Baden Powell visits 2005

[Miki101]

Okey Dokey Trev, here goes...

 

Had Baden-Powell been mortally wounded in the Boer War, yet survived until the Siege of Mafeking was lifted, he would have been lionized much more than he already was in actual history. During the Siege, much was made of AIDS TO SCOUTING and he knew what was happening. He had been receiving smuggled parcels from his publishers for at least 3 consecutive months after publication, presumably with sales figures. The publishers enclosed copies of the latest printings, and probably kept him informed as to his royalty checks. The MAFEKING MAIL was letting all in the township know that his little, red instruction book was a hit amongst not only those in the English army, but also those in the German and the Aussie armies. So, BP knew that his popularity was on the rise. Therefore, if he had died just after the Siege, his mother would have insisted that he be buried in Westminster Abbey with all of the other legends in British history. FYI: He was offered that honor late in his life but he turned it down so that he could be buried in his beloved Kenya beneath Mt. Kenya.

 

As for Scouting, we would not have what we have today. Thats obvious, but what would it be? I have an idea...

 

There were several things happening at the critical time of 1902 1906. First, there was Ernest Thompson Seton. Now, Seton had been to England in 1904 in an attempt to transplant his Setons Indian movement. He had presented numerous lectures in that country and was generating interest. He got tribes established. He published his BIRCH-BARK ROLL in England in 1906. He wrote to Lord Roberts to solicit his help in getting more tribes chartered. But the most that Roberts would do was to hook him up with BP, which would eventually lead to the meeting at the Savoy Hotel on Oct. 30, 1906. For us Scouters, that was the essential pivot point in BPs mind because it was there that he finally put all of the pieces of his scheme together. He already had all of them in his mind, but they did not make sense until he talked to Seton. Thus began BPs ascension in the Scouting world.

 

So without BP, Roberts may very well have backed Setons work in England because there was a need for it. However, the Indian theme was not very European. It would have had to be re-named for use over there, but it would have been established along the lines of the present day Woodcraft Movement...both genders pretty much building campfires, chanting aloud and dancing around in the woods.

 

Second, there was the Legion of Frontiersman, which was a purely military movement that still exists in Canada. They are pretty much dedicated to military training and preparedness, and their units have fought in several armed conflicts. Their founder, Roger Pocock, was a Boer War veteran who also solicited Roberts approval in 1906 but was denied any because Roberts had knowledge of BPs scheme work since 1905. Without BP, the Legion might have gotten a much greater start. There were, of course the Boys Brigade and the Church Lads League already in existence, which would have claimed the spotlight, but it probably would have been Setons group that would have survived and thrived the best...at least while he was alive.

 

In the US, the Progressive movement was in full stride. Theodore Roosevelt was using his bully pulpit to give attention to the plight of the inner-city lad. Boys were roaming the streets with nothing to do but get in trouble. Without BPs scouts, you would have seen the YMCA taking the Seton Indian scheme and running with it full tilt. What is not readily known is that Seton had been in discussions with the YMCA in various capacities to get his Indian program into their own camping program, the same camping program that they had been doing since the late 1890s. What you would have would be a massive YMCA Indian Guides program on the large lines of our beloved BSA.

 

 

Thats how I see it.

 

miki

 

 

[Trevorum]

Miki,

I really can NOT wait until your book comes out!

 

Very interesting speculations. I did not know that Seton was in England prior to 1906 or that he was talking to the YMCA. What you have spun makes a great deal of sense (and I take it you do not subscribe to the "Great Man" theory of history...)

 

Thanks for the tale! Now if only I could get Harry Turtledove to flesh out a plot...!

 

 

[ozemu]

Miki, was the Savoy meeting the event that was preceeded by some US gent getting lost in the London fog and being directed to Imperial Scout HQ by an un-named Scout. This being remembered as a significant good turn that helped get BSA going? Or was the lost bloke not Seton but another significant early US Scouting proponent?

 

 

[Miki101]

Howdy Oz,

 

That story about the Ole Fog Man was William D. Boyce, a Chicago newspaperman, which he dated to August 1909. He was en route to British East Africa on safari, to go bag some large game. Theodore Roosevelt was already there and the world's attention was on that country for a while. Roosevevlt was sending back weekly wires for THE OUTLOOK magazine, which he was an editor for after his tenure in the White House.

