Scouting for Boys: The Original 1908 Edition (Dover Value Editions)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 432 pages
• Published by: Dover Publications February 27, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0486457192
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0486457192
• Book Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 12.8 ounces

Product Description
The blueprint for the Boy Scout movement, this hugely influential manual is a must for anyone interested in scouting, youth education, and outdoor activities. The celebrated British general not only provides energetic tips on camping, tracking, and woodcraft, but offers proper Victorian-era advice on manners, self-discipline, and, above all, good citizenship. Includes the original illustrations.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Scouting For Boys: The Original 1908 Edition (Hardcover) At the very beginning of the twentieth century, retired General Robert Baden-Powell, the hero of the siege of Mafeking, coalesced his ideas for an organization to train young British boys in scouting for the British Empire. Not a very organized thinker, Baden-Powell borrowed heavily from all sorts of unrelated resources - newspaper articles, military dispatches, fiction, and much more - and produced this, his first book on scouting. Originally published as six separate books, this book brings all of them together, complete with original illustrations. Now, as might be expected from its roots, this book reflects a lot of the biases and ways of thinking from Edwardian England. But, leaving that aside, this is a fun and interesting book that shows clearly the forms that have stayed with the Boy Scouts movement to this very day. The introduction was written by Elleke Boehmer, a professor of Colonial and Postcolonial literature, and is a fairly predictable deconstruction/analysis of B-P and his movement. Now, as a newcomer to Scouting (my son is a Tenderfoot) did I find anything useful in this book? I sure did. Robert Baden-Powell was very knowledgeable about the subject, and this book sure shows it. (I never thought of tying my shoes like that!) Of course some of the information is out of date, especially the first-aid information, so it isn't really usable by the boys "as is." But, this is a nice resource, one that shows you where Scouting started. Oh, and I must say that I actually enjoyed the somewhat jumbled organization of this book. It isn't as scholarly and antiseptic as modern Boy Scout books, and the stories and tales laced throughout make the reading much more fun. Plus, I did find the focus on some subjects, such as logic and deductive reasoning, to be quite interesting. I loved this book, and highly recommend it to you! Comment | | (Report this)