The Romance of Scouting

[Mr. Boyce]

A good deal of my interest in scouting was stoked by my father's old Scout handbook, which contained plenty of line drawings, tiny type and a lot of historical references to knights and great explorers and heroes. There was clearly a connection made between great men of the past and the scouting program's values.

 

It was inspiring stuff.

 

What do we hold up as models for today's 10-11 year old? Just multimillionaire (frequently decadent) sports stars?

 

At any rate, the more I do my mental chewing, the more I think high ideals benefit from using these historical exemplifications. Youth of scouting age clearly want ideals to hold themselves to, to aspire to.

[Eagle92]

I myslef miss the romance of scouting. I commented about that on myscouting. Hopefully the new handbook coming out in June will reinstill some of that since they stated that they will be bringing back some of the older material from past editions.

[Stosh]

I guess I don't see it as romance as much as I see it as stories that reinforce the value characteristics of scouting, i.e. honor, courage, etc. Each week the boys say "On my Honor...." yet for the most part they can't give a basic definition/understanding of the word. It's just a noise that comes out without thinking.

 

I had a parent take me to task one when I told their child that their word and honor was their value as a person. If their word was of no value because no one could trust it, then their value as a person quickly disappeared as well. They said I was ruining their son's self-esteem. I said I wasn't here to build self-esteem in these boys, I am building honorable men that don't need self-esteem, they will have self-confidence instead. The parents were angry but that was the end of the dialog. Their boy went on and became a great scout.

 

Stosh

[Eagle92]

Stosh,

The term 'romance" is a misnomer in that it is going back to, I believe, the Victorian era's defination of the term. Not to be confused with the current defination, as in the ditzy romance books ladies like with Fabio ont he cover.

 

if I am not mistaken, soem of those line drawings were by BP himself.