The Selluraphone

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

     I had just landed in Malta on my return there from a visit to Sicily. While in that island I had bought, as a curio, one of those high brass saddles with which the natives decorate their horses and mules.
     It was ornamented with a row of brass knobs upon a kind of spike in front, which terminated with a couple of brass flags at the top. One the sides were also rather larger and more conspicuous knobs.
     A friend, seeing me arrive with this strange implement, asked: “Is that a musical instrument?”
     “What else do you suppose it is?” I replied.
     Then he begged me, with all the earnestness at his command, to play it at a concert the following week.
     I did so.
     I arranged with the orchestra to play a high-class Nocturne in which I should take the solo part with my “Selluraphone.” Meantime I fitted the instrument with a strap so that I could hand round my neck in front of my chest and I attached a paper- covered comb opposite my mouth, and at the performance I “sang” through this comb in a high falsetto, tuning the instrument by means of its flags, playing the notes on the knobs up and down the front, and giving the loud and soft effect by tinkering with the larger knobs on the side.
     Not a soul guessed that it was not a real musical instrument.

Gagging

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

     I was once called upon by a professional touring company to take the part of the sentry in Iolanthe, in the place of a member of the caste who had been taken ill.
     Time did not admit of a rehearsal, but the part of Private Willis, the sentry, is a particularly easy one since he merely has to sing his one song and to do sentry-go without entering into conversation with the other characters.
     I had finished my song and have given my cue for the entrance of the leading lady when, as I neared the prompt side in the course of my march, the prompter whispered: “She is not ready. Gag for a few minutes.”
     And I gagged. After looking cautiously round to make sure that no officer was in the neighbourhood I put down my rifle and taking things easy I gave in a soliloquy my opinion of “sentry-go” from the private soldier’s point of view, generally alluding to various methods by which a cunning soldier could evade his sentry-go duties in comparative comfort without detection.
     With an audience of soldiers (which indeed included H.R.H. The Duke of Connaught) my remarks went down all right; indeed so satisfactory were they considered that the Manager insisted on my taking part again the following night and repeating in full the lecture on “sentry-go.”
     In an ordinary way it would have been difficult for me on the spur of the moment to give an oration without some preliminary thought on the subject, but I have over and over again found that when one’s whole attention is concentrated on the matter in hand, as it is when one is on the Stage, apt ideas spring to mind in a surprising way.

Play-Acting

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

     I AM convinced that the play-acting which was encouraged among us boys [at Charterhouse] by that broad-minded and far-seeing Headmaster, Dr. Haig-Brown, was of great value to us in after-life.      It was not necessarily with a view to our going on the stage, however, that the Headmaster encouraged us to act but rather as a useful bit of general education.
     For instance, it brought us boys to appreciate for the first time something of the values and beauties of poetic expression. It taught us to memorise speeches, to express ourselves without self-conscious awkwardness before an audience, to articulate clearly, to use apt phrases, so to modulate voice and gesture as to grip and hold our hearers; moreover it taught us that valuable asset of being able to gauge their responsiveness; all in fact that was helpful later on in public speaking.
     Whether it was for the pleasure of showing off I cannot now say but I certainly enjoyed acting for its own sake, and its pursuit led me to many new and interesting experiences.

Peace Scouting

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

     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.

War Scouting

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

     For my part, although my life has been to a large extent a series of enjoyments, when I ask myself which bit of it I most enjoyed, memory, without any hesitation, flies back to blazing sunshine on a hot, parched, thorn-scrub plain in Rhodesia, where the only shade from the scorching heat was got by hanging your coat over a little bush, where one’s clothes were in rags, one’s food a small portion of horse and a double handful of flour (which for want of time we usually mixed with water and drank down), and where we were tired and worn out with constant night marching against a crafty savage foe.
     Veldt sores, roughly dressed with a fingerful of grease out of a wagon wheel, adorned our faces and hands.  Our horses were drooping bags of bones, and they were tired, very tired.
     And yet — we were fit and hard, there was new adventure, new excitement or anxiety every day, and we were good tried comrades all.  It was all a glorious care-free adventure.
     And then the nights; those clear frosty nights under the dark overhead vault, with its stars big and brilliant, twinkling humourously and watching you as you creep along in your crafty, silent stalk (with all the possibility of being yourself at the same time stalked).
     You feel your way in the bitter darkness, suspicious of every rock or bush, with all your senses on the strain, eyes, ears and nose, to catch sight, sound or scent of an enemy.
     On you creep, lying low; pausing; creeping again with deadly patience, in a blindfold game of hide and seek. You are alone, dependent wholly on your own Scoutcraft for guidance, for safety, for your life, but above all for not coming back empty-handed.
     Risks? Of course, there are risks. They are the salt that gives the savour to it all. Didn’t my heart go pit-a-pat the first time that the Matabele saw me on foot among hillside boulders.
     But when I found that I could, with my rubber-soled shoes, skip away faster than they could follow, it became a cheerier adventure, which eventually came to be indulged in on nine different occasions.
     But it gave one “an emotion,” as the French would say, when they came after one full-cry, exactly like a pack of hounds running to view.

