The History of Boy ScoutingThe word scout comes from the French verb "ecouter", which means "to listen." Armies have long used scouts to gather information about the enemy. On the American frontier a scout was someone always on the lookout for danger. He also used outdoor skills and knowledge of nature to help him in his work. Scouting, as known to millions of youth and adults, evolved during the early 1900s through the efforts of several men dedicated to bettering youth. These pioneers of the program conceived outdoor activities that developed skills in young boys and gave them a sense of enjoyment, fellowship, and a code of conduct for everyday living.
Surprisingly, his book became an instant hit among boys. Baden-Powell was a little dismayed that boys were using a military manual. He was convinced that he should take time from the military to create a non-military version for the boys to focused on observing nature and tracking animals rather than spying on enemy soldiers and tracking troop movements. Meanwhile, in the United States and abroad at the turn of the century, it was thought that children needed certain kinds of education that the schools couldn't or didn't provide. This led to the formation of a variety of youth groups, many with the word "Scout" in their names. For example, Ernest Thompson Seton, an American naturalist, artist, writer, and lecturer, originated a group called the Woodcraft Indians and in 1902 wrote a guidebook for boys in his organization called the Birch Bark Roll. In the United States the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) had been running camps for boys since 1884. Three years after Seton founded the Tribe of Woodcraft Indians. Daniel Carter Beard started a similar society called the Sons of Daniel Boone. When Baden-Powell returned to England in 1903, he began to adapt his program to the training of boys. Gathering ideas from Seton, Beard, and other Scoutcraft experts, Baden-Powell rewrote his manual as a nonmilitary skill book, which he titled Scouting for Boys. He conducted his first Boy Scout camp on Brownsea Island in 1907, and his book 'Scouting for Boys' was published in 1908. The book rapidly gained a wide readership in England and soon became popular in the United States. In England Boy Scouts formally started on Jan. 24, 1908. Around the same time, troops were spontaneously springing up in America. The Tribe of Woodcraft Indians and the Sons of Daniel Boone, along with the YMCA camps, laid the foundation on which the Boy Scout movement developed in the United States in conjunction with Baden-Powell's work in England. Seton combined his Woodcraft manual with Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys to create the BSA's first hand book in 1910. William D. Boyce, a Chicago publisher, incorporated the Boy Scouts of America in 1910 after meeting with Baden-Powell. (Boyce was inspired to meet with the British founder by an unknown Scout who led him out of a dense London fog and refused to take a tip for doing a Good Turn.) The BSA was started using a very deliberate well executed process. First the founders of the USA Scouting movement formed a coalition of the prominent youth groups in the USA at the time and used the YMCA as the lead organization to lead this coalition. Second it incorporated, which made the organization a legal entity. The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated on Feb. 8, 1910. Then, it lobbied the U. S. Congress to get a Charter granting it exclusive rights to the name Boy Scout, Scout, etc. On June 15, 1916, Congress did this by granting a charter to the organization. Those efforts climaxed in the organization of the nation's first Scout camp at Lake George, New York, directed by Ernest Thompson Seton. Beard provided assistance. Also on hand for this historic event was James E. West, a lawyer and an advocate of children's rights, who later would become the first professional Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America. Seton became the first volunteer national Chief Scout, and Beard, the first national Scout Commissioner. |
The
20th-century scouting movement began as a series of games and
exercises to help men--primarily soldiers--learn to live in the
open under difficult conditions. The program was started during
the Boer War in South Africa by