Baden-Powell is named for Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement. Peter Curran believes that BP was opened in 1959, the year Bill Scoville was business manager, Bill Lockwood was program director, Frank Maguire was Nature Director and Dave Jettinghoff was Camp Director. |
|
About Baden-Powell
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, (22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941), also known as B-P, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement. After having been educated at Charterhouse School, Baden-Powell served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910 in India and Africa. In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, Baden-Powell successfully defended the city in the Siege of Mafeking. Several of his military books, written for military reconnaissance and scout training in his African years, were also read by boys. Based on those earlier books, he wrote Scouting for Boys, published in 1908 by Pearson, for youth readership. During writing, he tested his ideas through a camping trip on Brownsea Island that began on 1 August 1907, which is now seen as the beginning of Scouting. After his marriage with Olave St Clair Soames, Baden-Powell, his sister Agnes Baden-Powell and notably his wife actively gave guidance to the Scouting Movement and the Girl Guides Movement. Baden-Powell lived his last years in Nyeri, Kenya, where he died in 1941. In his final letter to the Scouts, Baden-Powell wrote: ...I have had
a most happy life and I want each one of you to have a happy life too.
I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life.
Happiness does not come from being rich, nor merely being successful in
your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make
yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful
and so you can enjoy life when you are a man. Nature study will show you
how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you
to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it.
Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one. But the real
way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and
leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes
to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted
your time but have done your best. 'Be Prepared' in this way, to live happy
and to die happy - stick to your Scout Promise always - even after you
have ceased to be a boy - and God help you to do it.
|
Dean B. Zaharis Created: November 7, 2008 Last Update: November 24, 2008 Send comments to: FriendsOfHinds@gmail.com |