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Scouting stuff collects. Over the years I have collected scout stuff. Not really intentionally, but it just sort of happened. When I was a scout, there were things that I wanted to remember, or that were important enough to keep together in a box. Then I got a box of things from my Dad’s scouting journey. And a box of things from the journey of a Scouter that had a big role in my youth that had died. And then there were the things that were my Grandfather’s when he was a Scouter. Over all, it adds up to a lot of scout stuff, and a lot of that stuff is books.

Now that my son in in Cub Scouts the stuff collection has picked up again. Just before I took the Introduction To Outdoor Leader Skills (ITOLS) class last month I decided I needed to pick up the most recent Boy Scout Handbook. I had one when I was a Scout, but that was back in the days of skill awards, when belt loops weren’t just a Cub Scout thing so I figured I should see what the Tenderfoot, 2nd Class, and 1st Class requirements were these days.

I started consolidating all of this stuff into something more organized, and noticed I had quite a few Boy Scout Handbooks. So this week I put them together in one place. Many of these books have writing in them, and some are not in great shape. I doubt if they are worth much in terms of monetary value, but having a Handbook with my grandfather’s signature increases its value in my eyes, while a collector might see it differently.

Starting from the most recent edition, here’s the Boy Scout Handbooks currently in my house.

The 12th Edition (left) through the 10th Edition (right) of the Boy Scout Handbook

Then there’s more:


The 9th, 8th and 7th Editions

…and more

6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd Editions

Then I found this in a small box. I put the 1988 reprint of the first edition next to it to help distinguish some of the cover drawing.

First Edition Reprint, 1988 (left) and First Edition, 1913 (right)

As cool as it is to look through these handbooks, my favorite is still this one:

My well worn handbook

Used so much I had to add duct tape to the cover to keep it together. I had not noticed before that the 9th edition (the one I used as Scout) was the last one authored by Green Bar Bill. If you are interested in a detailed description of the changes in the Handbook over the last century, Troop 97 in Ft. Collins Colorado has a pretty good review on their website.

Robert Baden-Powell. Ernest Thompson Seton. Daniel Carter Beard. James E. West. William D. Boyce. These names are all over the history of the Boy Scout movement in the United States. Councils and awards are named after these men. They are the beginning of the Boy Scouts of America. The history of Scouting has many stories, from the “beginnings” of the Scouting Movement with Sir Robert Baden Powell to the unknown scout that helped William Boyce in the fog of London that resulted in Boy Scouts being brought to the United States. Not surprisingly, when someone looks into it, not only are these stories not entirely true, but some probably didn’t happen at all.

On the recommendation of Clarke Green I picked up a copy of The Scouting Party: Pioneering and Preservation, Progressivism and Preparedness in the Making of the Boy Scouts of America by David C. Scott and Brendan Murphy.



As the 100th anniversary celebration of the Boy Scouts of America draws to a close, a look back at how this organization started has been fascinating. Even today, discussions about the latest changes in the Boy Scouts of America often result is someone stating that it isn’t what Baden Powell/Boyce/Beard/etc. intended when they started the Scouting movement, and this thoroughly researched book gives the reader a good sense of what each man’s vision was for Scouting.

Seton wanted to bring boys out of cities and modern life and teach them woodcraft and Native American customs. Beard wanted to inspire the work ethic and Americanism of the pioneers as they pushed forward under Manifest Destiny. Baden Powell wanted to teach the boys to be productive and useful men in society, with skills developed in small groups.

While The Scouting Party documents the various goals of Scouting as seen by these three juggernaut personalities, a reoccurring theme in the correspondence is the controversy over who deserved credit for Boy Scouts. Drawing from the contemporary communications between the parties, the dispute between the three is handled from the objective view of history. The Scouting Party may even be the book that Daniel Beard was hoping for when he wrote to James West late in life:

“I would like to see a real, unbiased history of the evolution and growth of the Movement itself, written by some outside party. Such a history is bound to be written sooner or later, by someone who will not be influenced by the personal claims of Ernest Thompson, Baden-Powell, or Dan Beard. This will probably be done when you and I have the grass growing over our coverlid, and when we cannot make much of a kick, so why worry?”

