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During his lifetime Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the worldwide Scouting movement, wrote many books and articles directed to Scouters.
Each Sunday I’ll publish a selection from his writings in the hope that you’ll draw inspiration and understanding from his timeless ideas.
I HAVE lately been renewing my youthful experiences in seeing my boy pass up from his Preparatory to his Public School, and it brought back memories of half a century ago when I left my happy nest in the small school where I was a somebody to find myself a stranger and a worm under the foot of a mass of bigger boys in the big community at Charterhouse. The Master and Dame whom I had left had been father and mother to me; the new masters were many, and in an orbit far above me, overlooking a crowd of boys, assisted by energetic but unsympathetic monitors.
Had my translation to the bigger school been optional to me I should never have gone there, or at any rate I should not have stopped there long.
Well, I can’t help thinking it is rather like this, in some cases, where Wolf Cubs go up into their Scout Troop.
For very similar reasons too often they have no desire to go up, or if they go they slack off and leave the Troop.
It is a point which Scoutmasters and their Assistants and, particularly, their Patrol Leaders should study; and they should aim to make things easy for the young Tender-foot. A little extra sympathy and help to him just at first repays itself in stopping leakage, and is after all part of their job as brother Scouts. I only make this suggestion as a reminder, for I have heard of cases where it is needed.
January, 1928.
