BOY SCOUTS.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 May 1924, Page 4

BOY SCOUTS.

(Contributed). One portion of tlio Seoul System which is misunderstood us widely as any is that dealing witli the award of proficiency badges. Over sixty of these are available for the hoy who has attained the rank of second-class Scout. They deal chiefly with “hobbies,” handicrafts and public service, and the .subjoined list will show that few interests are left unentered for:—Ambulance man, airman, artist, athlete, basket worker, bee-farmer, bird warden. blacksmith, boatman, book-binder, bugler, camper, carpenter, clerk, cook, cyclist, dairyman, electrician, engineer, entertainer, farmer, fireman, friend to animals, gardener, handyman, healthy man, horseman, interpreter, leatherworker, marksman, mason, master-at-

arms. metal-workers, miner, mi-ssionei', musician, naturalist, pathfinder, photographer, pilot, pioneer, piper, plumber, poultry farmer, printer. prospector, public health man, rescuer, .sea-fisher-man, signaller, stalker, star-man, surveyor, swimmer, tailor, telegraphist, textile-worker, watchman, weatherman. woodman.

Kacli of the above has its own appropriate test carefully selected bv experts. One early heresy was that the better the Scout the more proficiency badges lie would he wearing. Even a casual glance at the above list will make it clear that no hov—or man either—could sensibly hope to become an expert in more than a small proportion of the above subjects, and today the Scout whose idea of scouting is limited to collecting these badges against time, learning the hare requirements for each and forgetting all he has learnt of one in order to hurry on to the next, is known in derision as

a “badger.” The idea of highly organised town Scouts' Association with its “.Board of Examiners.” its written lists of questions to each badge and its periodical examinations is equally far from the true spirit of scouting. Prac-

tically all the tests are intended to lie outdoor, real and interesting to the hoy himself, and as often as not gives the leaching profession an idea that the scout movement is a collection of amateurs trying to teach them their

business. As a matter of fact the underlying plan of this Badge System is widclv different. The intention is to

encourage the boy to discover for himself his own particular bent iu life, to develop a spare-time bobby and to take bis due place in civic affairs. The best- scouting centres usually organise a Scouts’ Employment Btirenu. and iL is easily to be seen that a proper use of the Badge System will prevent the attempt to lit the square peg in the round hole which is probably the root cause of most of life’s failures and of many of the difficulties of employers.

Examiners are needed in Hokitika for tlio subjects listed above. The duties would not lie particularly strenuous. the actual number of boys to be tested varying with the badge from, perhaps, one in twenty years for textile workers to a dozen or so a year lor swimmer or cook.

Pleading for scoutmasters is apparently quite hopeless and the hoys themselves "ill lie driven to some sort of “direct action” if other methods fail, bill this job of examiner is a nice easy-clfair sort of undertaking suitable to sufferers from Anno Domini and similar complaints and it is Imped that readers of this will pick out suitable subjects for the list given and :■ lint >llll <-<■ themselves as willing to undertake tho.-e duties. Even if no ex-

aminees eventuate you "ill at least have shown the hoys they have some sympathisers in addition to the two-and-n-half misguided individuals, who as scoutmasters, at present roam about the lawn iu abbreviated pants.