Scout Handbook history

thank you, good afternoon, my name is Harold White, I'm a museum programs specialist here at the National Museum of Exploration and we're here at the Seton Memorial Library and today I'd like to talk to you about the evolution of the Scout Handbook. You are probably familiar with the Scouts BSA manual. There is a version for boys and a second version for girls, but it wasn't always like this and the story of how it came about is really fascinating, so I'd like to start. Talking to you today, this is the book called Aids to Exploration and this book was written by Baden Pole in the late 1890s while he was at Mafe King.

In fact, the final edit of this was exported by Mate King before The Siege began. It was one of the last emails delivered before the siege of Mave King occurred. Now this book was written by Badenpold because, in his opinion, the young men of England of that time simply did not come to the British army prepared in the way that they needed to facilitate the transfer from civilian life to military life, unlike today. today, where a soldier goes to a Basic Training Detachment and learns how to be a soldier from other professional soldiers of his time, when he was assigned to a regiment. you went to that regiment and you learned to be a soldier there and BEP thought that these British citizens were turning up and they just weren't prepared for this so they created this manual called Scouting Aids and the idea behind it was to give These young men had something to they were lacking in their formal education or the things that they were learning as members of British society and he wanted them to come to the army with those skills ready to use now, as I mentioned, this was a training manual. that it was intended that people would come to the British army prepared with these skills, but by the time this book was delivered and published in Britain in 1895, it was falling into the hands of young men and girls, it was falling into groups of young men, people who They were looking for ways to teach these types of skills and develop these types of characteristics within the population that simply did not exist, so when BP finished the main film The Siege at Maeve King and returned to the United Kingdom, to Great Britain and to London as hero of the British Empire, suddenly he found himself with all these children who had access to this material and were using it in ways that he never intended, and that was his fear, and when he wrote what was called the exploration plan, which was a document that was created to perpetuate and sell the idea of ​​Scouting to various community leaders.

When he published it, he suddenly realized that he needed to demilitarize this book, so he took some time to demilitarize it and came up with a book. Actually, it wasn't a book to begin with, it was six pamphlets that were published over a 12-week period every two weeks and it was called Scouting For Boys and this was a demilitarized version of AIDS for Scouting and the various uh. The lessons taught in this came directly from the Inn Aids to Scouting material and were published in six fortnightly publications called Scouting For Boys. Now they were available for pennies, they were basically dime type books that were available for kids to buy and they had all the various skills that BP wanted to impart and the lessons that he wanted to impart in each of the individual chapters and with Over time after their release they were finally merged into a single edition called Scouting For Boys and you can actually buy it.

Reprints of this are widely available today and had various abilities and had information about patrols and various roles in exploration. This was all outlined in the

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ing outline and details were then provided through Scouting For Boys. So, those are the first steps that BP brings to the table in developing the Scout Manual. Then a gentleman named Ernest Thompson Seaton goes to London and arrives in London. I believe he went in December of 1906 and he met BP. They sit down and talk about their shared vision of exploration. Now Ernest Thompson Seaton has an organization here in the United States that was called Woodcraft Indians and there are still groups of Woodcraft Indians throughout the country, the only one in the United States that is directly linked to the Woodcraft Indians of Seton and is in the area from Los Angeles and is a thriving group.

They hold a summer camp every year. They do a lot of the activities the way Ernest Thompson Seaton designed them, but that's really the only organization. in the United States, tracing its

history

directly to Ernest Thompson Seaton's Early Indian Woodcraft, now his book for teaching his skills and teaching his program was called Birch Bark Rolls and this is a copy of the original Birch Bark Rolls from 1905. that BP had or that Ernest Thompson Seaton had and when he went to meet BP, he received a very special copy of BP's AIDS to

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ing personally autographed for him and we have that copy here at the National Scouting Museum.

