Scouting

The Scout movement, also known as Scouting or the Scouts, is a voluntary non-political educational movement for young people. Although it requires an oath of allegiance to a nation’s leaders and, in some countries, to a god, it otherwise allows membership without distinction of gender, race or origin. The movement employs the Scout method, a programme of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports.

About Scouting in brief

The Scout movement, also known as Scouting or the Scouts, is a voluntary non-political educational movement for young people. Although it requires an oath of allegiance to a nation’s leaders and, in some countries, to a god, it otherwise allows membership without distinction of gender, race or origin. The movement employs the Scout method, a programme of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports. The two largest umbrella organizations are the World Organization of the Scout Movement and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. The year 2007 marked the centenary of Scouting worldwide, and member organizations planned events to celebrate the occasion. The trigger for the Scouting movement was the 1908 publication of Scouting for Boys written by Robert Baden-Powell. In the first half of the twentieth century, the movement grew to encompass three major age groups for boys: Cub Scout, Boy Scout and Rover Scout. In 1910, the Girl Guides was created, encompassing three major Age groups for girls: Brownie Guide, Girl Guide and Girl Scout and Ranger Guide. It is one of several worldwide youth organizations. In 1906 and 1907, a lieutenant general in the British Army, wrote a book for boys about reconnaissance and scouting. This book was based on his earlier books about military scouting, with influence and support of Frederick Russell Burnham, Ernest Thompson Seton of the Woodcraft Indians, William Alexander Smith of the Boys’ Brigade, and his publisher Pearson.

During this time in the Matobo Hills, Burnham discussed the concept of a broad training programme in woodcraft for young men, rich in exploration, fieldreliance, field tracking and self-reliance. This was the basis of what is now called scoutcraft, the fundamentals of Scouting. Three years later, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, BadenPowell was assigned to the Matabeleland region in Southern Rhodesia as Chief of Staff to Gen. Frederick Carrington. He started to wear his signature campaign hat like the one worn by Burnham, and acquired his hornu Ndebele, the instrument he later used to carry messages for military duties. The Mafeking Corps was a group of youths that supported the army that kept the besieged town of Mafengeru freed by a much larger army. In 1884 he published Reconnaissance and Scouting. In 1896 he met here and began a lifelong friendship with Frederick Russellburn, the American-born Chief of Scouts for the British army in Africa. During their joint scouting patrols into the Matobele Hills, he augmented his woodcraft skills, inspiring him and sowing seeds for both the programme and for the code of honour later published in Scouting for boys. In June 1896 he had the time of his life commanding reconnaissance missions into enemy territory, but because many of his later Boy Scout ideas originated here. This was a formative experience for Badenpowell not only because he had a time of being a military officer, and because he took an interest in military scouting.

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