Scouting, Volume 8, Number 13, August 19, 1920 Page: 9
16 p. : ill. ; 31 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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AUGUST 19, 1920
LltuL AND A SCOUT IS
flE WHAT MAY
[am B. Ashley.
scout and to take what merit badges he
could. But the boy cannot walk. He is
a cripple and his troop friends carry him
from place to place or he propels himself
in a wheel-chair. That's the way he goes
on their hikes. Even on 14 mile hikes.
There are only three tests that it would
be impossible for him to take to qualify
for a first class scout. He resigned him-
self to the fact that he could never be-
come an eagle scout, but his heart was
fixed upon the rank of first class scout.
Again the word that went back from
the National Council by way of the Chief
Scout Executive was, " It is not a new
question. We have from the very start
in the Movement frequently had occasion
to stop and consider whether our policy
of adhering strictly to our requirements
was sound and for the best interests of
the boyhood of America. Each time this
course has been followed with the result
that the Committee on Badges and
Awards and Scout Requirements have
unanimously agreed that it would work a
great injury to the cause of Scouting and
to our program of being helpful to boys
if we in any way countenanced a practice
which made it impossible for boys and
the general public to look upon the first
class badge and the second class badge
and all scout insignia as meaning exactly
what the requirements indicate they should
mean." And the Chief Scout Executive
added these words in that particular case:
" I hope you will explain to Scout William
Reynolds how carefully I have gone into
the matter and how keenly I appreciate
his condition. After all the rank of first
class and the other degrees are not an
indication of the real, advance in Scouting.
As I have so often said, our various tests
and our merit badges are simply a means
to an end. If Scout Reynolds lives up to
the Scout Oath and Law and does a good
turn daily and shows evidence of a
genuine scout spirit, he can hold his head
up with any scout in the United States
no matter how high a rank he may have."
If Scout William Reynolds, knowing he
can never be an eagle scout nor a first
class scout, still presses on to be all the
scout he can be in mind, body, and heart,
what about you with all your limbs sound
and in working order, your ears un-
stopped, your tongue able to wag over-
time, and your eyes wide open, what about
you?
And Now for Those Blind Leaders
Troop 79 of Hartford, Conn., has its
headquarters in the Connecticut Institute
for the Blind, because that's where its 17
scouts live: they are blind. Most of them
are stone blind, some can distinguish light
from dark, and a few dim objects. Troop
79, to all intents and purposes, does all
its scouting in the darkness of the blackest
night there can be. Not much fun in that.
Not much likelihood of scouting efficiency.
No first class scouts in Troop 79. No?
The pictures on this page show some
of these blind scouts having a lot of fun
in putting through just one of their
efficient scout stunts, the building of
human pyramids. Can you beat it? That
question is a question, it is not slang.
G. S. Ripley, scout executive at Hart-
ford, who visits this troop and sees them
at camp says that each boy makes his
hundred per cent of noise. If they were
quiet and subdued because of their handi-
cap, they fooled Executive Ripley. They
move about as confidently as any group
of scouts, and are not discouraged by
frequent bumps into strangers who don't
know how to get out of the way of a
blind man. "Don't mind that," they _ say
with a grin when the stranger apologizes,
" I am used to it."
These blind scouts are working right
along toward first class rank. They do
their signaling by the telegraph key in
the Morse code. They can apply
bandages, they know first aid, can
use knife and ax, and tell the
• £ yc ~r | 3 punch in it. Then there is " Rocking-Horse
ain or Y outn Crandall," by William L. Gaylord. A kid story?
Huh! Kid story!
Boyer's " A Smell of the Sea " might be called a
kid story. If there is a kid still inside your make-up (and if there isn't, the
root of Scouting is not in you) you will read " A Smell of the Sea," first of
all,—and Boyer's stories have a knack of getting a rise out of Rigney every
time.
There is a story that this man and woman belong to; an honest-to-scout-
ing story for boys—and scoutmasters. There are a half dozen other stories,
and all the stories have smashing pictures. Articles? Well, there is "A
Bird Hike with Dan Beard," "On Nature's Trail," by John Burroughs, to start with.
Why should I be a catalogue of BOYS' LIFE for you? Get it man, if you want actually
to drink of the Fountain of Youth and drink deep. That's all I have to say. And after
you have gotten it and read it, if you are misled by this feeble reference to the September
issue of BOYS' LIFE, the freedom of the pages of SCOUTING is yours to express your
mind. Could anything be fairer than that? . . . The youth-giving water that comes
out of this pump has another quality. It is not only a tonic, but also a restorer of
points of the compass. Several of
them have passed the fire-lighting test.
In the cooking test they estimate by
the time elapsed and the heat thrown
QUt by the fire, just how well the food
is cooked! In the store window test a
large table is substituted covered with
objects which the boys feel of carefully
and then write descriptions about. They
found this rather difficult.
A few of these blind scouts can swim
a little. One of them, a good athlete but
absolutely blind, dove from a tower 7
feet above the water, and also jumped
from a tower nearly 20 feet above the
water and wanted to dive from the lat-
ter, but the director would not permit the
attempt. The only time Mr. Ripley ever
heard this scout complain was when he
was not allowed to do his share of camp
duty.
The scoutmaster of Troop 79, is C. P.
Day, and his assistant is G. W. Tunis.
Perhaps if scouts, who have read this
article, in the future come upon a difficult
task in Scouting and grit their teeth and
say, " If a blind scout can do it, I can,"
scoutmasters who have read it, when
they come to difficult tasks will say,
"If Day and Tunis can do it with
blind scouts, heaven help these
kids of mine if I don't bring
them up to the mark ! "
lost memory. It is one thing
to feel young again, it is en-
tirely another thing to know
how young fellows feel.
BOYS' LIFE will put the
faithful reader back where
he was as a boy, and if that
does not mean added power
as a leader of boys, I have
got everything wrong.
As a scoutmaster you wont get along
fast without Hurt's book. You can't make
headway at all without the Handbook for
Boys. But if you are without BOYS'
LIFE,—good night! . . . Sounds kinda
fishy? You just try it for a few months
before calling names.
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 8, Number 13, August 19, 1920, periodical, August 19, 1920; New York, New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth283177/m1/9/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.