What would B-P think?

[RememberSchiff]

That is an interesting thought @CalicoPenn. I wonder if he would prefer Scouting in Israel ?

Israeli (Hebrew) scouts (Tzofim?) have been coed for years. They are international, they have units in US. Not unusual, the BSA has units abroad.

As I understand, part of the Hebrew scout program prepares their boys and girls to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces.

 

Edited December 1, 2017 by RememberSchiff

[Stosh]

I am under the impression that BP felt that it was a lot more to do with preparing boys to be men than just soldiers.   Being a man in today's world is a big challenge, the focus should rest there where it originally started.

[ianwilkins]

12 hours ago, CalicoPenn said:

Remember why he created the Boy Scouts in the first place - he was disillusioned on the battlefield by the lack of preparedness his soldiers had for basic outdoor skills needed by soldiers.  Orienteering, cooking outdoors, first aid, signalling, setting up camps, etc.

So keeping that in mind, and that one of his goals was to better prepare boys to be better prepared to become soldiers, I think if he were around now, with the military we now have, he would be insisting girls be part of the program since women are now soldiers so both boys and girls should be better prepared for that, and that he would more fully embrace the STEM side of things since a great deal of modern warfare and soldiering relies of high technology.  

I thought it was a general moral panic in Victorian England about "kids these days" being "too soft", and yes, I guess not ready to defend the empire. Unsurprising really, you take a bunch of city boys off to war in the african veldt and they get their backsides handed to them on a plate by the rufty tufty guys who had grown up there. Apparently one of my ancestors managed to survive a couple of particularly heavy defeats, but anyway...

He did very much want scouting to become an international movement for peace,  so as well as being pleased we're still lighting fires and playing games in the woods, hiking etc, I'd expect he'd have also liked things that break down the barriers between scouts of different nations. So JOTI, JOTA, Jamborees of all flavours, messengers for peace, all that sort of stuff. And the use of technology to bring people together.