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WW4BSA > SCOUTS 21.02.24 17:00l 49 Lines 2297 Bytes #286 (0) @ WW
BID : 7040_WW4BSA
Read: GUEST
Subj: B.-P.'S OUTLOOK (PART 4)
Path: IW8PGT<LU4ECL<JE7YGF<JH4XSY<N3HYM<WW4BSA
Sent: 240221/1006Z 7040@WW4BSA.NEFL.FL.USA.NOAM BPQ6.0.24
Our Aim
IN the Army we have certain points to aim for in training our men; but in the
long course of years the steps in training have become so absorbing and
important that in many cases the aim has come to be lost sight of.
Take, for instance, the sword exercise. Here, a number of recruits are
instructed in the use of the sword in order to become expert fighters with it.
They are put into a squad and drilled to stand in certain positions and to
deliver certain cuts, thrusts, and guards on a certain approved plan. So soon
as they can do this accurately and together like one man -- and it is the work
of months to effect this -- they are passed as efficient swordsmen, but they
can no more fight an enemy than can my boot. The aim of their instruction has
been overlooked in the development of the steps to it.
I hope the same mistake is never likely to occur with us in the Boy Scouts.
We must keep the great aim ever before us and make our steps lead to it all
the time.
This aim is to make our race a nation of energetic, capable workers, good
citizens, whether for life in Britain or overseas.
The best principle to this end is to get the boys to learn for themselves by
giving them a curriculum which appeals to them, rather than by hammering it
into them in some form of dry-bones instruction. We have to remember that the
mass of the boys are already tired with hours of school or workshop, and our
training should, therefore, be in the form of recreation, and this should be
out of doors as much as possible.
That is the object of our badges and games, our examples and standards.
If you read through your Scouting for Boys once more, with the Great
Aim always before you, you will see its meaning the more clearly.
And the Great Aim means not only the practice of give-and-take with your own
officers, but also with other organisations working to the same end.
In a big movement for a big object, there is no room for little personal
efforts; we have to sink minor ideas and link arms in a big “combine” to deal
effectively with the whole.
We in the Boy Scouts are players in the same team with the Boys' Brigade,
Church Lads, Y.M.C.A., and Education Department, and others. Co-operation is
the only way if we mean to win success.
May, 1910.
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