Ernest Thompson Seton: an unforgettable personality

Edgar M. Robinson, M.H.

Unexpected invitation to lunch (Summer 1902) • My experiences with camping, youngsters and Indians, before I met him • „Hunt the Deer” • Ferryman of souls into “those days” • The winner is anyone who can meet the predetermined conditions, not just the best • YMCA at the time • Scalp - the symbol of Life • Wherein lies Seton's primacy • Playing to Indians (September 1900) • Woodcraft is for everybody • Game transform to the all-embracing movement • Seton's influence • Baden-Powell (September 1906) • How B.-P. scouting penetrated the USA • The “Boy Scouts of America” and my part in the origin of it • Seton was “The Chief”! • The Silver Bay Camp (Summer 1910) • Free will is base of the woodcraft • Why was the Baden-Powell system more attractive • Uniformity is unnatural • How Baden-Powell's approach differed from Seton's • A personality does not grow to strong in the shadow of a strong personality.

Unexpected invitation to lunch (Summer 1902)

Nearly forty years ago, Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton walked into my office in New York one day about noon.

He introduced himself and invited me to step over to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and have luncheon with him and a talk about camping. With alacrity I accepted the invitation, for in those days, lunching at the Waldorf with so distinguished a man was not an every day occurrence with me. It was a memorable occasion.

During our conversation, Mr. Seton challenged me to name the greatest Camp leader in history. The reply was not satisfactory to him. He said “No, you are wrong. Moses was the greatest Camp leader in history. He led the children of Israel when they camped for forty years in the wilderness”.­

Of course I had to admit, in the language of the day, that was “some camp”.

My experiences with camping, youngsters and Indians, before I met him

Then as our conversation developed, he told me about his experi­ments with some boys at his home place in Cos Cob, Conn.

At that time I was serving as the Boys' Work Secretary of the International Committee of Young Men's Christian Association, and had the idea that I knew something about boys and camping, but I quickly saw that Mr. Seton had some ideas that were quite new to me so, I listened with both ears wide open. We exchanged ideas for an hour or two, and then and there began a friendship that has steadily grown through nearly forty years of rather intimate relationships. He told me of some of his early experiences, and I told him of some of mine. In his early teens he had organized a number of boys as a club or tribe of Indians. In my early teens I had organized a Boys' Literary Society which did many things that were not of a strictly literary nature. Each of us had taken to the woods in our boyhood as naturally as a duck takes to water.

My camping experience began as a boy, about 1877, I cannot place the date exactly, but remember the occasion. When we met that day, I had behind me at least twenty consecutive years of experience in family camps, cruising camps with companions and in leadership of boys' camps. We seemed to have much in common in the way of experience and interest.

But there was a new flavor about the kind of camping he talked about. Something of the picturesque and dramatic. We had always had the camp fire and had gathered about it in more or less of a circle for any kind of social event that the occasion demanded, and informality was dominant. But Seton talked about a Council ring, about the Council rock, about Council decorum, about ceremony and atmosphere and setting. There was the sound of the tom-tom and the Indian dance, as well as the serious business of the Council. There were titles and coups, and grand coups, challenges, and a host of new and unfamiliar things. From my early boyhood in Eastern Canada, I had been familiar with Indians who lived near by. Later, in my father's store, I had traded with them. They did not wear blankets, or feathers, or sport tomahawks. They bore no resemblance to the wild Indian of the cheap thriller novel. They were decidedly tame. I saw nothing in them to inspire the boyhood of a nation to worthy achievements, in any direction. The were poor and bedraggled. They made basket and rustic furniture and trapped small animals for their fur, and thus eked out what seemed to us to be a rather miserable existence. They did not want to work any more than they had to, and desired only enough money for immediate need. If they had enough to eat, and could keep warm in cold weather, they worried not at all about possessions. They seemed to us to be a variety of unobtrusive resident hoboes.

They did not fit into the picture of the noble red man of the Hiawatha type, or of the dangerous, cruel, blood thirsty savages that needed to be exterminated.

„Hunt the Deer”

When Seton began to paint his picture of the ideal Indian – the Indian before he was degraded by contact with the white man, one could not but respond.

When he invited me to Cos Cob to see the original band of “Seton Indians”, I was only too glad to go. He had told me about the “Deer hunt” and how his Indians could track the noble animal to its lair, and, armed only with bows and arrows, gain a well-earned victory. I wanted to see it done. This “Deer hunt” was a game invented by Seton. Right here is a good place to call attention to that expression “invented by Seton”. Of other things one might say adapted by Seton, or used by Seton, but of this game, I use the words invented or created by Seton. To me, Seton was a “creative genius”. Many men can collect the good ideas of other people and arrange them in various ways and rename them or modify them, but it takes a rare type of mind to create, originate, invent, then dramatize, and add glamour to even so sim­ple a thing as the game of “Hunt the Deer”.

