Let‘s join the Scouts!

A few posts ago, I followed and described Badden-Powell‘s teaching in surveying (I loved it by the way). Yet, if you know Badden-Powell, it is probably not for his military work but rather for the movement he pioneered: Boy Scouts! I simply couldn‘t resist exploring that too. So, today, let‘s follow what Badden-Powell has to teach us as his new Boy Scouts!

Reporting… for duty?

First of all, what exactly IS a Boy Scout? For Badden-Powell, a Boy Scout practices the work done by backwoodsmen, explorers, frontiersmen, trappers, hunters, pioneers and missionaries even. It‘s all about surveying terrain, reporting it and learning how to survive and thrive in the wild. In a word: “scouts“ in that sense are close to what we would call “rangers“ in modern role-playing games. You might be surprised to learn that Badden-Powell considered also this training as good military training. He saw no problem in seeing young boys assisting in war - in fact, he encouraged it. Not a very popular view nowadays and something we shall try to avoid for ourselves.

Alright: what does a Boy Scout learn exactly? For Badden-Powell that would include handicraft (I will describe some of it later) but also the “right“ character. A good Boy Scout learns personal virtues such as chivalry, patriotism, self-discipline, kind-heartedness and duty. For skills, woodcraft, campaigning skills, how to save a life, observation and deduction are what Badden-Powell strives for. All these aspects are pushed by Badden-Powell by a badge system that still survives (although altered) to this day. Take a look at the reference below if you want to see some examples of those.

Nothing summarize better all those aspects than the original “Scout Law“:

A scout‘s honour is be to trusted.
A scout is loyal to the king, his officers, his country, his employees, his comrades and his parents.
A scout‘s duty is to be useful and to help others.
A scout is a friend to all and a brother to every other scout.
A scout is courteous.
A scout is a friend to animals.
A scout obeys orders.
A scout smiles and whistles under all difficulties.
A scout is thrifty (saves money and resources when he can).
A scout is clean in thought, word and deed.

As an inspiration, Badden-Powell recommends his Boy Scouts to read Rudyard Kipling‘s Kim. I will add this recommendation to my reading list right away.

All fun and games

The principal way in which Badden-Powell wants his Boy Scouts to learn resonates with me - that would be with games! Let me describe some. First is “Morgan‘s game“. In Morgan‘s game, some boys are selected as runners; their goal being to go out, take notes on a well-known spot (typically a post office) and come back with their notes stamped out at said post office as proof. The rest of the boys are posted by a leader to watch the roads leading there. Their goal is to prevent runners from reaching their goals. Badden-Powell specifies that runners can use any stratagem they wish (including disguises). Creativity seemed to be highly encouraged! Our next game was called “Kim‘s game“. In this memory game, 20 to 30 small objects are placed on a table. Boy Scouts are presented with these objects for a total of one minute before them being covered by a cloth. The boys need to list as many objects as they can remember. Some games were made specifically for winter seasons (where going outside is harder). One of these quite surprised me: it‘s literally a roleplaying game (70 years before DnD). Boy Scouts must debate in a fake trial for murder. Every boy was assigned a role. These would include the prisoner, witnesses, counsels, the prosecutor, the jury and even simple bystanders. One last note: many (and I mean MANY) war songs and dances are also proposed by Badden-Powell - most of them trying to imitate a specific animal (each scout group being assigned one). I find the variety on offer quite fascinating - keeping in mind that almost any form of competition was encouraged by Badden-Powell to “lift their spirit“.

A red sun rises

Let‘s begin our description of skills - beginning with weather forecasting! Badden-Powell describes many “signs“ to do so that I find very interesting. Here are some of the best:

A red sky at night means that a fine day is coming.
A red sky in the morning means that rain is coming instead.
A yellow sunset means that the wind will pick up.
If that yellow sunset is very pale, you can also expect rain.
Dew and fog in the early morning means that the day‘s weather will be good.
If the horizon is clear and distant, then rain is coming (or has just passed).
A red/low dawn means, yet again, fine weather.
But a high dawn (meaning, over the clouds) indicates strong winds to come.

