300,000 BOY SCOUTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 201, 29 September 1909, Page 4

300,000 BOY SCOUTS.

TO BE A FIRST-CLASS SOOOT. '"When the boy scout movement was inaugurated by" Licut.-Gencral EiidinFowell loss than two years ago it was intended that it should Vie used by existing boys' organisations," writes the Telegraph (Lo'uion). "The Idea was that scouting should form an auxiliary, and the originator never for a moment imagined that in about twenty months nearly HOI), 000 boys would have been brought into the ranks. Such is, however, the case, and it is not too much to say that Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts form the most remarkable instance of a briliant idea promptly developing into a national movement which history, either ancient or modern, affords.

".Many people, I know, imagine that all the iioy scout docs is to march about iw.ith a long pole," said Mr. Kyle, the organising secretary, to the Daily Chronicle. "There could lie no greater mislake. Let me tell you just a few things that a boy has to be able to do before he can be enrolled as a first-class scout. 'Tie has to tie four kinds of knots; signal a message in Morse or semaphore at sixteen letters a minute; tell satisfae. toi-ily the contents of a shop-window after one minute's observation; go a ini ! v ill twelve minutes without scurrying; lay a fire and light it with not moie than two matches; cook a dish of hunter's stew; know the sixteen principal points of the compass; swim fifty yards; go to a point seven miles away and write a report on it; de-crihe the means of saving life ill two ca-c-; of accident; draw an intelligent sketch-map; know how to use mi axe; learn to judge distance. size, and numbers within 25 per cent, error; and bring a beginner (or 'tenderfoot,' as we call them) whom he I has trained.

lUEALS OF THE SCOUTS. "So mucli for practical essentials. From the moral point of view, I may tell you that every scout takes an oal'n to do his duty to fiod and King, to he'.p others at whatever cost, and to obey scout-law.

"Stern and exacting as all this may seem," continued Mr. Kyle, "the moie membership shows how popular is the pursuit of these simple achievements ot efficient manhood. Of course, much o 1 the attraction is the sort of combination of Sherlock Holmes and the bushranger that there is about it. and the mimic adventures of the training and the camps. Incidentally, however, the amount of actual science that a bov lonrnsis enormous, for a good scout must T<uow every tree and flower, and fihould even be aide to take the altitude of the stars—with the help of that much ridiculed six-foot stick, which is an xtreinely practical and necessary piece c equipment, whether for tent-making, climbing or surveying. TO MAKE GOOD CITTZEXS.

"Olio point I should especially like to emphasise, and that is that there is no trace of Jingoism or war-fever about th<* patriotism that wo cultivate in the hoy scouts. The movement is by 110 means necessarily military. A]] that we do is to keep U)vs from lounging:, listlessness, and Iml htbits, and strive to make good ritiz.'iK itiii nf llmm. Oue most remark, able tiling about the movement has been the perfect harmony between the classy —sons of the well-to-do parents and poor boys who have to ear?i an extra penny a week to pay for their kit working together like brothers."