Baden-Powell :: essays research papers

Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, more affectionately knownas "B.-P.", was born in London, England, on February 22, 1857.At the age of 12 he received a scholarship from CharterhouseSchool, whizz of Englands famous public schools. The school wasthen located in London, but it in short moved to Godalming in Surrey. There were some woods just outside the school, these were "out-of-bounds" for the pupils. It was here that B.-P. practisedstalking wildlife. He is said to have snared rabbits and cookedthem over a small fire so that smoke didnt give him away to theschool masters. (This was to be valuable training for afterward inhis career.)Choosing a military career, B.-P. served in campaigns in India,Afghanistan and South Africa. He became world famous during theBoer War for the defense of Mafeking, a small town in SouthAfrica. With 800 men, he was besieged by a force of 9,000 Boersoldiers. His small force held out against these immense oddsfor 217 days -- until a rel ief column of British soldiersarrived.At Mafeking B.-P. organized his " messenger Cadets". Trained inefficiency, obedience and smartness, they performed many tasks --relieving soldiers for active defense of the town. After theBoer War, B.-P. organized the South African Constabulary anddesigned a uniform for them that later became the basic Boy Scoutuniform.While still in Africa, B.-P. wrote "Aids to Scouting" -- a manualdesigned to train soldiers to become army scouts. more youth andorganizations in Britain used ideas from this manual as the basisof adventurous programs. He discussed this matter with SirWilliam Smith, the founder of the Boys Brigade, and otherleading youth workers. He intend a camp to test his programideas. The camp was held from July 25 to August 9 in 1907 onBrownsea Island. The "Scoutmaster" was Lt.-Gen. Robert Baden-Powell. His assistants were B.W. Green, H. Robson and P.W. Everett.The camp was a tremendous success. Based on this experim ent B.-P.wrote his book "Scouting for Boys" which was published in 6 partsstarting in January, 1908. It has been printed in many editions --the current edition is the last one edited by B.-P. By the endof 1908 this book was translated into five other languages. Thesketches in the book were all done by B.-P. -- most of them basedon his own exciting career.In 1909, King Edward VII, who had taken a great deal of interestin this new Movement, made the founder a horse in recognition ofhis work for boys. At this time B.-P. was Inspector General of