Fantastically researched, the references used throughout the book appeal to my need for knowing sources for the claims and conclusions put forth in the book. The quotes from contemporary sources help the reader to understand the mindset of each participant, and gain insight into the environment where the Boy Scouts of America was forged.

The roles of James West and William Boyce are also covered in The Scouting Party, as a supplement to the struggle for credit involving Beard, Seton and Baden Powell. West’s management as the Chief Scout Executive put the BSA on a solid footing as the fledgling organization gained traction in the United States. His leadership was instrumental in the early success and stability of the BSA. The role of William Boyce seems more distant, apart from his part in bringing Baden-Powell’s Scouting Movement to the U.S., he financed much of the early days of the BSA. Not to make light of anyone’s contribution to what must have been a monumental task, the dedication to helping American boys grow to be great men was substantial in all that helped create the Boy Scouts of America.

By the end of the book I felt I had gained much in understanding how all of these men, these names that permeate Scouting, all added their own personalities to the organization that has helped millions of young men in this country. I wholeheartedly recommend it for reading, and I look forward to reading some of the other titles by David C. Scott and Brendan Murphy.

If you would like more information, Clarke Green has an interview with David C. Scott on his Scoutmaster Podcast #20.

Sometimes it is hard to get your mind around a number. The numbers that have been thrown around in the bailout and stimulus bills are those kinds of numbers. As Richard Feynman said:

There are 10¹¹ stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

Every one has a hard time when we start working with orders of magnitude or log scales. There is the classic “Powers of Ten” movie that has been around for ages.

So here is a great visual representation of what a trillion dollars looks like. Go ahead and click through, it is mind boggling. That’s $1,000,000,000,000.00, a number that has been reached in not only bailout totals, but also in the stimulus bill totals. So we aren’t even talking about just one trillion. I hope nobody thinks this is real money.

And it isn’t just the current federal administration that is spending like drunken sailors, because here is a graphic that compares the bailout money from Bush’s last months in office to other large spending programs, all in adjusted 2008 dollars, so we are comparing apples to apples. And the numbers come from this.

I see that a book based on the Last Lecture of Randy Pausch was released a while ago.

While it something that I would not mind reading some day, I really only mention it so that I can link to the YouTube video of the lecture Pausch gave for the Last Lecture “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. Watch the whole thing, you will be a better person for it. The insights and clarity are not often available like this.

I just have to mention how much I like Google Reader.

It works very well for collecting all the things I have been reading on a daily basis into one spot. The bad thing is that it keeps track of the number of items “read” in a day, to the tune of 300 plus every day. By read I mean most of them are a quick scan for something interesting. The ones that are interesting, I share on a public page, which is summarized and linked to here. It seems to work for a blogroll until I find a decent RSS feed aggregator.

So I am sort of a filtering service, pointing out the interesting things from the internet, or at least from the 41 (and growing!) current subscriptions on my reader page.

A couple weeks ago, while in Barnes and Noble, I picked up a book that I thought would be interesting reading.  The book is by James Watson, who was awarded part of the 1962 Nobel Prize for determining the double helix structure of DNA. In fact, I had just read his book about this discovery, appropriately named “The Double Helix” and enjoyed the tale. So the new book, Avoid Boring People (which if you look closely at the dust jacket, says “Avoid Boring Other People”) looked to be a worthwile investment.

The premise is a book on lessons learned during a life working in science. In fact, at the end of each chapter he has a list of “lessons learned” during that phase of his life.

That was before all this news stories last week, like saying things about intelligence in Africa, having scheduled talks canceled, and resigning his position at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

I wonder if there are any lessons learned in the book with regards to saying stupid stuff to reporters?  I’ll let you know when I get to that chapter.