To you, Scoutmasters and leaders of boys, this Handbook is made available. It reflects the experiences of more than twenty-five years of Scouting, the researches of many men, and the practical study of fifteen million boys at play and at work. It fills two volumes.

Two volumes! And yet Scouting is simple. Scouting may be defined in a few words; but Scouting may be lived in a thousand ways. To present as many of these ways as possible-to give you an opportunity to select those methods that will give your boys a full Scouting experience-these have been our aims.

As you open these pages, two questions may concern you:

What is the plan of this book? How may I use it to best advantage?

These questions-natural questions for a Handbook user to ask-are discussed here so that each of you may be prepared to make the fullest possible use of the helps contained herein.

Purposes Of This Handbook

This Handbook for Scoutmasters has a two-fold purpose-first, to serve as an easy reference book to which you can turn and from which you can get quickly the information you need to meet an immediate situation; and second, to serve as a book to be read for inspiration and general guidance in boy leadership.

To the end that both these purposes may be realized, a full Table of Contents and a complete Index appear in each volume.

General Usefulness

All Scoutmasters-whether of Troops, Lone Scout Tribes or Neighborhood Patrols-have been kept in mind throughout the preparation of this material.

By referring to the Index, you can locate material of peculiar interest to your own situation, and in addition you will find throughout the book that programming and activities helps are so varied that your own needs will be served.

Furthermore, although this Handbook is definitely for Scoutmasters and their associates in Troop leadership, it will be a valuable collateral book for all Scouters.

As You Go Forward

Supplementing this Handbook's suggestions and helps with the assistance that is readily available to you from your Local Council-its Scout Executive and the Council's volunteer Scouters such as District and Neighborhood Commissioners and District Committeemen-you will go forward in your program of leading America's youth.

And so, Scouters, in your hands is placed this Handbook for Scoutmasters.

It is YOUR book. You helped to give it its present form. It is not, by any means, the final word, but merely a finger pointing the way as you guide your Scouts toward the ideals of Scouting-toward finer character and richer citizenship.

The Scoutmaster

by Edgar A. Guest

There isn't any pay for you, you serve without reward, The boys who tramp the fields with you but little could afford,

And yet your pay is richer far than those who toil for gold,

For in a dozen different ways your service shall be told.

You'll read it in the faces of a Troop of growing boys, You'll read it in the pleasure of a dozen manly joys, And down the distant future—you will surely read it then,

Emblazoned thru the service of a band of loyal men.

Five years of willing labor and of brothering a Troop, Five years of trudging highways, with the Indian cry and whoop,

Five years of camp fires burning, not alone for pleasure's sake,

But the future generation which the boys are soon to make.

They have no gold to give you, but when age comes on to you

They'll give you back the splendid things you taught them how to do,

They'll give you rich contentment and a thrill of honest pride

And you'll see your nation prosper, and you'll ail be satisfied.

Copyright by Edgar A. Guest Printed by permission of George Matthew Adams Service

Prologue

AMIDSHIPMAN once wrote to the British Admiral Fisher: "My dear Admiral: I would like to know how you became the highest officer of our Navy. At one time you were just a midshipman like me. Won't you tell me HOW you did it?"

Admiral Fisher, by the same mail, probably got dozens of communications all of far greater importance than the midshipman's. Yet he took the time to write a long letter of reply, closing with the advice:

"My friend, remember this:

"First-get you a vision of the great thing you wish to accomplish;

"Second-get you a plan by which you may accomplish it;

"Third-then go to battle for it and earnestly pray that God may give you victory."

We have that vision: the vision of helping.boys grow.

What is more, we have the plan by which we may gain the victory.

The plan is SCOUTING!

What, then, is SCOUTING? How does it work? What are its methods, its program, its organization?

For an adequate understanding of Scouting it is necessary to trace it to its origin, to turn back the clock to the end of the last century.

Drawing by Baden-Powell, Chief Scout of the World.