That day about a score of boys were assembled and the deer was produced. It was made of burlap sacking, filled with straw. It did look something like a deer; not too much, but enough to whet the imagination. A series of concentric rings made with black paint indicated where the heart was supposed to be. Here again was another of Seton's chracteristic ideas. He said “Use symbolism and you cannot go far wrong, but if you attempt realism, it has to be pretty nearly perfect or it is ridiculous”. Now he knew better than to try to make a perfect replica of a deer, so he made a symbol of a deer, and 10, to the imagination of the boy, it became a deer. He impressed upon me the value of symbolism. This day he was to be the deer, and the boys the hunters, so he strapped tracking irons on his feet and the boys took up their bows and arrows. Who told Seton how to make tracking irons? Where did he get the idea that the one who played deer should leave visible tracks for the hunters to follow? Like the boy who built a dog house according to his own original idea and boasted, “I built it all out of my own head and have wood enough left for another”, so Seton out of his own head had worked out the scheme and with his own hands had made the deer an the first set of tracking irons. Here was not only constructive imagination and dramatization, but a philosophy of symbolism and a handicraft of real artistry. But where did the boys get the bows and arrows? At the beginning they had not skill enough to make them, so they were purchased. Seton had gone to the dealers and purchased a supply and sold them to the boys. At this point he showed both foresight and generosity. He realized that some people would be quick to say, “it is a money making scheme, buying at wholesale and selling at a profitable retail price to the boys”, so he adopted the practise of selling every article at a trifle lower price than he had to pay for it. Of course this was not good business, and it was never intended to be. It was generosity. Seton was a rather keen business man on some deals, but with boys his attitude was always one of generosity.

But to get back to the Deer hunt. The boys gave him 10 or 15 minutes start. He picked up the burlap deer, put it under his arm, strapped the tracking irons on his feet, and started down the dirt highway. I went along with him at a brisk pace. The tracks that he left in the dust of the road did not seem at all plain to me. After going some distance down the country road, he stopped and jumped sideways on to a flat stone. From there he managed to get to a rail fence, leaving behind him as little trace as possible. After going a sort distance on top of the fence, he jumped down into the woods, and after going a few hundred yards through the trees and scrub, he deposited the deer, half hidden under the low hung branches of a hemlock tree. Then taking off the tracking irons, and making a wide ci­rcle, we reached the starting point. Now I expected several things to happen, but they did not happen. First, I expected to see the boys get down on hands and knees, or at least stoop over and study out the tracks. I had a picture in my mind of the Indian Scout stealthily stooping and cautiously moving forward, with one hand shading his eyes from the sun. But these boys started off at a run. Then I expected that when they came to where the trail suddenly stopped short in the dirt road, they would be completely baffled. But no, they did not overrun that critical spot by more than a hundred feet before the cry of “trail lost” rent the air. Then, backing up to the last clear track, they began to spread out fanwise in every direction. In an incredibly short time the new cry “trail found” rang in triumph. The game was scored by points, and the boy who first discovered the trail that had been lost was entitled to so many points. Then they assembled at the refound trail and were off again through the woods. Here the progress was slower for the trail was less distinct, but soon a new cry was heard. The first boy to catch sight of the burlap deer beneat the hemlock tree shouted at the top of his voice “Deer”. For this discovery he was entitled to a certain number of points. The rules of the game then demanded that he stand still and all the rest of the brave hunters take place behind him. Now the bows and arrows came into play and each boy toed the mark and shot his arrow at the deer. To hit the deer anywhere gave the archer so many points; to hit one of the circles around its heart gave a larger number of points, and to put an arrow in the black spot that represented the heart gave a still larger number of points and finished the game. But the sighted deer was quite a distance away and there were bushes and braches in the way, so if no one hit the fatal spot the first time, the rule permitted them to advance a certain number of paces and try again from the new position. So it was try and advance, and try again, and keep on trying and advancing until the deer was pronounced dead. One cannot, in relating this incident, inject into it the zest, enthusiasm and excitement of those who participated. For the time, it was not an artificial hunt – a sort of make believe-affair, but rather, very real. The game had been so clothed with drama, so full of tense expectancy, so intensely active, that every boy was on his toes, physically and men­tally every minute. For the moment, he had practically forgotten who he was, or where he was, for his whole attention was concentrate on tracking an elusive deer, and his mind was filled with anticipation of achievement.

Ferryman of souls into “those days”

It was thus that Setons had the ability to lift a group of boys out of themselves, and place them for the moment at least in a new world. Perhaps that expression “in a new world” might be used to describe many of his activities with boys. He lifted them out of a prosaic white man's world, and placed them in an ideal Indian's world. There was no room in this ideal Indian world or the degraded Indian, or the blood thirsty redskin of cheap fiction. He recognized that the real Indian of any period or locality had both vices and virtues. They were not either totally good or totally bad, so he threw the spotlight on their virtues which were real and many, and allowed their vices to remain obscured in the shadows.

I well remember the first time that I saw fire produced by rubbing two sticks together in the primitive way. I was in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. The Curator took some rubbing stick from one of the ex­hibits there and asked Seton if he thought he could produce fire from them. Seton said he was willing to try. He took off his coat, and quickly, with his pocket knife, trimmed the [charcoal] end of the stick to make it fit more satisfactorily in the socket of the other stick. Then fitting the bow to the spinning stick, he produced smoke, spark and fire in an incredibly short time. Many times since then, I have seen him light the Council fire with rubbing sticks. Once I heard a very prominent man ask him, “What is the use of lighting a fire that way in these days when matches are so cheap and plentiful?” This man represented a great majority who live in these days in their prosaic, humdrum world. Seton stands out as one who at will could live in those days, in a picturesque world of idealized realism. No one who ever saw him in a Council ring at night in the woods, amid breathless silence, with dignified and impressive gesture light the ceremonial fire by this primitive method, could question why. It would have been a spiritual let-down in that setting for some rash person to step forward and light that fire by striking a match. The match did not belong in that setting. Round the Council fire we were living in those days not these days.

