SCOUT MASTERS WANTED!

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2468, 22 May 1915, Page 9

SCOUT MASTERS WANTED!

A' MOVEMENT THAT HABrPROVET ITSELF, "(Suggested by H. M. M'li.) One of the most significant movements of recent times, not only hero but in England, lias been the Boy Scout movement. Its influence in the present war las been a not inconsiderable factor in supplying recruits for. Kitchener's and the colonial armies with a type of young man who takes his soldiering duties in earnest, and is out to do the right thing at tie right time on every possible occasion. Those people who are apt to smile indulgently at a troop of small boys marching along with their sticks might find food for serious thought if they could grasp the feelings of those youngsters, measure their prida of their prowess in the useful work in which they are drilled, and the spirit which glows in each small breast at being one of a' company that is out to do a certain, service. Who is there that can say. that the existence of the Boy Scout movement in New Zealand did not materially ■ aid the Government in the establishment of its scheme of defence —tho creation of Senior Cadets and a Territorial Army? These small boys grow rapidly, mentally and physically, —the Boy Scout of yesterday is the Senior Cadet of to-day and the Territorial of to-morrow. Figures could ba produced if necessary showing the large number of young men who have graduated from Boy Scouts to alert soldiers in the trenches. The mere impression on tho boyish mind that as scouts thes are really soldiers, and a unit in the scheme of our national defence makes them better boys and later finer men, and for that very reason now is tho tirno when that movement should be given the greatest encouragement. Whenever they have been called upon, the scouts have done their work with a thoroughness, one might say without exciting any suspicion of disloyalty, Gorman thoroughness—a quality whichi the England of the past decade cannot/ lay any special claim to, but one which! she has been forced to cultivate by the bloodiest war known to history. And to train, a nation to a proper appreciation of its own prestige and hold it there tho boys have to be taken in hand when boys, aad given the suggestions as well as the training whilsti the mind is plastic, that the nation which bred her Drakes, Marlborough s, Nelsons, and Roberts, is still as virilb I and as nationally purposeful as ever it was.

That is what the Boy Scout movement at bottom means. It means further that the movement is the training ground for tlo best of soldiers —men who will (to quote Elbert Hubbard')! "carry a message to Garcia" and say, nothing about it. The present is a time whon something sliould be done to foster tho movement in a substantial way, to ensure that it will remain a permanent institution for good. Efficient scoutmasters are needed now. There may be those with a little military experience, ivho cannot for various reasons go to the front, but who would make excellent scoutmasters. The services of such would bo welcomed. His Excellency the Governor appreciates the value of tho Boy Scouts, and it was by command that he reviewed a thousand of them at Government House, Auckland, on Saturday last.