     The ominous call of their Chiefs to the runners — “Don’t shoot him — catch him with your hands” — was a spur if spur were needed. Just one false step or a twisted ankle would have brought me the same result — a long drawn-out torture before the finishing blow brought merciful ending.
     But for such thoughts as these there was no room in the crowded excitement of the moment. All I know is that memory takes me back there still with the elated feeling that the Scout’s life is a life worth living.
     It is a MAN’S job and I loved it.

Sea Scouting

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

       Although I had missed the guidance of a father, I, as seventh son, got a good training at the hands of my brothers during my holidays. These all had the sporting instinct strongly developed and were good comrades together, first-rate swimmers, footballers, oarsmen, etc. All were good at devising things that they could not afford to buy, even to building a boat.
       We built our own huts, made our fishing, rabbit, and bird-trapping nets, and thus caught and cooked our own food to our hearts’ and stomachs’ content.
       In all of this I, as junior, had to take my share of the work, especially that part of it which would naturally be delegated to a junior, such as gutting the fish and rabbits (a really filthy job!), some of the cooking, and very much of the washing up.
       But it was all very good for me.
       As money came in we were able to buy a collapsible boat, in which three of us, among other expeditions, made the journey from London up the Thames to practically its source, then with a portage over the hills we went down the Avon via Bristol, across the Severn, and up the Wye to our then small home in Wales. A fairly adventurous journey, especially when crossing seven miles of Severn in our cockle-shell, but at the same time a very educative one for me.
       Eventually, when our money ran to it, we brothers became owners of a ten-ton cutter, built to my brother Warrington’s design, and in her we had the time of our lives, cruising round the coasts of Scotland and England at all seasons of the year. Many a scrape — in both senses of the word — we got into and  got out of and thereby gained a lot of useful experiences.
       Some of these I will deal with later, but from the educational point of view the discipline, the endurance of hardships and the facing of danger involved in this cruising, were points of lasting value in one’s training for life.

The Copse

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

       When I was a small boy at Charterhouse, outside the school walls was “The Copse,” a long stretch of woodland on a steep hill- side, extending for a mile or so round the playing fields.
       It was here that I used to imagine myself a backwoodsman trapper and Scout. I used to creep about warily looking for “sign” and getting “close up” observation of rabbits, squirrels, rats, and birds.
       As a trapper I set my snares, and when I caught a rabbit or hare (which wasn’t often) I learned by painful experiment to skin, clean, and cook him. But knowing that the Redskins were about, in the shape of masters looking for boys out of bounds, I used a very small non-smoky fire for fear of giving away my whereabouts.
       Incidentally, also, I gained sufficient cunning to hide up in trees when danger of this kind threatened, since experience told me that masters hunting for boys seldom looked upward. The Greeks made a bloomer when they styled man “anthropos,” or “he who looks up,” since in practice he generally fails to look above his own level.
       Thus, without knowing it I was gaining an education that was to be of infinite value to me later.
       It proved not only a help to me in the hunting of big game and also in the conduct of Scouting, but incidentally it started in me the habit of noticing small details or “sign” and of putting this and that together and so reading a meaning from them — in other words the invaluable habit of Observation and Deduction.

Theatricals

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

In addition to what I learned in school — which wasn’t an overwhelming lot — there was a great deal that I learned at school, outside the classroom, which was of value to me. Also I learned more still in my holidays, from my brothers.

These additional sources of education were: Theatricals, The Woods, Seamanship. Later on I got more advanced lessons through: Foreign Travel, Big Game Hunting, Active Service.

I had thought of calling this book Bombshells of my Life. My reasons for doing so was that most of the important steps in my career have been unexpectedly sprung upon me by fortune or outside agencies.

THEATRICALS

       My first bombshell fell upon me when, as a small boy at Charterhouse, I suddenly found myself ordered to play the leading part, Bob Nettles, in a comedy called — To Parents and Guardians.

Dr. Haig-Brown, who had very far-sighted views, looked upon play-acting as a useful means of education for certain intellects among the boys, and so he encouraged, in fact almost ordered, theatricals among us.

I was thus among the fortunate ones commandeered, and have ever been thankful for the start it gave me in that line, and which ultimately afforded me a helpful training towards public speaking and self- expression, but more especially towards efficiency in spying by developing the essential ability to change one’s character, voice and appearance to meet the occasion.

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.