The winner is anyone who can meet the predetermined conditions, not just the best

From my earliest boyhood I had been familiar with competitive sports and games. It was Seton who first called my attention to what he regarded as the great evil of such competition, and the way in which he proposed to remedy it. When ten boys compete in running a hundred yard dash, only one can win, and nine must suffer defeat. To bring a sense of defeat and humiliation to nine boys in order to bring a sense of victory and elation to one boy, did not appeal to Seton. Why not, he reasoned, arrange it so that each boy could [be|we] a winner and receive plaudits for the amount of effort he put into it. To him it seemed poor Psychology to allow one boy to win the dash with ease, or only partial effort, while another boy who had striven to his utmost, and come in second or third, was doomed to defeat, humiliation and discouragement. If there was an inevitable relation between struggle and development of character, then surely we should some how recognize and encourage struggle and effort as well as achievement and accomplishment.

In the foot race, for instance,­ why not encourage each contestant to compete with time rather than companions. Glory for him would consist on how fast he could run, not on how fast or slow others could run, or ran. To continue to beat one's own record was the highest kind of achievement, regardless of how many others were raster or slower than he. Even when he could beat the record of every other contestant, he must not slacken his effort, but continue to beat his own record because of what it did for him, and not because of anything it did to others. So Seton advocated competing against time and space, rather than against companions. He developed a plan whereby a boy's record was kept in points. If he ran a certain distance in a certain time, so many points; if at a faster pace, so many additional points. Thus each boy had his record of points earned or won. When a certain feat had been achieved, he was awarded a “coup”; where a more difficult feat had been achieved, he was entitled to a grand coup. This same principle obtained with titles in the tribe; they were earned, not granted or given without record of achievement. To be a “Brave or warrior” or a “Sagamore” or a “Sachem” indicated a long line of successful achievements. In the original Seton Indians, no boy at the Council fire wore a feather in his headdress that he had not earned.

YMCA at the time

It would be a mistake to claim that there is no evidence of an Indian program being used in the boys' camps of America previous to the organization of the Seton Indians in 1902.

In the year 1901 there were reported in Young Men's Christian Association boys' camps an attendance of 4327 boys from 228 localities. In a few of them the leader seemed to have in mind a military type of camping, greatly modified of course to suit the occasion. The tents were lined up in the open, bugle calls, flag raising, toy cannon salute, fatigue squads, sentinel duties, and in some even a semblance of military drill, and an officers' headquarters tent. Most of the camps, however, were more like a family affair, and many of them played at living like Indians.

As I look over the issues of Association Boys printed in 1902, I find, for instance, an article by George G. Peck entitled, “Things learned in Seventeen Consecutive Seasons in One Boys' Camp”. Among other things, Mr. Peck ad­vises that after seventeen years' experience “Copy the life ( not he habits ) of the savage”. “Camping should not be a dress affair”, etc. Another article of 15 pages on “Boys as Savages”, urges “The necessity of trying to satisfy the natural cravings of a boy's nature and using them for noble purposes, rather than trying to inject into his make-up a new set of instincts that will give him the disposition of Mary's little lamb. In an editorial paragraph in this same issue, I find these words: “the writer knows of a 'band of Indians' which was organized on this basis with its own chief, medicine man and keeper of the wampum. The chief was supposed to round up his tribe at the Sunday meeting and he did this successfully. The Indians decorated their Council chamber with appropriate decorations. Their leader read Hiawatha to them”.

In a following issue, an article by C. B. Horton on “Fun in Boys' Camps” described “Indian War dances”, “Cannibal foot ball games”, etc. Also F. R. Dennis describes in detail his rules for the game “White Man and Indian”. George D. Bivin takes four pages to describe “The Wild Indians of Buffalo” with their braves, sagamores, sachems, medicine men, pow-wows, Indian nicknames, head dresses, war clubs, face paint, secret writing, etc. M. D. Crackel writes about his bands of Indians in Cleveland, “The Sioux and the Mohawks”. Still later, in 1905, in this same publication, appears an article by Ernest Thompson Seton on “Laws of the Seton Indians”. An editorial paragraph in this issue calls attention to the “Red Book” published by Seton – a thirty-two page description of things related the Seton Indians, with illustrations of tepees, decorations, etc.

The most far reaching series of articles, beginning in Association Boys in 1902, and appearing in each issue for two years were “Studies of Adolescent Boyhood” by Luther H. Gulick, M.D.

It was my great privilege to sit as a student under Dr. Gulick in 1898 and it was under his guidance that I wrote at that time the article “Boys as savages”, which was printed four years later.

Scalp - the symbol of Life

It is not hard to understand my quick response to Seton's ideas on the occasion of our first meeting, for Dr. Gulick had drilled me on the natural instincts of a boy.

In the program of the Seton Indians, I thought I saw many of Dr. Gulick's theories spring into living reality. It is a far cry from playing Indian in a hap-hazard, super­ficial and more or less purposeless way, to the thorough-going, character building type of program introduced by Seton. His aim was character development, not merely amusement, or entertainment. To give but one example of his way of thinking through a difficult problem, I well remember a conversation we had about scalping. Now scalping was very real practice among Indians, and the question arose whether in a boys' program to omit it altogether or whether there was some way to adapt or modify it so that it could be used to advantage. Of course it was impossible to encourage boys in stark reality to make even a feeble approach to actually scalping each other. But, how to give reality to scalping, and avoid making a farcical pretense, was a real problem. It would be simple to make a ridiculous performance out of it, but how to make it serious and real and at the same time serve a useful purpose, was a knotty question. He decided to present to each boy when he joined a tribe, a scalp which consisted of a circle of leather or cloth, about 1½ inches in diameter, from which dangled a long bunch of horse hairs. The boy was solemnly abjured, “This is your scalp”. Treasure this as your honor. You may lose it without absolute disgrace, but not without some humiliation”. The boy could only lose his scalp in some important competi­tion approved by the Council. If he lost, the scalp would go to the winner, and the loser had to remain tuftless until with time an patient effort he was considered to have grown a new one. But, a brave without a scalp has no voice in the councils of the tribe. He cannot even sit in the Council [or take part in any competitions]. He has temporarily lost his right of franchise, his vote and voice and every symbol of manhood. When a member of the tribe has succeeded in getting the scalp of another “brave” he becomes a “warrior”.

