In Scouting and Youth Movements (Bern's Sixpenny Library) Sir Robert
Baden-Powell has given a fresh account of the origins and development of the world-wide organization of -which he is the Chief. He points out that Scouting " is a natural evolution of many ideas reduced to a system, the main point about it being to recognize the basic needs of the nation and to have an elastic system wherethrough to encourage the individual future citizen to develop in himself the qualitiek that are wanted." The strength and weakness of Scouting could be hardly more succinctly described than by this candid statement. The force and efficiency of Scout training as an educational method cannot be underrated ; it exhibits a return to a sanity of outlook once shown by the Spartans, the North American Indians and the ancient British. Such a system of national training, however, implies acceptance of principles enunciated from above rather than of truths redis- covered for itself by a new generation striving for new forms in obedience to some great insurgent impulse suggested by the term Youth Movement.
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