Boy Scouts at 100

There has been a lot of posts around the web celebrating the 100th birthday of Scouting in America. I can’t really top them so I will just add my personal observations. My brother (an Eagle Scout) and myself (Life) will both attest, as I am sure many other former Scouts will, that next to having good parents and a caring family, Scouting was the most important experience of our youth. For me it was the definitive experience in that nothing else contributed as much towards the kind of person I am today. My love of the outdoors was sparked on Boy Scout camping trips. My moral convictions were set out in the clear instructions of the Boy Scout oath and law. My belief in service as a path to responsibility is owed to the lessons learned in service as a Scout. A desire to lead through example and to teach with patience was born looking out for younger Scouts and sharing knowledge I had learned the hard way.

Joe Carter had a beautiful post up last week where he declared the Boy Scout Handbook to be ‘The Most Influential Conservative Book Ever Produced in America’.  It’s hard to argue with his logic:

Of course, the Boy Scout Handbook is rarely regarded as being a conservative book. That probably accounts for why the Handbook has managed to continuously stay in print since 1910. If it were widely known how masterly the the book inculcates conservative values, it would, like Socrates, be charged with corrupting the nation’s youth.

Cultural critic Paul Fussell once wrote that the Boy Scout Handbook is “among the very few remaining popular repositories of something like classical ethics, deriving from Aristotle and Cicero.” Indeed, it is literally a vade mecum on virtue ethics.

My mother and I were talking yesterday about the effect Scouting had on our family. She mentioned that while sports teach some positive things, she thought the messages that came from Scouting were much stronger and more effective. When I mentioned how amazing it is that an organization promoting such ‘traditional’ values would continue to thrive today  she very wisely noted that the reason is because the results are so hard to refute. How many millions of young men (and women) are better citizens because of their experience in Scouting? I challenge anyone to name a youth-based organization with a similar history of achievement.

The Scout Oath is often cited when speaking fondly of Scouting, with its admonishment to keep oneself, “…physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” For me, I always come back to the Scout Law, which we memorized and said in unison at the end of every Thursday night meeting. It is the backbone of the Scouting philosophy and has certainly been for me in my life.

A Scout is…

• Trustworthy
• Loyal
• Helpful
• Friendly
• Courteous
• Kind
• Obedient
• Cheerful
• Thrifty
• Brave
• Clean
• Reverent.

Words to live by…