Thus scalping became a matter of utmost seriousness and was resorted to only on rare occasions. The importance of the right of franchise or suffrage, made a deep impression. The scalp became almost a symbol of life itself and the lesson impressed that one must not risk his life needessly, but yet there are times when such a risk is justifiable.

Yes, this is but a sample of Seton's reasoning; respect the natural instinct and find some way of satisfying it that is not only beneficial but also agreable and entertaining. Any man who can so sublimate scalping that it be­comes almost a virtue is indeed a creative genius. There is no contradiction here between Seton's aversion to wholesale competitive sports, and his recognition that there are times and occasions when one boy is not only entitled to enter, as it were, into single combat with one of his peers, but that he cannot avoid such an encounter except at the expense of his own self respect and the risk of losing the respect of his companions.

It was Seton's insight and wisdom that provided this ultimate solution of what might otherwise have developed into a wrangle or worse between two boys equally desirous of a certain kind of leadership. Such a challenge had to have some outlet, so a dignified contest was arranged.

The general result was not only increased prestige for the winner, but also increased respect for a good loser who had done his best.

Wherein lies Seton's primacy

Granted that thousands of boys “played Indian” before Seton was born and that leaders of boys used this and that from Indian lore to amuse and entertain them, and possibly even to instruct and educate them, the fact remains that as far as I am able to discover Seton was the pioneer in developing a comprehensive, complete, articulate scheme of character building through dramatizing, enlivening, coordinating and vivifying Indian life and lore.

There is a world of difference between mere noise and music, even if the same violin or piano is used for producing both. One man may use Indian activities and produce discord; another may use the same activities and produce harmony. It is not the canvas, the paint and the brushes that are responsible for a great painting. It is the artist. With the same raw materials, different men make different things, so with Indian life and lore many men have produced many kinds of programs – good, fair and indifferent – ineffective and worse.

It was Seton the artist who painted a great picture with this material. It was Seton the musician who made it sing. It was Seton's crea­tive imagination and spirit that made it live and breathe. Possibly only those who have had the privilege of knowing this magnetic personality can appreciate his enthusiasm, kindly qualities and the contagion of his ideas. No way has been found adequately to give credit to Seton for his great contribution, for so much of it lies in a realm where no copyright is possible. Many partial and feeble imita­tions of his program have appeared. It is so easy to pick this and that from a program, to change it a little here and there, and then for someone else to imitate the imitator, and so on, and on, while the originator is forgotten. One is reminded of Kipling's poem “The Explorer” in which he says

“Well I know who'll take the credit – all the clever chaps that followed –
Came a dozen men together – never know my desert fears;
Tracked me by the camp I'd quitted, used the water holes I'd hollowed.
They'll go back and do the talking. They'll be called the Pioneers.”

Playing to Indians (September 1900)

To lift playing Indian from the level of purposeless child's play, to a dignified yet thrilling scheme of character development is no small accomplishment, and one is not surprised at the volume of misunderstanding and prejudice that greeted it at every turn.

The first tribe organized by Seton on his own estate in Cos Cob, Conn. in 1902, soon attracted attention, partly because of Seton the author, artist, lecturer, naturalist, and well known public character. Anything in which he had a hand was bound to attract public attention. But this would have been short lived if the attention of the public had not been arrested by something novel, something virile, something that suggested great possibilities and held out promise of wide spread interest. It appealed to some as a new and unique contribution in the realm of character education for boys. To others it was a puzzle, a mystery, with a vague appeal to submerged instincts. Some were doubtful, some distrustful, some were fearful of a lowering of a boy's ideals. Some regarded Seton as a master hypnotist who could cast a spell over a group of boys and onlookers and make the unreal seem real for the time, and they feared reactions and a let down, when the spell wore off. Some said the scheme was impossible or impractical without a Seton at the center; that it was not a program in which an ordinary man could hope for success. Some disapproved and thought the whole thing degrading; some were sceptical and some saw only the visible and heard only the vocal, missing the spiritual significance that even a minimum of insight might have apprehended. Soon this first tribe was commonly referred to as “Seton's Indians”. Some used it as a term of derision.

When, however, the idea began to spread, and other tribes were organized in other localities, they were by common consect called “Seton Indians”, or “The Seton Indians”, and this name persisted until the year 1905. In 1906, however, a new edition of “The Birch Bark Roll” appeared and the name “Woodcraft Indians” was used. I do not know just how much significance to place on the following quotation from that edition. “Moreover the ideal Indian, whether he ever existed or not, stands for the highest type of the primitive life, and he was a Master of Woodcraft, which is our principal study”. (The italics are mine.) In the following paragraph which tells of what is included in the term “Woodcraft” he includes “many branches of Indian-craft”. From this time on Woodcraft seems to have been regarded as the larger term which included Indian craft. One can only surmise what influence operated, as Seton's Indians gradually developed into Woodcraft Indians, and still later into the “Woodcraft League”.

At least two things gradually emerged; first, a desire to expand and extend the original idea, both with regard to the content of the program and the constituency to which it might appeal.

Woodcraft is for everybody

In Seton's article in 1905 we find this rather illuminating statement: “It (The Seton Indian program) is so plastic that it may be engrafted on any other organization mode of camping, to any desired extent, in whole or in part”.

