Young Life Scout Indiana Jones (River Phoenix) holding the Cross of Coronado in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
On this date in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated.
Its chief founder was a Chicago businessman named William D Boyce, who learned of the Scouting movement while on a business trip to England.
The story goes that Boyce found himself on the streets on London, lost in a "pea soup" fog. A boy walking by saw his predicament, and offered to direct him to his address. Upon arrival at his destination, Boyce attempted to give him a gratuity. The boy refused, saying that as a Boy Scout, he could not accept a reward for doing a good turn. This intrigued Boyce, who wanted to know more, so the boy also referred him to the Boy Scout headquarters elsewhere in London.
Boyce brought back a wealth of material with him. The corporation was established with the assistance of YMCA leaders, and two avid outdoorsmen named Daniel Carter Beard and Ernest Thompson Seton. Shortly thereafter, Boyce left the BSA to pursue other ventures, and a Washington attorney named James E West took over as the first "chief scout executive." His administrative prowess gave the BSA the sureness of organizational footing that has carried it to the present day, as the largest national scouting organization in the world. On the downside, West wasn't much of an outdoorsman, which made for numerous disagreements with both Beard and Seton.
Who was the "Unknown Scout" who helped Boyce? He disappeared before anyone could learn his name, and a nationwide search did not move him to come forward. There have been suggestions that the story was largely, if not entirely, fabricated by a man who wanted to lend a mystique to Scouting's origins in America. Nevertheless, years later, the Unknown Scout was the recipient in absentia of the BSA's highest adult service award, the Silver Buffalo. The Prince of Wales received it on the mystery lad's behalf.
If Boyce was the founder of the BSA, another man of more recent times could be considered its savior. William "Green Bar Bill" Harcourt was an advisor to the BSA for many years, and after a failed attempt to modernize the program in the early 1970s, came out of retirement to return the BSA Handbook to its more traditional focus. "Outing is three-fourths of Scouting," so the saying goes. It is a major component of the method, one by which character development and self-reliance are taught. Throughout the month of February, mwbh will be devoting several essays on various aspects of the Scouting movement, and what Scouting has meant to the author, from his boyhood to the present day.
Many famous Americans have been in Scouting. 3 Boy Scouts out of 100 eventually earn its highest award, Eagle Scout. One USA president, the late Gerald Ford, is an Eagle. (Contrary to popular opinion, John Kennedy only went as far as Star Scout, one rank above First Class.) The first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, is also an Eagle Scout. Other notable Eagles include New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, some guy named Michael Moore (no kidding!), former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Antarctic explorer Paul Siple, film director Stephen Spielberg (who helped established the Cinematography merit badge), and so many others.
Including this one...
3 comments:
Dear Commissioner Alexander,
It is true that the first Chief Scout Executive was not a great outdoorsman. But he remains an example of how far one might go inspite of a physical handicap.
Happy Birthday, BSA.
The bureaucratic victory of West over Beard and Seton, set the precedent for business school graduates domineering the fate of Scouting, the same attitude that created the "improvements" in the early 70s. His adversaries lacked Hillcourt's savvy, however, and such was their downfall. What remains is the ongoing tension between adult volunteers and professionals that exists in some locales to this day.
Well ... there were some improvements in the 70's--lots of new merit badges and some upgrades of others.
My Scouting friends and I thought the requirements for Eagle were a little too light (both before and after the changes), so we put together a more rigorous program which included Environmental Science (an option then) and required merit badges in Camping, Hiking, and Swimming. We thought it was something of an affront that one could be an Eagle without having at least a basic ability to swim. Minimum merit badge total was 30, of which 15 were required. They never consulted us, obviously, but I note from afar that the various rank requirements have tightened up somewhat.
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