SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL AND THE BOYS.

Otaki Mail, 4 December 1922, Page 3

SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL AND THE BOYS.

“CHARACTER IS THE BEST ANTIDOTE TO INTEMPERANCE.’’

Perhaps the hardest-worked cry of the prohibition brigade is “protect the children.’’ It is quite obviously and frankly an appeal to 'one of the worthiest of human sentiments —the care of posterity—but .it is fundamentally wrong. Young people aro not protected or strengthened by ignorance of temptation: -they are quite certainly and definitely weakened. Remove temptation, and you inevitably weaken moral fibre. The human being who is morally robust, like the human being who is physically robust, has reached that condition through exhas reached that conditiou through oxeroise—the exercise—of the power of restraint. Unused muscles grow weak and flabby, and precisely the same thing is true of mental and moral faculties and potentialities. Prohibition, being the imposition of extraneous authority, makes not for strength, but for weakness. No sane parent would set out to prevent his son from becoming a thief by taking him to a desert- island where no property existed; instead, he would foster strength of character in the boy by allowing him contact with the normal temptation of a civilised community after instructing him as to the wickedness of theft.

Drunkeuue'ss is wrong, and no human being' ever ' benefited by the misuse of liquor. But we shall not teach our children restraint by removing liquor; as logically might we teach them honesty by abolishing property! The wise parent" builds character instead of trying to fit the world to the measurements of his son. This is a point appreciated and stressed by the one man in the British Empire whose aim has never been the helping of boys to the attainment of character-success. Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, Chief Scout of the world, wrote in the “Boy Scouts' Magazine”: —“I have seen as much, if not more, than most people of the evils resulting from drink—how they are brought about, and how they are corrected. “I have realised the failure of the imposition of artificial restrictions from | without as compared with the encouragement of the natural resistance through will power from within. Thus pledge-taking and prohibition are very partial in their effects, and are, to , some extent, responsible for the increase in drug-taking and in the corruption of police?" etc., without much real diminution in indulgence «nq crime. “To eradicate an evil you have to i supply an effective substitute, and this l principle has too often been forgotten 1 in dealing with the question. , .“Our aim in the scout movement is j to prevent urinknig by employing haUurai instead of artificial means— I namely, by strengthening the character I i.e., the moral will-power, self respect, j and self control of the individual), and Iby supplying hobbies and activities that tend to fill a man’s life with interests. Character is the best practical antidote to intemperance.”. ) That is true wisdom, the essential j sanity of which every thinking parent 1 must realise. Parents, make men, not I ' ‘ molly-coddles ’ ’ of your sons by votj ing continuance. • 52