Page:Boys' Life Mar 1, 1911.djvu/36



It is the intention of the publishers to present in each issue the news of the Boy Scout Movement throughout the country and to attain this end we ask that Scout-masters send us as soon as possible all the news of their patrols for publication.

The New England department of American Boy Scouts have withdrawn from the National Organization, at the same time tendering their resignation as members of the department committee, turning the assets over to a provisional committee of Scout Masters, who have reorganized as the New England Boy Scouts, forming a temporary organization with the following Scout Masters chosen as follows:

Chairman, Everett F. McLean, Everett, Mass.

Vice-Chairman, Ernest W. Gay, Somerville, Mass.

Secretary, Edwin R. Short, Somerville, Mass.

Treasurer, Geo. S. Barton, Somerville, Mass.

The Boy Scout movement will be conducted by the New England Boy Scouts as an absolutely non-sectarian organization, having no connection with the National headquarters of the America Boy Scout, from the fact of the alleged mismanagement of the National headquarters.

The Everett troop of ninety New England Boy Scouts paid a visit to the U. S. Military Post, Fort Banks, Winthrop, Mass., recently. Marching from Everett to Fort Banks, a distance of five miles, with only a ten-minute rest, making the distance in two hours and twenty minutes.

They were received by Captain Stock, who personally conducted them through the different points of interest, explaining, as they went, and just before parting with the Scouts addressed them on character-building and duty.

The troops of New England Boy Scouts here are progressing finely under Scout Master T. E. Maitland, an able and efficient instructor, who has made the Bridgeport Scouts what they are. The editor, on his visit to this command in October last, was impressed at once with the discipline of the Scouts. There are over three hundred Boy Scouts in Bridgeport, Connecticut, all uniformed.

Most three hundred New England Boy Scouts here under Scout Master. A. J. Jourdanias. The Scouts are from all denominations and creeds, earnest, willing workers, proud that they are Scouts, doing good turns daily, in fact carrying out the principles of the Scout Law.

The County Committee are men of prominence and are deeply interested in the welfare of boys.



There is no military meaning attached to the name scouting. Peace scouting comprises the attributes of frontiersmen in the way of resourcefulness and I have never met a man who has seen war in a civilized country who remained a so-called anti-militarist. He knows too well the awful and cruel results of war, and until nations have agreed to disarm he will not invite aggression or leave his country at the mercy of an enemy by neglecting its defense. You might just as well abolish the police in order to do away with crime before you have educated the masses not to steal.

An organization of this kind would fail in its object if it did not bring its members to a knowledge of religion—but the usual fault in such cases is the manner in which this is done. In our association, dealing with Jews, Hindoos, Greek Church, as well as with Catholics and Protestants, we cannot lay down strict sectarian ideas—if we would.