This statement threw the doors wide open, and anyone was invited to come in and take anything he wanted. This was more than a generous gesture; it expressed the desire of his heart to share what he had and to give freely to all. What he expected in return was an equally generous attitude on the part of those who received, in acknowledging the gift, and returning some credit to the giver. In this he was bitterly disappointed. He said (Birch Bark Roll, 1906) “I should like to lead this whole nation into a way of living out of doors”.

Further on he indicates that his plan is for “young people” not boys exclusively, and little by little he expanded his idea until it included not only both sexes but all ages.

Game transform to the all-embracing movement

The second thing to emerge in this period of expansion was a greatly enlarged idea of “Woodcraft”.

It seemed as if the original idea was “Indian Craft” for boys, which included some Woodcraft, and in the process of expansion the scheme became a Woodcraft Program for everybody which included some Indian Craft. “ By Woodcraft we mean out-door athletics, nature study and camping as a fine art. Photography is recognized as a branch of nature study, and camper craft is made to include the simplest methods of triangulation, star craft, finding one's way, telling direction, sign language, as well as many branches of Indian-craft ”. (Seton 1905).

It seemed that the term Woodcraft could be stretched to include all outdoors for we find “The wilderness affords the ideal camping, but many of the benefits can be got by living in a tent pitched on a town lot, piazza, or even house top”. (E.T.S. 1906)

From the house top it was an easy jump to the City street, and there soon appeared games that could he played on the pavements and some forms of Indian scouting and tracking from block to block.

Seton's influence

During this period Seton was broadcasting ideas from the lecture platform and through the press.

He had gathered together a group of man who acted as a sort of National Council, but their efforts seem to have been confined to giving counsel or advice on the content, of the program. He had no way of keeping track of the various organizations which used his program in part or as whole, except as correspondence or visits or newspaper mention may have revealed it. A glance through some Y.M.C.A. printed matter of this decade shown considerable interest in the kind of thing that Seton stood for, but it is impossible to discover how much or how little could be traced to him.

Painesville, Ohio, winter camp divided its boys into three Indian tribes, Cleveland had its “Sioux” and “Mohawks”; Newark had everything from Ornithology Clubs, bird clubs, to Gypsy trips and marooning parties. Camp Dudley reported clubs studying Geology, birds, trees, and various wood craft interests, and to earn a coveted “D” the boys had to do many things like mountain climbing, making shelters, cooking simple meals, catching and taming a chipmunk, identifying 20 birds and 20 trees, etc. Montclair camp had its “White man vs. Indian” games; Springfield, Mass., had its “Pawnee Indian Camp”; Roanoke, Va. describes its “Wild Indians” in four pages, ending with this advice: “read Wild Indians of Buffalo, ‘Association Boys’ february 1904, and the little red book ‘How to Play Indian’ by Ernest Thompson Seton”. Another four page article describes “The Snapping Turtles” of 23rd Street Y.M.C.A., New York. Camp Becket reported a library with books on Nature Study, Wood Working, etc., a place to make things, clubs for study of birds, flowers, trees, seeds, mosses, ferns, first aid, life saving, and even an out door presentation of Hiawatha. Several Associations in New Jersey reported nature study clubs organized as “Indian Trailers” with Big Chief, Medicine Man Keeper of the Birch Bark Roll, etc., braves known as Eagle Feather, Rain-in-the Face, Silent Foot, etc. “The boys are very enthusiastic and are becoming quite skilled in woodcraft… …every Association in the County could have a successful and enthusiastic band of young naturalists”. Racine, Wisc. tells of nine Bible clubs formed as “Indian Tribes”. From Eastern District, Brooklyn, we quote: “The fact that 61 campers voted unanimously after trying the Indian form of organization, to repeat it the following season, gives evidence of its popularity. Of course it is true that some men have played Indian in such a juvenile way as to disgust older boys; on the other hand, other men have been able enthusiastically to enlist the entire camp in living what approximated a real Indian life, imitating of course, only the virtues of the savage, not his vices.”

The foregoing quotations, selected at random from one publication of one organization, were printed before much was known about the Boy Scout Movement in America. Doubtless similar quotations could be produced from many other organizations. Whether boys' organizations and organizations which dealt with boys were sprayed or deluged with ideas about Woodcraft, handicraft, nature study, Indian craft, etc. during that period, is a matter of opinion. [That there were more than 57 varieties of effort in this field, one way be sure.] That there was some exploitation of these ideas is evident. A joyful Saturday in the woods could be hitched up inseparably with a less enjoyable attendance at Church or Sunday School the following day. Bible study could be presented as the “Message of the Great Mystery” and made a part of the tribe's regular program. In fact, any particular thing the leader wished, could, to use a mixed metaphor, be decorated with war paint and feathers, wrapped up in a blanket and swallowed whole at a camp fire pow-wow.

I wish to bear testimony to the generosity and tireless efforts of Seton during this period of seed sowing. True, his formal lectures were booked through a lecture bureau and he was not allowed to break the price charted where a paid admission was involved, but he said “I can lecture all I want to for nothing”. I do not recall that he ever refused to speak before any group when I asked him to do so. This he did a his own expense, gladly, freely and frequently. He gave days and weeks of time, traveling at his own expense, without thought of financial remuneration, glad of the opportunity to spread his gospel of the “Blue Sky Method” of living. It is because I was able to observe at first hand the effect of Seton's influence on many leaders of boys in America that I can picture what in all probability took place in England as a result of Seton's contacts there. Some seed undoubtedly fell by the wayside, some on stony ground, some among thorns, but some fell in fertile soil and brought forth fruit abundantly. One may read of his lec­tures in London, Newcastle, Rossall, Haileyburg, Ealing, Aysgarth, Dover College, Uppingham, Cheltenham, Aldenham, Fetters' College, Loretto, Harrow, Brighton, Hampstead, etc. and imagine what influences were set in motion in England in the Autumn of 1904.

