--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Dale, Ludvig collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 18 number: 10 published: 1915-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Ludvig Dale, "What Boy Scouts Must Know and Do," *Improvement Era* 18, no. 10 (August 1915): 920–922.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18010unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera18010unse start_page: 920 end_page: 922 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera18010unse publication_year: 1915 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # What Boy Scouts Must Know and Do What Boy Scouts Must Know and Be* BY LUDVIG DALE, NATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA Ladies and Gentlemen : I stood one morning, not very long ago, watching some common, ordinary logs floating down a river. I could not help but think how much like the life of those logs is your life and mine. The tree is small it grows up, is soon ; found big enough, is cut down. It goes into the river, goes to the sawmill there they make the most of the timber. They put ; the timber away to be seasoned then it goes out to build a house. ; I have said to boys, time, time and again, it is very much with you as with the log. Boys, now you are growing, growing, and some day you will have to go into the river of life, and there you, like the logs, will have to be in the big jamb occasionally, playing foot- ball, base ball, the game of business, and it takes mother, teacher, friend, God, to straighten you out. And then you go to the saw mill, to a school, if you please, and there the teachers try to make the most of the log. I have also told these boys, boys that have knots, that the more knots there are in the timber, the better it is for kindling wood. Do you know you have to cut out the knots, and do you also know, boys, that some day, when you are through with the mill, or school, you are going out as green timber. How well I can remember the day I stood on a platform as the valedictorian of a high school, and I told the waiting world how it should be run and I meant it, too. I had not only dis- ; covered what was wrong with the world I had already found the ; remedy. I discovered, however, in a short time, that the world was not particularly concerned about either me or my remedy, or what was wrong with it. I asked the world, what in the world was wrong any way. I got no reply, and then I asked mvself. what is wrong with me? and I found lots of replies. You see T was green timber. I had to be seasoned, by knocks, by disap- poointments, by disillusions, and then I could go out and help to build the structure we call society. The scout is nothing more and nothing less than the timber to help the boys make the mo^ of the logs, the timber to help them to see the knots there are <*~ in their disposition, of disloyalty, of disobedience, of "I If they don't cut out those knots, they cannot hooe tn care." build the right kind of a structure that the world is looking for. What must the boy scout know and be? Here are ^— ' *A talk in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, on Sunday, 2 p. m., June 13, 1915, at the M. I. A. Conference. : : ; : the requirements for a first-class scout. First, you know the boy may become a scout when he is between twelve and eighteen. He must be able to swim fifty yards, take a "hike" of fourteen miles alone, describe what he saw on the way, make a map of the trip. He must know the stars, the trees, the animals of his neighbor- hood, the city or district in which he lives. He must know how to signal, using the semiphore code or the Morse telegraphic co rle. He must know what to do in cases of emergency. If a person is taken out of the water, and is apparently drowned, he must know what to do, and how it should be done. Last year, one hundred sixty-six lives in this country were saved by boy scouts who did not lose their heads, but lived up to their boy scout training, "be prepared." They must teach each another boy to become a scout. They must have two dollars in the savings bank. Thev must show the credit, and how they earned the money, the idea being to teach them the difference between what they are getting and whit they are keeping. The boy scout must prove that he has lived up to the scout law, which is "To be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent." of And, ladies and gentlemen, I have stood before a quarter a million of boys in this world, all through Norway, Sweden, Russia, Finland, everywhere in this country; and you know thev and they take up. and have the same pledge, the same promise ; it not a fine thing for your boy and for I will ask you to say if it is my bov, and for the boys of the citizens of this great republic "On my honor, I will do mv best "1. To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the scout law; "2 To help other people at all times "3. To keen myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight." rp1 There You say, a mighty fine program. Do the boys like it? million in twentv-sev-i are 3S0 000 of them in this country, three » every city and village in countries. There are boy scouts in . years The bovs want ,1. country, and it has all been done in five is called a trow They meet on Friday evenings usually in what are twenty-four meetitng, in charge of the scout to thirty bovs under his charge^ master. There He must be a man ofaW clean, good man, and that £e interested in bovs, proven to be a fV learn various thine knows how to deal with bovs. Thev and study m the coun ry Saturdays thev take their hikes out in I the open, and they meet together once in a while m kindly com different from athletics, Tt is no- ^Now mind you, looking scouting is at a few in the arena. There is one ten thousand people standard. It isevery healthful, normal boy living up to that one standard. It is not a question of one fellow beating the other fellow, and that he is not as efficient as you are. It is your duty to your brother scout to say, "Come along, and I will show you." Do you know that over here in the city of Philadelphia, the boy has only to show his badge as a first-class scout, and he is admitted in all civic lines. And then they become civic scouts. Do you know that in Michigan, last year, the boy scouts put out four hundred forty-seven forest fires, saving nearly a million and a half dollars worth of property? Then the humanitarian sid^ • Only a short time ago, a newspaper in Kansas City said "Will : some one come forward and offer some skin to save a poor littl" colored lass who has been burned nearly to death ?" The fi rc ^ morning, a troup of boys was on hand, and not one of them would give his name to the newspapers. Do you know that in Kansas City four thousand homes were inspected to find out whether thev had all complied with the board of health reouirements, and in an- other place fortv-seven boys were inspected, and they answered. "Why, if you will give us permission, we will clean up your homes for you. We would like to see them clean." Can you see what there will be when these boys shall have become citizens? Men who will be humane, interested, efficient, willing and able to help the brother across the way. I stood on^ evening in the citv of Stockholm, Sweden, before a gathering al- most as large as this. There were one thousand boy scouts there, and I heard a talk by a little bov fifteen years of age. While I saw the American flag unfurled from the ceiling, and I exulted in that star-spangled banner, that boy was saving, "Let us forget that we are Swedes, let us know only that we are bov scouts; all praying to live the best kind of lives, for our God, for our coun- try, and for our fellows." And now I am going to ask you what would have hapoened, "- 1 if fifty years ago there had been boy scouts? I could see F^* 1 ? boy scouts, and English boy scouts sending a message to their brother boy scouts in Germanv how we regret that you, broth^ ; bov scouts, should be at enmity, because we have learned to be imbued with sentiments of patriotism and good feeling, and we hope that the war will soon be over, never again to come, because of the boy scouts. These are the kind of principles the boy scouts are learning. The boy scout is simplv an attempt to translate the desires and the ideals and the ambitions of the average, normal bov into controlled action, to show him what to do. and keep him so busv that he hasn't the time to "don't." There is the only scheme tW will help the boys. It will mean not only clean minds, cle-- hearts, efficient hands; it will mean a better city, a better st-t-. and a better nation.