These are some images that are taken from that book and from that particular exchange between BP and Ernest Thompson Seaton, so we fast forward a couple of years and William D. Boyce goes to London. Now you may or may not know this, but that whole story about William Boyce finding out how to get lost in the London fog and being found by a scout and directed to BP headquarters so he could learn about scouting, there's probably some level of true to it, but like many origin stories, it has a bit of mysticism and, for example, in The Day Boyce Was in London, we're not sure if he was traveling to an African safari or returning from an African safari, that's not true. is entirely clear, but one thing is clear: there was no fog in London that day, so the idea that he got lost in the London Fog, however notorious and however grandiose that story is, there was no London Fog he could get lost in, now he could have met an explorer and the Explorer could have helped him find his way and those are all great parts of the story and we shouldn't discount the rest, but there was no fog, so Boyce goes to the Scout headquarters, he doesn't actually meet the Baden polo, he doesn't meet anyone officially either, but yeah.

He goes in and buys a trunk full of books and publications and uniforms and all the things that are about the scout movement that he can buy, he loads them in his trunk and returns them to the United States and in February 1910 he incorporates the Boy Scouts of America, that's why we celebrate the Boy Scouts birthday in February every year, so he has all these things together, but he doesn't really have the organization yet, so some of the things he does are he starts looking for partners so that This happens and two of the people who meet are Ernest Thompson Seaton and a gentleman named Daniel Carter Beard and Daniel Carter Beard has a group called the pioneer boys, sons of Daniel Boone and him. he also has a manual for them, now there are things you need to keep in mind.

BP's exploration movement is based on the military structure. It's based on ranks and things of that nature. Ernest Thompson Seaton's exploration adventure is based on Native American culture and traditions. Daniel Carter beards, his program is based on the Outdoorsman pioneers, Daniel Boone, for example, those kinds of people, so these three ideas come together and Ernest Thompson Seaton is asked to produce the first manual for this fledgling organization. in 1910 and this particular occurs to him. version of the Boy Scout Handbook and you will notice that on the cover it says that both the name of Robert Baden pole and Ernest Thompson Seaton are the authors of this book now because all these gentlemen are artists and all these gentlemen are The editors understand the importance of the written word and they really like books and things of this nature.

Ernest Thompson Seaton doesn't write the first manual from scratch, what he actually does is bring parts of AIDS to scouting, he takes parts of the Scouting For Boys manuals and takes parts of their birch bark roles. He also takes articles that he has written and have been published in a variety of women's magazines. Why do you think he might have chosen to write for women's magazines to share his ideas? about scouting, that's because moms read these magazines and if he can get mom involved, he can get the kids involved in his program, so he takes all those things, mixes them together and creates the first manual for the Boy Scouts of America.

We now have a great copy of this first Boy Scouts of America Handbook here. It is actually a pre-print edition and is filled with personal comments, corrections, additions and subtractions created by Daniel Carter Beard. There's even a paragraph in From the Beginning where I guess he feels a little left out in the writing and founding of the Boy Scouts of America, so he writes an entire paragraph that he thinks should be inserted in the first copy of the manual on your participation. at the founding of the Scouting movement just a little bit of

history

that's great now this particular book also addresses two things that are very near and dear to every Scout one of them is the motto now you know the motto be prepared but Daniel Carter Beard He didn't see it that way, he thought that BP be ready for the Baden polo, which was too egocentric for him, so he suggested that it be changed to always ready, as you can see in this photograph here in the copy we have, the other thing he didn't agree with, that he made note of some of the things he didn't agree with made sense, like the Patrol emblems that were related to animals found in Africa or other parts of the world , but it didn't really have a place here in the United States, so I would mark them as things that should be changed, but one of the other things that really changed was that I didn't think the fleur-de-lis should be the symbol of exploration in the United States.

United, he felt it should be Flint Arrowhead, similar to the arrowhead patch for someone who attended Philmont or works at Philmont, but thought it was more American and less European, so he made that note on this in This copy we have here too, as I said, some of his changes made sense, others not so much and we know, of course, that the fleur-de-lys became the symbol of Scouting in the United States and be prepared remained the motto. He really didn't do so well with those two now, one of the things you'll notice in the original Scout Manual if you ever get a chance to see a copy and can purchase a reprint to make it available. there you can also see copies of some of the places like Project Gutenberg and things of that nature so you can have a chance to check them out.

