Tony Woodlief: Boy, the Scout Handbook Keeps Changing – WSJ.com

Tony Woodlief: Boy, the Scout Handbook Keeps Changing – WSJ.com

An article in the Wall Street Journal today on the changing BSA handbook.

Thumbing through various editions brings such differences into sharp relief. A 1951 fifth edition has an Indian spirit on its cover, presiding over camping Scouts. It’s the first edition with a Conservation Pledge (as well as an ad for hunting-rifle ammunition). The 1972 handbook, meanwhile, features Scouts looking through a telescope, despite Seton’s claim back in 1911 that a Scout doesn’t want to know stars “as an astronomer, but as a traveler.” The first editions are laden with text, history and diagrams. Modern editions are filled with color photos, less instruction and little history. The newest is, however, made without chlorine.

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“Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creature of man. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter”. – Benjamin Disraeli

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Author: nyoatrader
To share information about new or newly discovered Order of the Arrows patches, flaps, odd-shapes, neckerchiefs, event and chapter issues from New York State Order of the Arrow Lodges, warnings about fakes, spoof, and reproductions and any other information that may be of interest to New York State OA Collectors.

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