Page:Boy Scouts and What They Do.djvu/15

 appeals to a very large number of boys, and is a valuable medium of education, since it develops study of natural science, particular neat-handedness, patient application, and a knowledge which is bound to be of service to the lad in later life.

The acting, chorus-singing, and dancing, of which so many performances were to be seen in the theatre, were all of educational value in their way, such as in the discipline of rehearsal, in the learning of parts, in the repression of self-consciousness and awkwardness, and the development of self-expression, and so on.

The farm exhibition, the garden, the kitchen, the blacksmith's shop, the house-repairing stall, among many others, showed the valuable results in technical training, that can be attained through giving boys the ambition to learn and work for themselves, instead of trying to drum knowledge into them.

The one short-coming to which I might draw attention was the want of a disciplinary hand on the onlookers at the boxing and wrestling. These contests were of really a very creditable order, and were naturally a very popular show with the thousands of young visitors to the exhibition. Every movement was followed with the greatest keenness by the onlookers whose cheers or groans showed how they were swayed by the doings of the performers. But it should have been otherwise. With a Master of Ceremonies properly appointed, the audience should have been kept in absolute quietness during the bouts. Apart from such attitude being fairer to the performers, it is the best possible lesson in self-