At this time the little “Red Book” already mentioned, was the only printed matter available for distribution at the meetings.

Baden-Powell (September 1906)

In the Autumn of 1906 Seton was again lecturing in England, and at this time met Baden Powell, and, to use Seton's own expression “found him ablaze with interest”.

By this time the little “Red Book” had expanded and become the “Birch Bark Roll” of 1906 editions and a copy was given to Baden Powell. It seems that this was a momentous occasion for Baden Powell had been asked to re-write his brochure “Aids to Scouting” which had been written for the benefit of soldiers, and make it suitable for a hand book for the use of the “Church Lads” of England.

Many times I have stood at the junction point where two great rivers meet and watched the mingling of the waters. Sometimes in India one hears an expression which indicates the mingling of the Ganges and the Jumna Rivers. It is used when a man's hair, while still black, is just beginning to show the first grey hairs. The mingling of the waters is easily understood, and the stream that follows the intermingling sometimes shows indication of both origins, and some­times one of the original streams seems to have swallowed up the other. When two such men as Seton and Baden Powell meet and the stream of their ideas whose sources were in different mountains, mingle, one need something more then common eyesight or even insight, to say of the following stream, “This came from this stream and that from that stream”. True, there may be bits of driftwood that could only have come from one of the contributing streams, or a sediment or coloring that could only flow from the other. But in a stream of mingled ideas, how difficult it is to trace origins.

Take even so simple a word as “Scouting”. Both men had used it previous to their meeting; both had printed something about it. One had in mind Indian Scouting adapted to boys; the other had in mind aboriginal Scouting, adapted to soldiers. Whether Baden Powell got his ideas of Scouting from natives of Africa or not, I do not know, but Seton undoubtedly got his ideas from the Indians of North America. Both men, however, were familiar in a general way, through reading, with the various forms of native Scouting the world over. In 1906, Scouting as such, was a minor, and Woodcraft a major activity in the Woodcraft Indians, but when the Boys Scout Movement was publicly inaugurated in England in 1908, Scouting in that organization was the major idea, with Woodcraft as minor activity. Just as the word Woodcraft had been stretched in America to cover almost every kind of outdoor activity, now the Boy Scout idea was stretched to include almost any kind of activity that appealed to boys. The chemistry of ideas is quite beyond me, but I have seen, or at least been among those present when hydrogen and oxygen were mixed in the old reliable formula of H²0 and the two gases turned into water.

The chemistry which explains how two gases mixed become a liquid is difficult enough, but the chemistry of mixed ideas is something quite beyond my comprehension.

How B.-P. scouting penetrated the USA

In the period between October 30, 1906 when Seton and Baden Powell first met, and the public inauguration of the Boy Scout Movement in England, January 24, 1908, I do not discover that the Woodcraft Indians had changed their program much or materially because of that momentous meeting, but the idea of “Scouting” in the mind of Baden Powell seems to have undergone a significant change, and some of this undoubtedly because of his contact with Seton.

It is because I saw Seton, with lavish generosity, share his ideas with all who would accept, in America, that I am confident he did likewise in England, and especially so when he found so eager a listener as Baden Powell. How great was this contribution of ideas by Seton there is no way of knowing. Does the chemistry of ideas explain how two original ideas, when suitably mixed, may produce a third that bears little or no resemblance to either of its contribut­ing parts?

It was during the latter part of 1908, and more particulary during 1909 that the influence of the English Boy Scout Movement began to be felt in America. Copies of the English Handbook were found here and there and visitors returning from England began to tell about the Scouts. In Toronto, Canada, “Scouting for Boys” was presented to the boys' cabinet in the Y.M.C.A. and re­ceived with ridicule, finally being voted down. The older boys thought it savored of the “tin soldier idea”. They pictured each other Scouting round the country, hiding from the enemy behind trees and rocks. The word “Scouting” suggested eavesdropping and snitching. To be a Scout, (they thought) was not a very honorable distinction, so they turned it down, but were unanimous in de­siring some kind of a group program. Then, just as a few years earlier, some leaders had picked this and that from the Seton Indian program, they began to pick and choose what they thougt desirable from the Scout program. Thirty two groups were organized, but the three groups which followed the Scout program most closely proved to be the most successful.

In October 1909 a public meeting was called by some prominent military man who had visited Great Britain the preceding summer and been impressed with the Scout Movement. The meeting was held in the Armory but the speakers assured the audience that Baden Powell clearly stated that the Movement was non military in its purpose. A council was organized, the city divided into seven divisions with local committees and some 1500 boys were enrolled. In England, in the be­ginning of Scout popularity, they had to contend with “Monkey Scouts”, so in Canada the same thing occurred. Irresponsible groups began to ape the Scouts and bring discredit on the genuine Scout Movement. In both cases a strong organization­ was needed to suppress and restrain these “monkey patrols”. It has always seemed to me that Seton's organization suffered more from “monkey Indians” or irresponsible and incapable imitators than from any other cause, and no adequate governing body undertook to remedy this problem.

When the English Boy Scout Handbook began to appear in scattered locali­ties in the U.S.A. various leaders of boys in various ways began to adapt and modify and pick and choose from the program. These efforts ranged all the way from merely adding a little Boy Scout garnishing to an existing program, to a whole hearted effort to try the entire program with a newly organized group. In addition to the danger of disintegration came the danger of exploitation. The “swivel chair Scout Master” who wanted all the honor while an assistant did all the work, was sometimes a Sunday School teacher and sometimes a Clergyman eager to capture the following of the boys for the benefit of his organization or special interest.

