooses the company of those who live by high standards. He helps keep his home and community clean. Body In the 14th century the King of France asked the medical faculty at the Sorbonne what was causing a devastating plague called the Black Death. Warm water bathing, they replied, opened the pores making people vulnerable to infection. Cleanliness was decidedly not next to godliness for the next five centuries....

A Scout is brave. A Scout can face danger although he is afraid. He has the courage to stand for what he thinks is right even if others laugh at him or threaten him. Chutzpa is a great old Yiddish word that has been defined as a combination of gall, nerve, guts, presumption and arrogance – perhaps not as noble a connotation as that we attach to bravery. It may not be that all brave people have chutzpa but those with chutzpa are brave....

A Scout is cheerful. A Scout looks for the bright side of life. He cheerfully does tasks that come his way. He tries to make others happy. Cheerfulness is the natural state of most boys. They may be sad, tired, frustrated or afraid or a time but given the opportunity they resume their usual cheerful demeanor. Opportunity to challenge themselves rather than having challenge thrust upon them. Opportunity to explore and discover an ever-broadening world....

Here’s a Scoutmaster minute idea – See Preaching the Scoutmaster Minute and Seizing the Scoutmaster Minute and other Scoutmaster Minute ideas A Scout is obedient. A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. He obeys the laws of his community and country. If he thinks these rules and laws are unfair, he tries to have them changed in an orderly manner rather than disobeying them. Unquestioning obedience is often the first casualty of adolescence....

Here’s a Scoutmaster minute idea – See Preaching the Scoutmaster Minute and Seizing the Scoutmaster Minute and other Scoutmaster Minute ideas A Scout is kind. A Scout knows there is strength in being gentle. He treats others as he wants to be treated. Without good reason, he does not harm or kill any living thing. No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed....

Here’s a Scoutmaster minute idea – See Preaching the Scoutmaster Minute and Seizing the Scoutmaster Minute and other Scoutmaster Minute ideas A Scout is courteous. A Scout is polite to everyone regardless of age or position. He knows that using good manners makes it easier for people to get along. Bad manners are cool, they always have been. It has always been cool (at least to some people) to rebel against society, to challenge expectations, to be an outsider, a nonconformist....

Here’s a Scoutmaster minute idea – See Preaching the Scoutmaster Minute and Seizing the Scoutmaster Minute and other Scoutmaster Minute ideas A Scout is friendly. A Scout is a friend to all. He is a brother to other Scouts. He offers his friendship to people of all races and nations, and respects them even if their customs are different from his own. Prejudice is pre-judging an idea, object or person before we have all the facts....

Here’s a Scoutmaster minute idea – See Preaching the Scoutmaster Minute and Seizing the Scoutmaster Minute and other Scoutmaster Minute ideas In 1984 62 year old Cliff Young took 7th place in one of the world’s most grueling ultra-marathons; Australia’s 543 mile endurance race from Sydney to Melbourne. The winner needs about five days to complete a punishing course usually only attempted by intensely trained world-class athletes half Cliff’s age....

Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe is an Eagle Scout. Here is an exchange of letters posted to his blog Mike, I’m not sure where I heard that you are an Eagle Scout, which brings me to my question. Could you PLEASE take a moment & post to my 13 year old son Kelby & encourage him to finish scouting (& anything else that will help with this?) Reason I’m asking is that he only lacks 1 1/2 – 2 years in reaching Eagle, but some of his buddies have got him to thinking scouting isn’t cool at his age....

In 1785, just a year before his death at age 37, Robert Burns enshrined ‘the pith of sense and pride of work’ above wealth or aristocratic birth in his poem A Man’s a Man for all That. Burns knew the privations of poverty from the earliest age yet became a legendary poet and favorite son of Scotland. He deftly strips away the affectations of rank and declares; “The honest man, though ever so poor, Is king of men for all that....

What is the rule of honor to be observed by a power so strongly and so advantageously situated as this Republic is? Of course I do not expect it meekly to pocket real insults if they should be offered to it. But, surely, it should not, as our boyish jingoes wish it to do, swagger about among the nations of the world, with a chip on its shoulder, shaking its fist in everybody’s face....

The following statement comes from a Council website. It seemed a timely thing to pass along. I found the picture above on the web. The name on the sign isn’t important, we all need to read, understand and practice this policy: Boy Scouts of America policy prohibits Scouts from participating in political activities. Uniformed unit members and leaders may participate in flag ceremonies at political events and may lead the Pledge of Allegiance;...

“The Guy in the Glass” was first published in the American Magazine in 1934 in answer to a readers question to the Editor: “Why he should be honest”. The authors descendants have a website that discusses the origin of the poem and it’s proper original wording. The Guy in the Glass Dale Wimbrow, (c) 1934 When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf*, And the world makes you King for a day,...

We will be reminded many times today that Memorial Day is not about picnics, ballgames and the first day of summer. But it really is. Picnics, little league, trips to the beach or lake will all happen in a country where most of us are free to breathe and can persue happiness with little fear of our fellow human beings, our government or our neighbors. These heady freedoms are protected, to a large extent, by those who serve or have served in the military....

Someone once asked Baden-Powell, “Be prepared for what?” “Why, for any old thing.” the founder of Scouting replied. Being prepared is usually thought of as having the knowledge, skill and gear to meet any challenge. We may think that we only hurt ourselves by not developing the skills, obtaining the knowledge or having the right gear. If a Scout is too lazy or inattentive to be prepared he becomes a burden....

The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then, to learn....