TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9999, 21 March 1910, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

A FINER THING.

"It is a fine thing to hold a responsible command in the King's Army, to train men to bear arms, and to carry out the routine of the service, but it is a far finer thing to give boys character, to teach them to take life cheerfully, and to be true citizens and whole-hearted sons of Empire." Thus Gelieral BadenPowell explains his resignation from the Army to devote the whole of his time to the perfection of the great work to wuch he put his hand two years ago. Every New Zealander will be glad to know that "8.-P." hopes to visit us before long, for the Chief Scout wants to clinch the organisation in every part of the Empire. The boy scout, we are to understand is "noc merely a youth who carries a long pole, wears a distinctive costume, -and looks pic- j turesque." "B. P." impresses on the boys that by being good workmen they serve their country juat as truly as they serve their King by learning the rudiments of military training, in South Africa ha was deeply impressed by colonial adaptability, and he wants the scout to take the colonial as a model, to "learn how to cook his own 'grub,' read the time by the sun, fight his way through impenetrable scrub, and take whatever gruelling may come." Most interesting testimony to the value of the scout's training is to be found in an article in "Chambers's." According to the writer, boy scouts in England have on an average saved five lives a week during the last six months. A distinguished specialist in mental diseases is quoted as declaring that the movement must soon lower the suiciderate, for most men who take their lives do so through cowardice and lack of control. Well may General Baden-Powell say "Catch the boy and you make the man."