There were others who would like to have exploited this new interest, and it soon became apparent that some kind of National supervison was necessary.

The “Boy Scouts of America” and my part in the origin of it

It was my privilege, early in 1910, to call together a group of men interested in the leadership of boys and to propose the forming of a National Comittee.

The meeting resulted in the appointment of a Committee on Organiza­tion, with executive powers, pending the organizing of a permanent National Com­ittee. The unanimous choice for Chairman of this organizing Committee was Ernest Thompson Seton, and later, when the permanent organization was completed, he was unanimously chosen as “Chief Scout”. As I look back on the five years that followed, and recall how whole heartedly he threw himself into an effort to promote the Boy Scouts of America at he beginning of this period, and how grieved he was at the end, I realize something of the tragedy and disappointment that over­took him. No man could have been more generous with his time and effort. His zeal and energy were astounding. He wanted to contribute all of his Woodcraft Indian program to this new movement, to have it merge in the blood stream and lost its identity as a separate outside movement. He stood prepared to give freely all of his ideas and experience and ability. He was astounded at the reluctance of this new Committee to swallow at a gulp what he was so eager to give. With increasing bewilderment it dawned upon him that this new movement in America, true to form, only wanted to pick and choose from the program that he had created. To him it seemed that the tendency was to choose the less important, and ignore the more important items in his original program. At the beginning of the Scout Movement in America, the name of Ernest Thompson Seton was a great asset, for he was nationally known through his books and lectures, and recognized, (as ever) as an authority in Nature Study, Woodcraft and Indian lore.

This new, vaguely understood and much misunderstood movement needed a sponsor of National reputation.

Seton was “The Chief”!

Only those who were on the inside of the Movement in those early, hectic days, have any idea of the confusion that prevailed on the outside.

The newspapers of the country heralded the formation of the National Committee, and letters poured in at a rate that swamped the newly opened office. There was pressure to send out quickly some leaflets giving information to inquirers. Seton undertook to write a manual under speed pressure, and the pressure of “Americanizing” the English Manual sufficiently to make it acceptable in the United States. Seton worked night and day on this thankless job and the hurriedly printed manual was ready for distribution at the dinner given to Baden Powell in New York in September 1910. It served its purpose in helping stem the flood of inquiries while an Editorial Com­mittee undertook to revise the material more carefully for a second edition.

Small wonder that that first hurried edition proved inadequate when one listened for hours to the committee on revision as it debated what should go into that second edition, and how it should be phrased.

The Silver Bay Camp (Summer 1910)

In August 1910, Seton conducted an experimental Scout camp at Silver Bay, New York.

In some ways this might have been considered a “make shift” camp for it started out with one idea, and then tried to adapt itself to another. It was a typical case of “the mingling of the waters of two great rivers”. The camp had its origin in a challenge. In the previous year I had said to Seton, in effect, “Yes, your camp is fine, your ideas are fine, but just how far our Y.M.C.A. leaders will accept them is another question. Will your ideas work with the kind of older boys with whom we have to deal? Are you willing to demonstrate to a group that I will assemble at Silver Bay, New York, next August?” Without hesitation, Seton accepted the challenge and prepared to demonstrate how the “Woodcraft Indians” would conduct a camp.

We agreed in advance on several lines of procedure that were not in common use in Y.M.C.A. boys' camps. Among them were these: (1) Only volunteer leadership - no paid help of any kind. (2) Twenty groups of 6 older boys and one volunteer adult, from 20 different cities. (3) No chef. Each group to do its own cooking. (4) No competitive sports. (5) Each group to make and bring its own tepee. (6) Each boy to bring one six foot bow and 6 arrows. (7) Tepees to be pitched at random but no one within 100 feet of any other. (8) Each group to make its own fireplace for outdoor cooking, etc. All of these preparations, were made before the Boy Scouts of America was organized, but before the Camp convened, Seton had become the Chief Scout of that organization. He had to face the problem of merging the ideas of the Woodcraft Indians with which he was familiar, with the ideas of the new and somewhat vaguely understood ideas of the Boy Scouts with which he was less familiar, but of which he was looked upon as the National Leader or Chief. The situation was a difficult one, but his response was typical. He threw himself with abandon into the enterprise giving not only two full weeks of time at the camp but also time in the preparation. He brought equipment, tracking irons, gorgeous blankets, tom-toms, etc. and all entirely at his personal expense.

He kept 120 boys of High School age so busy for two weeks doing things they had never done before that they had neither the time nor the inclination to play a game of base ball although a fine athletic field and all equipment was within a few hundred yards of the camp.

Free will is base of the woodcraft

He experienced no difficulty in interesting the boys and giving them one of the most unique and enjoyable adventures of their lives.

It was only when he remembered that he was Chief of the Boy Scouts that the difficulty began. He as sincerely trying to conduct the camp on Boy Scout lines, and yet incorporate into it the heritage of the Woodcraft Indians. It is because his position in this camp illustrates so well his position in trying to merge these two movements into one that I mention it here. The two programs might have much in common, but there certainly were points here they could not mix. Baden Powell was a conformist by inclination I think, as well as in experience. Seton was non-conformist by nature, inclination and experience. Baden Powell, by training, a military man, saw all the virtues that inhered in discipline, organization, regularity, standardization, etc., etc. Seton was more than non-military; he was anti-military. He hated to see tents all pitched in a straight line. He refused to rise, go to meals, go to bed at a certain time, and on bugle call. He insisted on freedom to follow inclination and the liberty of doing what you want to do when you want to do it. How could any one expect a non-military, non-conformist nature to follow a plan devised by a man of miliary instincts and great respect for the values of conformity. In the Camp, he tried his best to follow Boy Scout tradition, but the Indian Scout tradition could not be suppressed for it was involuntary, and naturally it prevailed.

