Page:Handbook for Boys.djvu/18

Rh, the fish, the insects, the plants, telling their names, their hidden power or curious ways, about the camper's life, the language of signs, and even some of the secrets of the trail. But they were very expensive and a whole library would be needed to cover the ground. What he wanted—what every boy wants—is a handbook giving the broad facts as one sees them in the week-end hike, the open-air life. He did not want to know the trees as a botanist, but as a forester; nor the stars as an astronomer, but as a traveler. His interest in the animals was less that of an anatomist than of a hunter and camper, and his craving for light on the insects was one to be met by a popular book on bugs, rather than by a learned treatise on entomology.

So knowing the want he made many attempts to gather the simple facts together exactly to meet the need of other boys of like ideas, and finding it a mighty task he gladly enlisted the help of men who had lived and felt as he did.

Young Scouts of America, that boy is writing to you now. He thought himself peculiar in those days. He knows now he was simply a normal boy with the interests and desires of all normal boys, some of them a little deeper rooted and more lasting perhaps—and all the things that he loved and wished to learn have now part in the big broad work we call Scouting.

"Scout" used to mean the one on watch for the rest. We have widened the word a little. We have made it fit the town as well as the wilderness and suited it to peace time instead of war. We have made the scout an expert in Life-craft as well as Wood-craft, for he is trained in the things of the heart as well as head and hand. Scouting we have made to cover riding, swimming, tramping, trailing, photography, first aid, camping, handicraft, loyalty, obedience, courtesy, thrift, courage, and kindness.

Do these things appeal to you? Do you love the woods? Do you wish to learn the trees as the forester knows them? And the stars, not as an astronomer, but as a traveler?

Do you wish to have all-round, well-developed muscles, not those of a great athlete, but those of a sound body that will not fail you? Would you like to be an expert camper who can always make himself comfortable out of doors, and a swimmer that fears no waters? Do you desire the knowledge to help the wounded quickly, and to make yourself cool and self-reliant in an emergency?

Do you believe in loyalty, courage, and kindness? Would