B-P's Blog - Synthetic Scouting

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. PERSONALLY I fear there is the danger that a kind of synthetic Scouting may creep into our training in place of the natural article described in Scouting for Boys .

I would urge District Commissioners to watch out for this in the course of their inspections and correct the tendency where they spot it. By “synthetic scouting” I mean the Scout system obscured by over clothing the natural form with rules and instructive literature, tending to make what originally was, and should be, an open-air game into a science for the Scouter and a school curriculum for the boy.

August , 1936.