Weather forecasting in exploration is great, but Badden-Powell puts a lot of emphasis on learning how to use a map and compass. How? Simple: practice. A good Boy Scout also knows how to find North. Here, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Badden-Powell agreed with how I described it in a previous post. Let me repeat one of these lesser-known tricks because it works in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Find the constellation Orion, his belt and his head. Take the middle star of the belt and carry a line going up through the middle of Orion‘s head. Continue to carry the line to two big stars until you come to a third. That third star will be the pole star! Obviously, in the Southern Hemisphere, you won‘t see the pole star but you can still carry the line in its general direction.

Elementary, my dear Watson

Next are skills related to observation. First, Badden-Powell repeats some tricks he described in his scout masterclass (see my previous post on the subject). One new trick he gives that I love helps judge distances by using men in uniforms (say, German soldiers):

At 50 yards, the mouth and eyes are visible.
At 100 yards, the eyes appear only as dots.
At 200 yards, buttons on uniforms are still visible.
At 300 yards, faces are still visible.
At 400 yards, the movement of the legs is still visible.
Finally, at 500 yards, the colour of the uniforms can be guessed.

A neat trick that I will use, although not in a military context.

In any case, Badden-Powell‘s preferred way to teach observation is with a sort of bingo-sheet. He gave each of his scouts such a sheet and demanded them to fill it if they saw specific things in the wilds. Those include matches, buttons, bird tracks, horses, pigeons in flight, specific species of trees and much more. Each was assigned a point value accordingly. Not a bad idea. For human tracking, Badden-Powell demands to pay attention to these factors: foot length, length of heel, widest point of tread, width at the waist, the number of rows of nails (for boots) and the number of nails per row. He also gives a few tricks to differentiate horse movements (walk, trot, canter and gallop). In a word: it‘s all about the stride length and the relative position of prints. See the reference below for his images as I can do no better than these with mere words.

Moreover, Badden-Powell gives some tips on how to stay hidden to observe animals (or, you know, for military stuff). For that, you have to stay low to the ground, stay silent and stay still. Make sure that your background is about the same colour as your clothes. For animals themselves, Badden-Powell would demand his boys to learn their behaviour. Animals concerned include red deer, badger, otter, hedgehog, hare, fox, fallow deer, vole, rabbit, mouse, rat, squirrel, bat, weasel, mole, polecat, stoat and over 30 different birds. His focus is clearly on the British countryside, which is expected since that is where his Boy Scouts would live.

Let‘s break camp

The final section for the day: camp skills! Badden-Powell extensively describes skills such as knot tying (that will be another post), hut building, bridging and choosing the best ground. The skill I want to highlight here is inventory management. Here is the (about) complete list of things Boy Scouts have to make sure are available, according to Badden-Powell: buckets, lanterns, candles, matches, mallet, tin basin, spade, axe, pick, hank of cord, flag, pole-strap (for hanging clothes), stewpot, fry pan, kettle, gridiron, knife, ladle, cleaning rags (about halfway there!), empty bottles, bags, waterproof sheets, two blankets, strap (to tie the blankets), mattress, waterproof coat, two flannel shirts, a pair of drawers, two pair of socks, one vest, walking boots, a pair of canvas shoes, an old jacket, hairbrush, soap, towel, toothbrush, handkerchief, staff, fork, spoon and whistle. Made it through. Oh, I forgot rations too. That is a LOT.

Rest, soldier

Ok, I have dabbled for long enough. As a kid, I never had the chance to be a Boy Scout. From what I read, I now know that I would have loved the experience. Missed opportunity. Well, nothing prevents me from doing it right now. I‘ll try to incorporate some of it into my everyday life. I encourage you to do the same.

Let‘s report back to each other in a while on that. But, until then, see you next time.

References

Scouting for Boys (7th Edition), Robert Badden-Powell, 1915.