Table Of Content•
ROBERT BADEN-POWELL
The Original I 908 Edition
'very good fun' MAx HASTINGS, Sunday Telegraph
SCOUTING FOR BOYS
· ROBERT BADEN-POWf.LL was born in 1857 and served in the
British army in India, Afghanistan and, later, West and South
Africa. His somewhat inadvertent command of the siege of
Mafeking during the Anglo-Bocr War elevated Baden-Poweil to the
status of imperial symbol, lone hero of an empire under threat. In
Scouting.for Boys he mixed his Iove for the outdoors, and dclight in
play-acting, togcthcr with the games ethic of the Victorian public
schon!, and processed these into a newly minted tradition, Britain's
most successful recreational export of thc twentieth century. His
prolific productiun of Scouting texts continued unstinred virtually
until his death, in H)4I in Kenya.
ELLt:KE DOt:IIMt:R is Wolfson Reader in World Literature in
English at thc University of Oxfurd. She is the author of Fmpire,
the National and tlzc Postcolonial (2002), Colonial and Postwlonial
Literature (1995), as weil as of short stories and three novels, most
recently Blood!illes (2ooo). She has never been a scout, but shc did
once shake hands with Lady Baden-Poweil at a jubilee celebration in
South Africa.
ROBERT BADEN-POWELL
SCOUTING FOR BOYS
A HANDBOOK FOR INSTRUCTION
IN
GOOD CITIZENSHIP
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
ELLEKE BOEHMER
OXFORD
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0 The Stout Associarion
Imroducrion, Notes, Chronology, and Bibliography 0 Ellcke Bochmer 2004
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First publishcd 2004
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CONTENTS
.t..-hwwledgements IX
I .:r uluct ion XI
\ u on the Text xl
·&.·t Bibliography xlv
_4 Chronology ofR obert Baden-Poweil
COCTI G FOR BOYS
_- lppendix: Continence 351
E l-p/anatory Notes 353
Index 381
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
\YHE:\" in carly 2001, not long before the birth of our youngest son, I
5.rst took on the project of editing Baden-Powell's Scoutingfor Boys,
-couting was to mc (forgivc thc mctaphor) largcly untracked
ground. The staccato 'dyb, dyb, dyb' which friends, usually male,
began rappingout in conversation on the subject, sounded exactly as
n should to a non-initiate: mystifying mumbo-jumbo.
From that time a number of people have generously assisted and
upported me in my efforts to explore and map my square inch of
Scouting terrain, and provide keys to some of its codes. First and
foremost, I should like to thank Paul Moynihan, Archivist at the
Scout Association Headquarters Archive at Gilwell Park. Paul, who
i e\·cry rcsearcher's ideal archivist, gavc unstintingly of his time,
loaned books and videos, and open-handedly shared his vast know
ledgc of, and Iove for, Scouting history. Chris Jamcs, thc Associ
ation's Book Editor, I thank for setting up the link with Oxford
Cniversity Press, and for introducing mc to Gilwcll Park. 1 am gratc
ful to Judith Luna, Oxford World's Classics Editor, for firing my
interest in this 'empire' project in the first placc, and for her enthusi
asm, understanding, and keen commitment throughout the some
what protracted editing process. Jeff Guy and John Phipson have
given indispensable clarifications as regards aspects of Zulu language
and history: thanks to both of you, as weil as to Carol Phipson, ever a
decoder. To two historians of Scouting, Nelson R. Block, untiring
Scout biographcr, and Mario Sica, ltalian Ambassador to Egypt,
with whom the work put me in touch, I am grateful for various
pointers, and for copics of thcir work. Richard Phillips, Ross
forman, Alan 'Jumbo' Steel, and John Whale gave useful help in
pursuing various ohscure and not so obscure lines of interest. Many
thanks to Andy Todd for unearthing his old Scout handbooks and
other memorabilia, and to Gail Marshall for her quizzical no
comment. I am grateful to Roberta Davari-Zanjani at NTU and to
Catherine Morley for stalwart help and support. Thanks to Danielle
Battigelli, Alison Donnell, Susie Irvine, Astrid James, Nie James
Moore, Marianne Thrower, Jon Wood, and Robert Young for
indulging me when Scouting and B.-P. bccamc an incradicable part
X Acknowledgements
of my conversation. I am grateful to thc Conference on Cecil John
Rhodes, held at St Antony's College, Oxford, on 30 November
2002, organized by William Bcinart, and the Interdisciplinary Sem
inar in the French Department at Royal Holloway on 4 December
2002, piloted by Terence Cave, tor hosting papers based on aspects
of this editorial work.
Finally, and most importantly, the 'boys' with whom I live have
been more than wonderful: Sam, for his jokes, Thomas, for turning
B.-P. into a subject of his conversation, and Steven, always, for
·continuing to make everything not only bcarablc, but OK.
