Page:Boys' Life Mar 1, 1911.djvu/34

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This is the most effective method for tying down the cork of a bottle. It is exactly the way in which champagne corks are wired.



Take half-a-yard of string, double it, and at the doubled end make the knotted loop B. Pass the two ends of the string round the neck of the bottle and knot them at E.

Take end C, and, passing it over the cork, slip it through loop B as shown at A. Pull end C tightly back over the cork, and knot it with end D close down to E.

Doing that will securely imprison even the most fiery and frothsome ginger-beer that ever was "up."

Many Scouts, no doubt, find it difficult to keep a jersey, or sweater, neatly and securely rolled. Here is a method which will overcome this difficulty, and make it quite easy to strap the jersey on to the belt.

First lay it out flat, as in Fig. 1, folding over the collar B, at the neck. Then fold over the body, A, three times, as shown by the dotted lines.



The jersey should then assume the appearance of Fig. 2.

Next turn the sleeve, C, over the body. A, as in Fig. 3, and then pull the arm, D, over the body and other sleeve, turning it inside out for that purpose, after the fashion in which you roll a pair of stockings together.

The result, as shown in Fig. 4, is a neat oval roll, which can be easily and comfortably strapped on to your belt.

Mother: "I think Jack's voice ought to be cultivated abroad."

Father: "Anywhere would suit me, except at home."

The BOY SCOUTS is an organization, the purpose of which is character-building for boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen. It is an effort to get boys to appreciate the things about them, and to train them in self-reliance, manhood, and good citizenship. It is Peace-Scouting these boys engage in, living as much as possible out of doors; camping, hiking and learning the secret of the woods and fields. The movement is not essentially military, but the military virtues of discipline, obedience, neatness and order are scout virtues. Endurance, self-reliance, self-control and an effort to help someone else are scout objectives. Every activity that lends itself to these aims is good Scout-craft.

The Scout idea has sprung up spontaneously all over America. In Canadian cities the Boy Scouts are in the thousands. In the United States, towns and cities are being swept by the idea. Gangs of boys are to be seen on every hand doing their best at Scout-craft, "doing a good turn every day to someone," and getting fun out of it. Prominent business men and our leading educators are behind the movement, and a popular organization that needs no equipment is filling a big gap in the recreational education of the boyhood of America. Great as has been the success of the Boy Scouts in England, America with its vast stretches of territory, woods and streams, furnishes a promise for a greater.

The aim of the Boy Scouts is to supplement the various existing educational agencies, and to promote the ability in boys to do things for themselves and others. The method is summed up in the term Scout-craft, and is a combination of observation, deduction and handiness or the ability to do. Scout-craft consists of First Aid, Life Saving, Tracking, Signaling, Cycling, Nature Study, Seamanship and other instruction. This is accomplished in games and team play, and is pleasure, not work, for the boy. The only equipment it needs is the out-of-doors, a group of boys and a leader.

The first point is to get men to take up the instruction of the boys in the art of peace-scouting. The men I have in my mind as the best qualified and able to do this are schoolmasters, clergymen, Legion of Frontiersmen, officers of Cadet Corps, Boys' and Church Lads' Brigades, Rifle Clubs, ex-army officers, telegraph-masters, etc. These could carry out the training of a few boys apiece, with very little expense of time or money, by devoting, say, Saturday afternoons and Sundays to the work, which, I can promise them, they will find a pleasure rather than a labor in practice.

My suggestion to them would be for each to select a party of six or eight youths or smart