Scouting - The Connecting Link

In the words of Baden-Powell, from "Lessons on the 'Varsity of Life."

Through the whole of my career in the Army there ran a vein — a fad or whatever you like to call it — that obsessed me and which, while adding zest to my work, came to be of use for the service. Later on it proved the connecting link between my two otherwise dissimilar lives. This was Scouting.      

Scouting includes a rather wide range of work. Briefly, it is the art or science of gaining information. Before or during war information about the enemy’s preparations, his strength, his intentions, his country, his circumstances, his moves, etc., is vitally essential to a commander if he is to win success. The enemy, therefore, on his part, naturally keeps such details as secret as he can.

Thus the job which falls to the fellow who has got to find these out is a difficult one and risky. If he does it in disguise he is called a spy, and is liable to be shot, while in uniform he is more conspicuous as a Scout and equally liable to meet his end.

To do effective work demands a good knowledge of military tactics and organisations. It demands  also, to a very high degree, the qualities of personal initiative and imagination, as well as of the four Cs, which I have elsewhere said go to make a soldier, namely, Courage, Commonsense, Cunning,  and Cheerful Co-operation.

     Consideration for self, for one’s ease or one’s safety doesn’t come in.
     Scouting is certainly a fascinating game for the performer and worth all the risk, because of its immense value to his side.