 

Wanting attention for his paper also, Boyce set off for Africa via England to get some press of his own. He attempted to do so via a gimmick known as the Balloonograph Expedition, where he sent some of his mates up in a hot air balloon to make moving pictures of his team shooting game animals. It ended up being a complete failure,with the camers jamming or film cannisters falling off, but he did capture some attention away from Roosevelt...at least in the Chicago area papers.

 

Seton and Boyce probably never met, even during the BSA years because Boyce was either on world explorational tours or was hunkered down in his Chicago offices.

 

However, when in England, Seton seemed to prefer using the centrally located Savoy Hotel...as did Boyce. Seton's pow-wow with BP was October 1906, Boyce was 1909.

 

miki

 

 

 

 

[ozemu]

thanks Miki,

 

I should have thought things through a little more. I don't know much about BSA history but the story of the 'Fog Man' involved a Boy Scout. Therefore it dates after the Brownsea Island camp of 1907 and certainly after the BP-Seton meeting of 1906.

 

By the way have you been to the Scouting Milestones site?

 

http://www.scouting.milestones.btinternet.co.uk/milestones.htm

 

 

[Miki101]

Hi Oz,

 

Actually Yes, I have been to the Scouting Milestones site. In fact, I wrote the Seton article posted on that site and have submitted its follow-up article (Seton v. BP) for coding and posting.

 

Colin (ie; "Johnny" Walker, the owner if the site) has had it for 4 months...so you can rattle his cage about it.

 

miki

 

 

[ozemu]

well done Miki. I read your article some time ago. I was trying to unravel the confusing array of BSA founding fathers named in some long since dead discussion here. A good read.

 

Seton v BP sounds interesting too.

 

Do you know if Kurt Hahn (Outward Bound founder) and BP crossed paths? A generation apart but it seems to me that Kurt followed on with the outdoors as an educational tool. Now he is often considered the father of Outdoor Education but I wonder sometimes if BP had not already laid the groundwork. Maybe a question for Colin who is very nice about questions from novices.

[Kahuna]

Interesting topic! Harry Turtledove should definitely get on this one, as someone mentioned earlier.

 

Of course, we can only conjecture about what B-P would think if he showed up in the 21st Century, but we do have some clues. Lady Baden-Powell lived until 1975 or so and Bill Hillcourt lived until 1992. Lady B-P pretty much gave up on British Scouting over several issues. I think mainly her objections were along the lines of "dumbing down" of the program. Bill felt the same way about U.S. Scouting. He absolutely despised the skill awards that broke down advancement into little chunks. He felt the BSA had gone too far in taking Scouting out of the woods and into the city. I think B-P would want to see tougher requirements and more emphasis on what we would consider "survival" camping. I'm certain he would feel we don't put enough responsibility on the Patrol Leader. One of his original tenets was the idea of the natural gang having activities under the leadership of boys. I'm sure he would be adamant that PL's needed to take their patrols on hikes and campouts without adult supervision more frequently. Of course, there are some safety issues now that didn't pertain in his day, but Bill Hillcourt felt those could be overcome.

 

I am also pretty sure he would agree with me that Cub Scouting has become entirely too prominant (with all due respect to the Cubbers out there) as a program. Cubbing was only started to accomodate "little brothers" who wanted to do what the older boys did. I think he would see that Cubbing has become the tail that wags the dog and that it is keeping boys from joining Boy Scouts, because they are burned out by the Cubbing activities. Cubbing should be making more boys chomp at the bit to become Scouts.

 

Of course, B-P would look at Scouting worldwide, not just in the U.S. and Britain. A lot of other countries Scouting programs are closer to what he intended.

 

Overall, I think he wouldn't be too displeased to see the quality and quantity of program available to Scouts. I'm sure he would be extremely pleased with the amount and variety of training experiences that we have in this country for leaders and boys.