I~TRODUCTION
~ have thought that when Robert Badcn-Powcll's Scouting
. -! Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship first
"_.._~_,.... ·-a somewhat ramshackle six-part edition in early r9o8, it
.-- : alrnost immediate success amongst young audiences,
-~ :"emale alike? Could it have been pn:dicted that it would
- _ a few decades of first publication already have earned a
.,e of the most widely published, popular books of the
.......- ~~ cenrury?1 For, as the handbook's multi-part, rag-bag struc
-~t~, Baden-Poweil composed it at speed- patched it
..a :c might be the more accurate phrase, in an experimental and
?dJ-mell way. At his elbow as he worked stood an old military
-~~ box full of scraps: newspaper cuttings, extracts torn from
r;::·u.;-e novels and travel writing, other magpie bits anc.l pieces of
~~on. From this miscellany he drew a tcxt which, unsurpris
as itself very much a hodge-podge, almost literally a collage,
-.ruing seemingly unrelated materials, including quotations
t...i_s own previously published books.2 Amongst its many bor
"'gs., his handbook, the foundational text of one of the world's
~t international movements,3 embraced within its encyclopedic
·rruc crimc' anecdotes, stock advcnturc talcs, campfirc hints,
--~ed historynatural and imperial, first-aid tips, and recycled advice
:he definitive scouting activitics of observation and tracking.
The book ranks as one of the best-selling Anglophone works of the zoth cent.: its
·-hing figures unril afrer the Second World War wcre excccdcd only by those of thc
-~ in the English-speaking world. See Tim Jeal, Badm-Powe/1: Founder oj' the Boy
~ ,.; C\ew Haven and London: Yale UP, zoor), 396; John Springhall, Youth, F.mpire
n.J Somty: British Youth Movements, 1883-1940 (London: Croom Helm, 1977), 68.
: If B.-P. casually cannibalized the texts of many other writers, he did not scruple to
-ccycle his own work also, in particular, Aids to Scouting (T .ondon: Gale and Polden,
; )oj<j; of 11 hich pp. 51-9 appcar as Scoutingj'or Boys pp. 89-98), 71tr Mntabdt Camptlign
'9"5 (London: Methuen and Co., 1897), and Recomtaissnnce nnd Scouting (London:
'.\'ilham Clowes and Son, r884). See also Jeal, Badw-Powe/1, II4; and Badcn-Powcll's
:;~emoirs Lessoltsji'OIIItlte 'VarsiZJ' ofLije (London: C. Arthur Pearson, 1933), 143.
; The global reach of the Scout movement has probably heen the most extensive of
a.ny worldwidc movcmcnt. Sincc its inccption Scouting has involved close on 350 mil
lion people across the globe and today exists in nearly all of the world's countries, bar
about 5 or 6.
XII Introduction
The appearance of Scouting for Boys coincided with a period of
wavering imperial self-confidence in Britain following the pyrrhic
victory of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), a war marked by set
backs, stalemates, and stasis.4 The book did therefore, it is true,
respond powerfully to British national anxieties: in this must lie at
least one substantial reason for its success. Where the failing strength
of the nation was mirrored in the alleged deterioration of the male
physique at the time, a practical handbook that proposcd physical
training as weil as lcssons in strategy derived from the writer's own
military experiences, could not but bc a winner. From the start, too,
St"outmgfor Boys was cleverly markered to sei!. Published every other
\\"ednesday from 15 January 1908 by Horacc Cox, the printer owned
by the Daily Express magnate C. Arthur Pearson, the 'self-instructor'
was 'full of yarns and pictures' in thc tried-and-tested formula of
the Boy's Onm Paper or of Pearson's own entertainment magazine
Tit-Bits. (lt is on this fortnightly parts edition that the present edi
tion is based.) It sold at an affordable 4d. a copy, and the cloth-bound
complete edition, published on r May, was also attractively cheap, at
zs. Throughout, the style was conversational and accessible: Part V
advertised Baden-Powell's 'method' as 'plc:asant, easy, anecdotal'.
The cover of each part edition featured an eye-catching illustration
by either John Hassall or Baden-Poweil himself, of a Boy Scout
absorbed in the fascinating activities of spying and spooring (or
tracking), activities which to date had been confined to the pages of
adventure romance.5 Now, boys were being encouraged togoout and
do these things themselves, and to do them in emulation of Baden
Poweil or B.-P. (the initials serendipitously stood also for 'British
Pluck', 'British Public', and, of course, 'Be Prepared'), the empire
hero and Ieader during the siege of Mafeking, one of the few proud
episodes, as will be seen, in the unedifying history of the Boer War.
Already wirhin a few weeks of first publication it seemed that Scout
ing for Boys was bcaring out B.-P.'s own 1907 prediction: 'I am
convinced that "Scouting" has an immense attraction for lads and
could be used as a medium on a very wide scale for their moral
improvement in a practical way.'
As the Spectator recognized in 1909, the nearly I07,ooo-strong
4 It notoriously took 450,ooo British troops three years to defeat 40,000 Doers.
5 Thc cover illustration for Part li, probably by Daden-Powell, is reproduccd on the
cover ofthe present edition.
