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Scouting History
Scouting began in Great Britain, founded by Lord Baden-Powell and based on skills he learned in defense of the town of Talk:Mafikeng in the Boer War and at an experimental camp on Brownsea Island in Dorset. Because Baden Powell was also associated with the YMCA in Britain, news of the early Boy Scout manual, "Scouting For Boys", had already reached the United States.
The Boy Scout movement, however, did not reach the US until 1909. William D. Boyce, a Chicago, Illinois publisher, was wandering through the fog of London, lost in the unfamiliar city, when a uniformed boy offered to take him to his destination. Upon their arrival, Boyce offered the boy some money and the boy refused, stating that a Boy Scout should not take money for doing good deeds. Boyce was impressed and asked the boy to meet him the following morning to take him to the Scout headquarters. The boy did so and Boyce returned to the United States and, with two other businessmen, Edward S. Stewart and Stanley D. Willis, Boyce incorporated the Boy Scouts of America.
The first troop was Troop 1, based at a YMCA. Edgar Robinson, an important administrator of the YMCA in Chicago, Illinois, agreed to help Boyce organize the Boy Scouts as a national organization. Two other organizations melded with the BSA. The first was Ernest Thompson Seton's Woodcraft Indians, and the other was Daniel Carter Beard's Sons of Daniel Boone. Seton had also met with Baden Powell in England, prior to Boyce's experience in London, and was influential in the foundation of the Boy Scouts there. William Randolph Hearst, and others, later founded multifarious scouting organizations which eventually combined to form the Boy Scouts of America.
The consolidation was complete by the late teens. The Boy Scouts of America was successfully organized by 1910, when Seton, Beard and Baden Powell, along with Boyce, Edgar Robinson and others, called a national meeting. This was to be a historic meeting, for the first national officers were selected, and it was agreed that the President (then Taft) was to be the Honorary President of the BSA, a tradition that is still followed today.
The Scouts were then incorporated by Boyce on February 8, 1910. In 1911, the Boy Scouts of America published the first American Boy Scout manual ("Handbook For Boys"), a revision of Seton's version. This was the first appearance of the American Scout Oath and Law. The British version was a pledge of allegiance to the King. James E. West wrote the Scout Oath, and added three points to the British version of the Law (brave, clean and reverent). In 1912,
Sea Scouting became an official program. Sea Scouting is closely akin to the Boy Scouts of America, though focused primarily on maritime activities. Boys Life magazine also began in 1912, and continues today to be the official Boy Scout magazine. In 1913, the Scouting Magazine for Leaders started. The Boy Scouts have served at every presidential inauguration since Woodrow Wilson's in 1913 . In 1916 Paul Sleman, Colin H. Livingstone, Ernest S. Martin and James E. West successfully lobbied Congress for a federal charter for BSA.
Also in 1916, Baden Powell organized Wolf Scouts in Britain, for boys too young for the Boy Scouts (minimum age twelve at the time). In BSA, Wolf Scouts became Cub Scouts. In 1919 Baden Powell began a training program called Wood Badge for adult leaders in Scouting. It was copied all over the world and is still in use today. In 1920 the first International Scout Jamboree, a gathering of scouts from all over the world, was held in London.
Jamborees are currently held every four years, in varying countries. In 1937, oil magnate Waite Phillips donated to the BSA a large tract of land in the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico. This is now the Philmont Scout Ranch. BSA's National Office is currently located in Irving, Texas. The National Organization is divided into regional Councils, which range in size from two small West Virginia counties (Mountaineer Council) to all of DC and much of Maryland and Northern Virginia (National Capital Area Council).
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