SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL AND THE BOYS.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 November 1922, Page 7

SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL AND THE BOYS.

“CHARACTER TS 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 are not protected or strengthened by ignorance of temptation; they are, quite certainly and definitely weakenedRemove temptation, and you inevitably weaken moral fibre. The human being who is morally robust, like the human being who it physically robust, has reached that condition through exercise—the exercise of the power of restraint. Unused muscles grow weak and flabby, and prersely the same thing it 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. a« to the wickedness of theft.

Drunkenness is wrong, arid no human being ever benefited by the ’ misuse of liquor. But we shall not teach our children restraint by removing liquor; as logically might wo 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 whpse aim has ever been the helping of boys to the attainment of character-success. Sir Robert BadenPowell, founder of the Boy 'Scout move, rnent. 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 lor the increase in drug-taking and in the corruption of police, etc., without much real diminution in indulgence and crime. “To eradicate an evil you have to supply an effective substitute, and this principle has too often been forgotten in dealing with the question.

“Our aim in the scout movement is to prevent drinking bv employing natural instead of artificial means—namely by strengthening the character (i*e., the moral will-power, self respect, and self control of the individual), and by supplying hobbies and activities that tend to fill a man’s life with interests. t Character is the best practical antidote i to intemperance.”

That is true wisdom, the essential sanity of which every thinking parent must reali-Fc. Parents, make men. not “molly-coddles” nf youy Rons by voting (continuance,