Daily Herald Adelaide, 1910 (article)
Dan Boone mas an American hunter, mighty before the Indian; and some years ago Dan Beard had the idea of organising American boys into hunting parties, camping parties, scouting parties, as “Sons of Daniel Boone.”[Keny 1] Then Thompson Seton, the American naturalist writer, developed the idea in the organisation of “Woodcraft Indians.” Then Lieutenant General Baden-Powell applied the idea to the British organisation of “boy scouts,” which has recoiled upon America, where all three tribes are now competing for youthful suffrages. The “boy scout” was already known on story-book covers; and with his noble name and his essential idea he seems likely to conquer the world. Beard and Seton had the goods, but apparently Baden-Powell found the label. Half of life is the label.
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The Boone-Indian-Scout idea, takes the potential cannibal aged 10, and the immature pirate aged 12 — the Nick of the Woods and the Terror of the Seas — and diverts their savage instincts to social ases. The penny dreadful becomes hopeful, and the dime, novel a divine emanation. Every boy scout set careering on his phylogenetic track helps to correct one of civilisation's disharmonies. By the ancient law of fealty to the chief he is made a prisoner of pity. Miracle! he sees (in uniform) a basket of fruit fall, and (in uniform) picks it up, and (in uniform) puts it in the basket. Then he stands at conscious ease (in uniform) awaiting his reward. Both in and out of uniform it is to be feared that occasionally he reverts to the pirate. In Australia, at least, he is heard using inartistic language by the roadside, and his daily “kind action” seams to be balanced by an aptitude for actions that, to the victims, are decisively unkind. The worse boy, of course, is no worse than he was before; but under loose discipline the worse scout is apt to corrupt the better scout. Scoutmasters, like schoolmasters, should watch out for bad eggs and throw them out.
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The scout movement has a portentous literature already, including a weekly newspaper. The English firm of G. Arthur Pearson issues at 1/ net a whole library of boy scout books, of which some will be found useful in Australasia. Baden-Powell appears to advantage as an author in Yarns for Boy Scouts and Scouting Games. He writes simply and sensibly, and his matter is full of interest. Owen Jones and Marcus Woodward, writing Woodcraft for Scouts, suggest at once that there is room for an Australian and a New Zealander, each in his own country, to write a Busheraft for Scouts; since the English book, for the greater part, does not apply to these countries. The best book in the collection for our purposes is a scout's encyclopaedia — Things all Scoute Should Know — which is of uncommon value to any enquiring mind. There are illustrated tips about the navy, the army, ships, and boats, railways, roads, camps, and half a dozen other subjects, expressing much out-of-the-way knowledge.
- ↑ Here set link to first article about “Sons of Daniel Boone,” published in Recreation.
