Having talked of War Scouting, its hazards and its joys, I must explain that there is also such a thing as Peace Scouting equally endowed with thrills and hardships.
Just as an Army Scout goes out ahead of his army to find the way for it, to gain information, and to open up the situation for its advance, so the Peace Scout goes out ahead into unexplored regions to gain information and to open up new countries for the advance of civilisation.
Such Scouts are the explorers, prospectors, pioneers, missionaries, trappers, and frontier constabulary. These men have to be plucky, hardy, resourceful fellows, relying on their own ability to make their way without help from others. They must be able to stick it out when times are bad, and be ready to push on with their job the moment opportunity arises.
They have to maintain a cheery, hopeful outlook, even when things look blackest for them, and they have to be men who can be trusted to do their job away from all supervision and applause.
In practice one finds these frontiersmen ever ready to lend a hand to others where danger or difficulty threatens.
In every part of the world have I seen these British Peace Scouts at work, whether in their schooners among the islands of the South Seas or the icebergs of Newfoundland, or harnessing rivers in far-away Canadian backwoods to provide power for the coming population; coaxing two blades of corn to grow where none grew before in Kenya, prospecting for coal and iron for future use in Rhodesia, conquering the deserts of Australia and South Africa, or bringing peace and enlightenment to the natives of Nigeria or the Sudan.
These Scouts are pressing forward all the time unseen, unpraised, but ever persistent.
The attributes of War Scouts are largely essential to the Peace Scouts of the backwoods, namely energy, self-reliance, courage, reliability and cheerful self-sacrifice in service.
But equally these qualities are desirable among our citizens in civilised parts.
They are not, however, qualities that can be taught to a class in school; they have to be picked up and developed by the individual. You cannot take every boy and girl to the backwoods to teach them, but it is possible to bring something of the backwoods within their reach as we are doing through the medium of the Boy Scout and Girl Guide Movement.
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