I think that group of boys enjoyed Seton's way of camping more than they would have enjoyed a more stereotyped way, but how much of that was due to Seton's magnetic personality, it is hard to say.

Why was the Baden-Powell system more attractive

The Boy Scout pro­gram does not demand so versatile a leadership, or so unique a type.

It is easier to find ten men who can successfully lead in the Scout program that it is to find one man who can measure up to the peculiar demands of the Woodcraft Indian program. Mechanical drawing, with T Square ruler and compass is difficult enough, but the high degree of artistic talent needed to produce an acceptable oil painting is beyond the average man.

One finds difficulty in comparing the value of a simplified program that anyone can follow with one that is so difficult that only relatively few can attain it.

Uniformity is unnatural

I have been entertained in six different houses that Seton has built; three in Connecticut, and three in New Mexico.

No one of these houses resembles an other. All defy architectural tradition, yet all are practical, and to me, beautiful. Seton says Nature authors a straight line and a flat color, for her lines are curved or crooked and her colors are mixed, or mottled. So when he builds a house, he follows nature rather than convention. He sees no reason why a ridge pole should be straight, for a graceful curve looks better to him. He sees no good reason for laying slates on the roof in even rows, and of the same color and shape, so, with many colored slates of many shapes and sizes laid on irregularly, and with broken corners, he produces the mottled effect, producing in his crooked, irregular roof a thing of beauty. He sees no good reason why any two sides of a house need be painted the same color, nor why any one side should be all of one color, so I discovered one side of his house in a rose color at a lower corner, fade away into cream or buff color in the diagonal corner. Another side of the house started with pale green at one corner, flecked with spots of yellow, and faded into a delicate yellow flecked with tiny green specks. The whole effect revealed the spirit and the handiwork of an artist. Seton is not only unconventional in a passive way, but he is in open rebellion against many conventions that to him seem absurd. He is absolutely fearless physically and spiritually. He is an individual who towers above the crowd and refuses to be led by any mere majority vote. It has been said of “the bull in the china shop” that there is nothing bad about the bull, nor anything bad about the china shop, but it is merely a bad combination. Seton in the woods, unhampered and unrestrained, was magnificent but placed in a position where he was hemmed in by convention and regulation, and where a strong committee with various points of view had to be convinced before he was free to act, was quite another matter. Give him a free hand in building a house, and he will develop the kind of house that never was seen before, and it will be efficient and economical and beautiful. Given a free hand in an organi­zation that he could dominate and control, an original and effective program would be developed, but tie him down to any stereotyped program, no matter how good and he was not happy. His ideas came too freely to be fitted into any semi­-rigid scheme. He could change his mind in the twinkling of an eye. Something would arrest his attention and a new idea would spring into being.

I am not sure that I know what is meant by “dynamic equilibrium” but there was about him that suggestion of a dynamic power held in leash, that might break loose.

How Baden-Powell's approach differed from Seton's

The power of a great National organization lies not so much in the ability of any one man, no matter how capable, who will furnish all the ideas, as in a welding together of the ideas of many strong men of divergent abilities and experiences.

To build an organization around the personality of one indispensable man is to risk utter collapse when such a man drops out. To build an organization on the fused contributions of many strong men makes possible an uninterrupted succession as in time one by one each man in the group must eventually be replaced. To build a national organization around such an extraordinary and irreplaceable man as Seton would be to court ultimate disaster, but to put his many original, and oft times revolutionary ideas into a common melting pot seemed to have insuperable difficulties. It is no more possible for Seton to have a successor than for Thomas Edison, but the contributions of these two men will never die. No one will arise who will be exactly like either of them, but many men will profit by their discoveries.

Baden Powell was right when he said “The Boy Scout Movement has had many fathers”, and he publicly acknowleged that Seton was one of them. It would at least approximate the truth if one would say “The Woodcraft Indians had but one father”. Once I heard Baden Powell tell of how he went about the task of develop­ing a training school for Scoutmasters. He consulted all the leading educators he was able to contact. The result was a list of over 200 books, each one of which was regarded as absolutely indispensable by someone of recognized ability. He said it was evident that such a reading course for Scoutmasters was im­possible so he started a practise school rather than a theoretical school.

The incident reveals the man who was eager for collaboration and ever seeking it in a widespread field.

A personality does not grow to strong in the shadow of a strong personality.

When Seton started his “College of Indian Wisdom” at Santa Fe, he brought in some educators, and some teachers of practical crafts, including a number of Indians.

Valuable as was this “outside help” the fact remained that Seton himself was the Chief ingredient in the course and without him the enterprise could not continue. It is impossible for him to cast his mantle on the shoulders of another man or spread it effectively over the shoulders of a group of men, for his mantle does not fit any shoulders but his own. The school that Baden Powell started, because of its simplicity, can he carried on without him, but I do not see on the horizon any one who can take Seton's place at the centre of the “College of Indian Wisdom”. I shall always think of Ernest Thompson Seton throwing off sparks like an emery wheel – broadcasting ideas. I shall always think of him as on the giving end of the line, not the receiving end.

The words of Robert Browning sing in my ears as I think of him:

“Rejoice we are allied
To that which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold to God
Who gives than of His tribes
that take, I must believe.”

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