 

If B-P had died in the Boer War, I think something very like Scouting would have evolved. Remember, he wrote Aids to Scouting before the Boer War, so it probably would have gained the same popularity among boys as it eventually did. Scouting wouldn't have been quite the same, since the Mafeking boys convinced him of the ability of boys to behave as adults, given training and sense of duty.

[Miki101]

Hi Kahuna,

 

He may have written AIDS TO SCOUTING before the Boer War but he published it during the Boer War. He was not known until the combination of the Mafeking defense and that book came out. His vision of Scouting survived because of the combination of the two. Had the defense failed, the book would have failed too, and he would have gone down in history as another bumbling British Colonel, and there would have been no semblance of Scouting as we have today in the world.

 

His Mafeking fame is what caused to attention of the world to watch his every move. He really created Scouting in 1906, although he had been seriously pondering it since 1904. He did not have a cohesive plan until the blueprint came to him at the Savoy Hotel from Seton. BP took some of Setons ideas and formed them into something that he could use in his scheme and we know this from BPs Diary entry on Oct 30, 1906. The light clearly went off at that point and thusly, we had the seed of the program that we love today.

 

Without BP, the Scouting that would have occurred would have been in the non-militaristic, highly Americanized vision of Dan Beard. The other option (which would have fared better because of the backing of the YMCA) would have been the Woodcraft Indians, which would have morphed into a massive Indian Guides program.

 

The toy gun-toting Boys Brigades was already here, and they would have been a militaristic scouting group, along with a bunch of others, but in all of those cases, none had the drama and image of Beard backing them. Thereby, his group would have made the greatest impact at that time in the Scouting world, but again, it probably would have died when he did, unless another big organization took it up. Neither he nor Seton were big infrastructure builders. BP was, though. Yet another reason why BP succeeded.

 

dave scott

 

[Kahuna]

You are correct, Dave, and I would only quibble with you a bit. :-) You are a pretty amazing Scouting historian. B-P's Aids to Scouting was published during the Boer War by his brother and the publisher. It would presumably have gone on whether he died or not.

 

I was also making the assumption that he died after already becoming a hero. He was not unknown, of course, but the Siege of Mafeking did indeed make him a public figure. I don't know that Aids to Scouting would not have become popular without his "press" but it's possible it wouldn't.

 

An interesting footnote. Years ago, in Orlando there was a popular watering hole known as Rosie O'Grady's. It was furnished with English pub tables. I happened to notice one of those tables was embellished with images of a mustached gent wearing a campaign hat and the logo B-P. I assume it was one of the Mafeking B-P commemoratives that popped up everyplace in Britain, but I have never seen another. The owner offered to sell it to me, but I didn't have the funds at the time.

[Miki101]

Hi Kahuna,

 

Thank you for your kind words. As for quibbling...its a good thing. It sounds like you have a background in the basics. Anyway, Dr. Frank Baden-Powell did indeed negotiate the deal with Gale and Polden but the contract also clearly stated that the proofs had to be sent to BP in Mafeking for final approval prior to publishing. Thereby, BP had the final say as to what went into it and when it could be published. It would have been published with or without BPs victory in the defense but had his defense failed, then I propose that the book would have failed shortly thereafter and that would have been the end of it.

 

As for that pub table...it is a very rare piece of BP memorabilia and should go for a couple of thousand That would be a question for Colin Walker of http://www.scouting.milestones.btinternet.co.uk/ , who is a Mafeking expert and scholar. I believe that he has one, and paid a princely sum for it.

 

dave scott

 

[Kahuna]

I could have bought it for about $750! Of course, that was about 30 years ago. I have no doubt it would go for a couple of thou. If only I had bought it. Sigh. Rosies closed a few years ago. I just wonder where it went.

[scoutingagain]

" his mother would have insisted that he be buried in Westminster Abbey with all of the other legends in British history."

 

His mother must have insisted, because I do believe he is buried in "Westminster Abbey with all of the other legends in British history."

 

Interesting discussion.

 

SA

 

 

[Miki101]

Hi SA,

 

That is an honorary nameplate. BP is buried in Kenya.

 

dave scott

[OldGreyEagle]

And Miki, what does it say on his marker?

 

(yes I have a reason for asking)