Formal Education at School and Opinions About That

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

When I was thirteen I went up to Edinburgh and tried for a scholarship at Fettes College. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship as one of the original foundationers. But I did not after all avail myself of it, for my luck went further. Only a week or two later I was granted a foundation scholarship at Charterhouse.  This I accepted.

I was not a clever boy, nor, I grieve to say, was I as industrious a boy as I ought to have been.

According to the school reports I began fairly well in my conduct but deteriorated as I went on.

The other day I wanted to inspire my son, Peter, to work harder at school and win good reports from his masters, so I pulled out my own old school reports and invited him to inspect them. “Now look at this” — I said — “um — er — well p’raps not that one.”  (In it Monsieur Buisson had said of me — “Fair — could behave better.”) “Well then this — No.” (In it Mr. Doone recorded me as “Unsatisfactory” and my classical master as “taking very little interest in his work.”)

When, in spite of these uncomplimentary remarks, I succeeded in getting into the Sixth Form [like our high school], my new classical master, the well-known Dr. T.E. Page, generously reported that I was “satisfactory in every respect,” but the mathematical authority countered this by saying that I “had to all intents given up the study of mathematics,” and it was further stated that in French I “could do well, had become very lazy, often sleeping in school,” and in Natural Science that I “paid not the slightest attention.”

Thus my form-masters generally do not appear to have had a very high opinion of my qualities. The headmaster, however, that characterful educationist, Dr. Haig-Brown, managed in spite of their criticisms to see some promise in me, and reported that my “ability was greater than would appear by the results of my form work, and he was very well satisfied with my conduct.”

This spark of encouragement afterwards fanned itself into a flame of energy when later on I found it really necessary to work.

I have been comforted to find that greater men than I have also shown that they were no geniuses in school subjects. Winston Churchill, in his delightful book My Early Life, confesses that he could not grasp either classics or mathematics when at school.

My classical knowledge was of no higher order than my mathematical, but I cannot see how or where it would have benefited me later on in life. I do see, however, where a real knowledge of a foreign language or two as well as of English, of science, of book-keeping, and of general history and geography, or at any rate the method and practice of acquiring these, would have been invaluable.

To impose both Greek and Latin grammar on young boys not a bit interested in them seems to me as stupid a waste of time as making unmusical girls spend endless hours in learning to play scales on the piano.

I know that I am displaying my ignorance of the science and theory of education by saying this, but I am merely speaking from results I have seen in the world.

Of course, my strictures don’t apply to-day. Educational progress and improvement have developed in the half-century since I was at school, but traditional methods die hard, and they fail to produce so many able leaders or social servants as they should out of the thousands of young men that the schools send into the world each year.

There are too many drones as yet in our hive, there is too great a waste of that human material which, especially at the present juncture, would be invaluable to the country if adequately educated to the joy and adventure of energetic Service.

Laws for Me

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

As a youngster of course I wanted to be an engine driver, as is the ambition of 99 percent of boys, I suppose. But I had the additional reason for it seeing that my godfather was Robert Stephenson, the engineer. Funny to think that within a lifetime the idea of railways was laughed at! 

When I was only eight I became a reformer, and a red-hot socialist. I wrote Laws for me when I am old.

“I will have the poor people to be as rich as we are (which was not saying much). Also they ought by right to be as happy as we are. All who go across the crossings shall give the poor crossing-sweepers some money, and you ought to thank God for what he has given us. He has made the poor people to be poor, and the rich people to be rich, and I can tell you how to be good.  Now I will tell it to you. You must pray to God whenever you can but you cannot be good with only praying, but you must also try very hard to be good. 26th February, 1865.”  

(I wonder what experience would have induced him to write that? Interesting to think that when he was so young he was already thinking up "laws" for himself.)

Education at Home

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

       My education came from several sources — home, school, travel, sport, etc.
       Now, some of you will think — “Yes, that’s all very well, but you (meaning me) probably had a good start with lots of money and tons of luck.” I certainly had tons of luck. But luck is a thing like pluck, you may have some of it come to you, but you can make it to a very large extent for yourself.
       But I certainly had no money.  When your father is a clergyman with fourteen children, and you are the last but two, there is not much money flying around for you.
       From my father I derived but little in the way of education for he died when I was but three years old.
       This was a great loss to me for he was a man of many parts.
       Fortunately for me my father’s character was attacked some nine years after his death, by Dr. Pusey, who wrote such imputations against his Christianity which drew a chorus of indignation and refutation from those who had known him and admired his broad-minded views. If these were in advance of their time (for he was a scientist as well as a preacher) they were views which are freely discussed and generally accepted to-day. Had it not been for this defense of him I might never have known his qualities.
       The whole secret of my getting on lay with my mother, born Henrietta Grace Smyth. How that wonderful woman managed to bring us all up, so that none of us did badly; and how she did not kill herself with the anxiety and strain I do not know and cannot understand.
       Not only did she, though a poor widow, feed, clothe and educate us, but she found time to do other work in the world. It was her influence that guided me through life more than any precepts or discipline that I may have learned at school.

