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Scouting Founded

Lord Robert Baden-Powell was born in London on February 22, 1857. As a child, he already had an interest in many of the skills that would become associated with Scouting. At times, he would skip class to go spend time in the woods tracking and trapping animals. In 1876, he joined the British army as a career officer. At various times, he was stationed in South Africa, where he improved the Scouting skills of his youth. He frequently enjoyed leading scouting missions into enemy territory. A few years later, he wrote Aids to Scouting to help train military reconnaissance recruits. His most notable service was during the Second Boer War (1899-1902), which saw Baden-Powell command a force holding the town of Mafeking; the siege lasted 217 days. When his force was relieved, he was declared a British hero and promoted to Major General. When he returned to Britain, he found that his book Aids to Scouting had become very popular with teachers and youth groups.

Following his involvement with the Boys’ Brigade, Baden-Powell set out to rewrite Aids to Scouting for civilian use. While doing this, he set up a camp for 22 boys on Brownsea Island in August of 1907 to test his scouting ideas (including the patrol method). The next year, Scouting for Boys was published. The book was very popular upon release, and became one of the best-selling books in history. While Baden-Powell had hoped established groups would apply the knowledge, groups called Scout troops started springing up across Great Britain. Many requested assistance from Baden-Powell. By accident, the Scouting movement had begun.

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Lord Baden-Powell

Lord Robert Baden-Powell, (February 22, 1857 - January 8, 1941) was a soldier, writer and founder of the world Scouting movement. He was the sixth of eight sons amongst ten children. His father served as the Savilian Professor of Geometry at the University of Oxford and died when Robert was just three years of age.

His first introduction to scouting skills was stalking and cooking animals, and avoiding teachers, in nearby woods, which were strictly out-of-bounds for the school that he attended. He also played the piano and violin, was an ambidextrous artist of some talent, and enjoyed acting. Holidays were usually spent on yachting or canoeing expeditions with his brothers.

Baden-Powell served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910 in India and Africa. In 1899, during the Second Boar War in South Africa, Baden-Powell successfully defended the town in the Siege of Mafeking. A Boer army of in excess of 8,000 men surrounded him and his troops. Although wholly outnumbered, the garrison withstood the siege for 217 days, and much of this is attributable to some of the cunning military deceptions instituted at Baden-Powell's behest as commander of the garrison. As a result, Baden-Powell became a national hero back home.

On his return home, Baden-Powell found that his military training manual "Aids to Scouting" had become something of a best seller, and was being used by teachers and youth organizations. Following a meeting with the founder of the Boys' Brigade, Sir William Smith, Baden-Powell decided to re-write Aids to Scouting to suit a youth readership, and in 1907 held a camp on Brownsea Island for 22 boys of mixed social background to test out some of his ideas, which is now seen as the beginning of the Scouting movement.

“Scouting for Boys” was subsequently published in 1908 in six installments. Boys spontaneously formed Scout troops and the Scouting movement had inadvertently started, first a national, and soon an international obsession.

Although he could have continued his military career, Baden-Powell decided to retire from the Army in 1910 on the advice of King Edward VII, who suggested that he could better serve his country by promoting Scouting.

Under his leadership, Baden-Powell brought Scouting to the youth of the world and the world Scouting movement grew. By the end of 1910, there were over 100,000 Scouts in England. In 1922, there were more than a million scouts in 32 countries and by 1939; the number of Scouts had grown in excess of 3.3 million. Baden-Bowell became appropriately known as the “Chief Scout of the World”

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Goodman - Pre-WWW

On May 15, 1891, George R. Goodman and Ella Dora Jacobs Goodman of Philadelphia had a son. They named him Edward Urner, for grandfathers Edward Jacobs and George Urner Goodman. Ella Dora died when Urner was three, and he and his father, together with little sister Marjorie, lived with his grandparents Goodman and his three single aunts for several years.

Aunt Helen served as the children’s foster mother. Urner entered first grade at age six, but soon developed diphtheria, so contagious that he had to be quarantined in a hospital for many months. During that time, Aunt Helen passed away, and Aunt Clara took over the children’s care.

In 1898 the family moved to a country suburb, where Urner learned to love the outdoors, playing outside and walking to a nearby farm for milk. In 1903 his father married Emma L. Gross, a schoolteacher who had traveled part of the way to her first job in the Dakota territory by covered wagon, and the family moved back into central Philadelphia.

Urner – “Goodie” to his friends – was a good student, and attended the prestigious Central High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he enjoyed drafting, writing, music, poetry, long walks and a few close friends, with whom he founded the Sextette Literary Club. His family was religious, and he spent a great deal of time at Tioga Presbyterian Church, not only for worship but also social activities, including a young men’s club, the Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip, of which he became a leader.

He attended the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy and became a teacher in 1913, taking graduate courses at Temple University. He also served as secretary of the Boys’ Work Committee of the Men and Religion Forward Movement in Philadelphia.

Tioga Presbyterian Church sponsored a troop of the new Boy Scouts of America, and in April 1911 Scouts Gilson M. Talmadge and Boyd Johnson, who learned of Urner from his work at church, visited Urner’s home and invited him to join as a leader. He soon became unofficial Scoutmaster, receiving an appointment from the council just after his 21^st birthday in May 1912.

The troop was the most fun thing in town, featuring a first aid corps, a band and a “police squad” with weekly meetings and monthly campouts. By 1915, the troop had grown to almost 100 Scouts under his leadership. In May of 1915, he accepted the council’s invitation to become a professional Scouter.

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BSA Founded

In 1909, Chicago publisher William D. Boyce was visiting London, and as legend has it, lost his way in a dense London fog. A boy came to his aid and, after guiding the man, refused a tip, explaining that as a Scout he would not take a tip for doing a Good Turn. It is known that Boyce was assisted by a Scout and found his way to the Scout headquarters where he bought a copy of “Scouting for Boys”. This gesture by an unknown Scout inspired the philanthropic Boyce to help finance the start-up of the BSA.

On February 8, 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia. From that day forth, Scouts have celebrated February 8 as the birthday of Scouting in the United States.

On June 21, 1910, 34 national representatives of boys’ work agencies met in a temporary national headquarters in a YMCA office in New York City and developed organizational plans. Many people and organizations actually helped get the BSA going, but the more notable founders of Scouting are: William D. Boyce, as the coordinator and incorporator, Ernest Thompson Seton (started Woodcraft Indians in 1902) as the “Chief Scout”, Daniel Carter Beard (founder of Sons of Daniel Boone in 1905) and the first National Scout Commissioner, James E. West, the first Chief Scout Executive and President William Howard Taft as the first Honorary President.

The BSA's stated purpose at its incorporation in 1910 was,

to teach [boys] patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred values.

Later, in 1937, Deputy Chief Scout Executive George J. Fisher expressed the BSA's mission;

Each generation as it comes to maturity has no more important duty than that of teaching high ideals and proper behavior to the generation which follows.

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