One of the other things you'll notice about the Scout Manual is that it only shows ranks up to Tenderfoot Second Class and First Class, those were the only three ranks that were included, and Star and Life, for example, which are included in the Scout Book. Eagle Scout, they were parts of earning merit badges, so originally life and star were reversed, you had to earn five in particular. merit badges to be eligible for life and then five additional merit badges to be eligible for star and of course Eagle Scout was to earn 21 merit badges. Now a couple of things that changed and you don't see them in these particular books, but I see them in the 1912 version of the Scout Manual is in 19, the original book does not mention anything about Eagle Scout, the second book, the version of 1911, there was a minor dispute between BP and Ernest Thompson Seton over who should really be given credit for founding Scouting, and essentially both felt they had rights to it.

BP, it was really more about getting the show out to kids and less about who got credit for things, but Ernest Thompson sat down and that was nice. important to him and so there was a little tug of war between the two of them over who should get that credit and in 1911 the Boy Scouts said you know what we're not interested in having this debate anymore and so they came up with a new version of the Scout Manual which was simply called the Boy Scouts of America children's manual, their names were no longer on the cover and it also had the requirements for Eagle Scout and the eagle metal, although it looked very different, it had an art deco look, as seen you can see here in this picture, it had an art deco look and it talked about the requirements for it, but it was actually considered part of the merit badge program, so to speak, it was to earn additional merit badges and in 1912, of course , the first Eagle Scout was awarded to Arthur Eldridge of New Jersey.

We had his Eagle medal. It is on display here at the National Museum of Exploration. This is a photo so you can see what it looked like. I've seen better days for sure and this is his merit badge Sash and back then he didn't have a stash of merit badges, he wore all his merit badges on his sleeve so these would have been on the right sleeve of his uniform , the 21st merit. The badges that he earned and those merit badges were sewn onto his uniform, of course, we don't have his full uniform, but at some point they cut those merit badges, let them stitch the material of themanga and those are also displayed here. at the National Museum of Exploration now let's talk a little about Arthur Eldridge becoming an Eagle Scout.

I don't know how many of you in this room are Eagle Scouts and are about to become Eagle Scouts, but suffice it to say that your border review was similar but very different than any review board you would have undergone to become an Eagle Scout. Eagle Scouter will undergo becoming an Eagle Scout at his review board. You had Ernest Thompson Seaton. You will head Daniel Carter's beard. You had James E West. You had a guy named Livingstone from the American Red Cross who helped develop both. the Red Cross first aid and lifesaving programs and sitting in the background just watching because I happened to be in town at the time it was BP itself, as I said as an observer visiting the United States now that if that were so there wasn't enough pressure, for example, for my Eagle border review.

I don't remember most of the people there, but I do remember I had the president of the Bank of Hawaii on my review board and that was pretty intimidating, but nothing compared to having all the founders of the scouting movement sitting around asking you questions um and the other aspect of his review board that would be very common for you is that they asked him questions like what do you like about scouting what is your favorite part of scouting If you could change things about scouting, what would you change? And, of course, he provided answers that, if you knew his feelings and beliefs based on his experiences, and that's what they were really looking for now, interestingly enough, his review meeting was held in January. he did not find out that he had passed the Board's review until April and then did not receive the royal medal from him;

It wasn't given to him until Labor Day 1912 because they hadn't finished finalizing the design and had never made one yet, so the process of becoming an Eagle Scout was a little longer than, say, you or I. we could have experienced in our time. Most of us found out the night of our border check, less than four months later, and Receive our Eagle Nettle and our Patch, uh, not long after, interestingly, there was originally an Eagle Patch which didn't come into play until the decade 1920, when the Eagle patch was developed. In fact, it was 1924 and we currently have a 1924 Eagle. patch on the International Space Station circling the earth, it was there a couple of years ago with an Eagle explorer who came here to visit the National Museum of Exploration and is an astronaut from NASA that was going to the space station, so we sent one with him and it will return to Earth and be returned to the museum in 2024 to celebrate his 100th birthday, which we think is a pretty special and cool kind of celebration.