Scouting, Volume 7, Number 13, March 27, 1919 Page: 17
128 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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SCOUTING
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"PARLOR SCOUTING" IS TABOO
By John R. Boardman
National Field Scout Commissioner
UESTION: Is a noggin a real,
"sure enuf" noggin when it is
made by a scout whose feet are
toasting over a hot air register in a
church vestry?
Ask Dan Beard! And if you think it
is and don't want your feelings hurt
you'd better turn away before that
famous Beard smile cracks the Com-
missioner's face.
Say, Boy Scout, could you imagine a
funnier sight than old Daniel Boone
crouching behind a mahogany chair in
some city parlor stalking an imaginary
animal browsing back of the player-
piano in the corner?
All of which makes us ask another
question: Is the average scout a red-
blooded boy, or is he a pampered molly
coddle? Oh, yes, I have heard many a
scoutmaster grind off the old camouflage
about the scout's mother who does not
want her precious boy training around
out-doors in the stormy weather, "espe-
cially at night."
Once in a great while there is a scout
who is handicapped by that sort of a
mother. But for the most part they
exist solely in the imagination of some
house-bound scoutmaster.
If there ever was a scout who needed
sympathy it is the one who is in a troop
under a scoutmaster whose feet are so
mired in the bog of old-fashioned worn
out, discredited "boy's club" ideas of
work for boys inside of four walls that
he seems absolutely unable to climb the
heights of the mountain peak ideas that
stand out so wonderfully in Scouting
when it is put across by scouts them-
selves in God's real out-of-doors.
Every genuine scout knows that Scout-
ing is not only a special kind of boy-
activity program, but that it requires the
setting of a unique theatre—scenery of
real rocks, trees, animals, water and
sky—to get its biggest message into his
body, mind and soul.
Let me ask you this, scout: Isn't
there something seriously the matter
with any troop that holds meeting after
meeting in-doors? Do you really stand
for it? Is your scoutmaster trying to
make Scouting teach the out-of-doors
in stead of letting the out-of-doors teach
Scouting? If he is, isn't it up to you
to either make him give you what you
want or else get out of the way and let
some real master scout tackle the job
and put it over?
Once in a while you hear some make
believe scoutmaster trying to excuse his
ignorance or his laziness by arguing in
favor of indoor meetings so he can
"carry out a regular program," keep
the scouts "under proper discipline,"
stage a dignified recital of the Scout
Law and Pledge, "call the roll and listen
to the minutes of the previous meeting,"
etc., etc. Lie gives you the idea that he
uses an occasional hike with sincere re-
gret because it "interrupts his regular
work" and makes the scout "restless"
for weeks after it. Shades of Davy
Crockett!
Were it not for the endless hunger of
the average boy for the stuff that scout-
ing offers—a hunger that makes him try
to gnaw real meat off the fake bones that
are thrown to him, week after week, and
were it not for his wonderful power of
imagination—an imagination that makes
him transform hard bottomed chairs and
trumped up equipement into the real
things of field and forest—were it not
for these big traits in the average Amer-
ican boy, Scouting would be a complete
failure in many a troop.
It is all a question of time, study and
actual doing. The real scoutmaster will
either pay the price and do the job right,
or else quit. Perhaps the scouts must
demand just this. There isn't a bunch
of boys in any troop who could not in-
crease the attractiveness and value of
the scout program many times by kick-
ing it bodily out-of-doors and then rac-
ing pell mell after it every time it tries
to sneak under cover.
A troop of genuine scouts can put
across a real troop meeting while they
are on a picnic, down by the old swim-
—■■W-
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 7, Number 13, March 27, 1919, periodical, March 27, 1919; New York, New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth283035/m1/19/: accessed May 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.