BOYS' CLUB INFLUENCE BEING EXTENDED TO GERMANY

Chronicle (Levin), 11 April 1947, Page 8

BOYS' CLUB INFLUENCE BEING EXTENDED TO GERMANY

w (Snecial Corresnondeht.)

Received Thursday, 7 p.m. LONDON, April 10. The British National Association ot Boys' Clubs with which the King was closely connected as Dulce of Yorlc and in which Field Marshal Montgomery is now talcing a very close inierest, -ha.-, extended its infiuenee t^ the British zone of Germany. This is at the direet instigatioh of the Field Marshal- -who last year aslced two leaders of thc British movement to survey youth aetivities in Germany. The resuits oi the survey were interesting. They revealed that the Germans were un familiar with the idea of voluntan clubs and that youth sports clubs were suspect because they had been !used b\ the Nazis for thcir own ends. Thc> also found a marlced reluetanee on the part of the Germans to admit thi equality of women f'or the Nazi idea that a woman's chief function in the state cvas to produce manpower for war, had cheapened German girls in thc ejms of the opposite sex. The Germans ' first reaction to mixed youth clubs was that they eould be uso-1 by girls to increase their opportunitics for marriage. As the result of the survey a numbOr of ideas developed by the British Boys' Club movement are being employed for youth wrorlc in Germany. Since 1939 the British _Boys' Club movement has ,grown to aVemarkablo ext.ent. In 1939 there were 1000 clubs in Britain but since the end of the war this number has increased to 2470. Thc movement is assisted by Mirtistry of Education grants and is now widelv consulted on youth welfare wojt'lc by local and other authorities.