My Double Life

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

I have had the rather unique experience of having in my time lived a double life.

I don’t mean exactly what you would infer from this!

Life Number One. No, I mean that I first started out in life, after leaving school, as a young officer in the Army, and, by extraordinary luck coupled with an unaccountable love for my work, I gained rapid promotion through all the successive ranks.

There was in this life the romance of seeing strange lands at my country’s expense, through serving successively in India, Afghanistan, South Africa, West Africa and Egypt. There was the campaigning, the sport, and the comradeship; there were hardships and sickness and partings, the shadows which enabled one the better to appreciate the sunshine.

Big jobs as well as little fell to my lot. As Adjutant, as Squadron Commander, and finally as Colonel commanding my Regiment, I had in turn what I thought the most enjoyable bits of responsibility that could fall to any man, and in which I was in close touch with my men.

But bigger jobs came to me, of which I will tell in a later chapter, such as, for instance, raising a contingent of native scouts for the Ashanti expedition, acting as Chief Staff Officer in the campaign in Matabeleland, commanding that grand lot of men and women who held Mafeking in the Boer War, and, biggest of all, organizing the South African Constabulary for the settlement of that country after the campaign.

Eventually I reached the top of the tree in my branch of the Service as Inspector-General of Cavalry, with its inspiring opportunities of preparing our horsemen for the Great War when it came. Thus, at the comparatively early age of forty-two I found myself a Major-General, and at fifty-three, after a marvelous run of luck, I had completed my career as a soldier and retired on a pension.

Life Number Two. Then I started on life Number Two, beginning an altogether new life, one on an entirely different plane, but, like Number One, it includes Scouting.

I married her who was to be my right hand in bringing up, not only our own children, but the vast family of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides which then came into being.

We have enjoyed the extraordinary experience of seeing this Movement grow from the tiny acorn of twenty-five boys encamped on Brownsea Island into a Brotherhood and Sisterhood which embraces almost every civilized country in the world, with a census, this year (1933), of two million, nine hundred thousand.

Well, that is the brief outline of my life.

My Idea of Success in Life is Happiness

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

A writer in the Manchester Guardian who is unknown to me lately described me as “the richest man  in the world.” That sounds a pretty big order, but when I come to think it out I believe he is not far wrong. A rich man is not necessarily a man with a whole pot of money but a man who is really happy. And I am that.

I have known lots of millionaires who were not really happy men; they had not got all they wanted and therefore had failed to find success in life. A Cingalese proverb says: “He who is happy is rich but it does not follow that he who is rich is happy.”

The really rich man is that man who has the fewest wants.

Almost any biography will have its useful suggestions for making life a success, but none better or more unfailing than the biography of Christ.

My idea of success in life is Happiness.  Happiness, as Sir Henry Newbolt says, is largely gained by “Happifying.”

A thing that many young fellows don’t seem to realize at first is that success depends on oneself and not on a kindly fate, nor on the interest of powerful friends.

I have over and over again explained that the purpose of the Boy Scout and Girl Guide Movement is to build men and women as citizens endowed with the three H’s — namely, Health, Happiness and Helpfulness. The man or woman who succeeds in developing these three attributes has secured the main steps to success in this life.

I was asked the other day if I could define in a few words, say fifty, my idea of the best step to take in life. I replied that I could do it in three — make A HAPPY MARRIAGE, meaning that he who succeeds in gaining the lasting affection of a really good wife has won the biggest step in life. By a happy marriage I don’t mean a jolly honeymoon of a few weeks or months and then mutual toleration, but a honeymoon that lasts through the years.  Experto crede!

Yet one more item is needed to complete success, and that is the rendering of service to others in the community.  Without this the mere satisfaction of selfish desire does not reach the top notch.

Happy 161 Birthday!

What would Baden-Powell write about if he had a blog? He did write many books, all in a friendly almost round-the-campfire style. His stories and teachings are so worth reading. How about we bring B.P. to our day and teach us by blog?

Baden-Powell's ultimate goal was to make the world a better place, that perhaps by teaching common virtues and bringing together boys of different nationalities in unity and fun, maybe we could bring about world peace. Referring to another great individual, Sterling Sill stated that, "We may give his influence greater lifting power by reading about his work, quoting his wisdom, loving his honor, and feeling his spirit." We can all benefit from walking with Baden-Powell, being a companion in his antics, reliving his adventures, and thinking his thoughts. He is an incredible man, worthy of emulation. Our world needs the influence of more people like him.

No cold facts here, just Baden-Powell's thoughts and stories in his own words. 

What better day to begin than his 161 birthday.  :)