Educational Work of the Boy ScoutsBarclay, Lorne W. (Lorne Webster)
General
Educational Work of the Boy Scouts
Barclay, Lorne W. (Lorne Webster)
Boy Scouts -- United States
Fortunately, the program needs no modifications or
special manipulation to "Americanize" its
followers. It is inherently an Americanizing
program. In Manhattan's crowded East Side, since
1912, when the first scout troop was founded
there, thousands of boys have taken the Scout Oath
and Law and followed its principles and lived its
out-of-door life. To-day there are 25 troops in
New York City, numbering 800 boys. Every
scoutmaster and assistant scoutmaster in the
district is an ex-scout. These troops have a
splendid record of war-service work, and it has
been declared of them that they were the greatest
single agency in operation rightly to interpret
the war to their foreign-born neighbors.
The aggressive introduction of scouting into all
our industrial sections, the enlistment of the men
of those sections (who are eligible) as local
council members, troop committeemen, scoutmasters,
the fullest possible round of scouting activities
for the men and the boys in this country who do
not yet know America, but aspire to be her sons,
will help to solve all our industrial problems and
preserve our national ideals and institutions.
SEA SCOUTING--A BRANCH OF THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA.
Sea scouting is another important branch of scouting which aims to
develop water scouting and nautical activities and training of all
sorts. Chief Sea Scout James A. Wilder says:
Sea scouting is the way whereby scouting fulfills
its obligation to the American boy to prepare him
for emergencies on water as well as on land. High
officials of the Navy and the merchant marine have
expressed their unqualified approval of the entire
program of seamanship, watermanship, cloud study,
sailmaking, boats under oars and sail, shore
camping, and the other fascinating activities. Our
merchant marine languishes for lack of instructed
seamen. It is not a far cry to the time when boys
who have followed the seascout program will be
found in the four quarters of the globe, doing
business on great waters because they, as sea
scouts, received the same training which helped
keep our flag flying on the seven seas.
During the year 1919 the sea scouting department tripled its membership
and had regularly commissioned ships in 19 States. It is essentially an
older-boy plan and is not a substitute for scouting but a development of
it. Only boys over 15 years of age are eligible to join a sea scout
ship, though a preliminary rank, that of Cabin Boy, is open to younger
scouts who are able to meet certain tests in "water preparedness" and
take the Sea Promise.
THE SEA PROMISE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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