3 AUGUST 1929, Page 3

The Jamboree The Jamboree of the Boy Scouts, which opened

at Arrowe Park, Birkenhead, on Wednesday, is an astonish- ing international gathering. The 50,000 boys represent 42 nations. Let us adapt a famous remark about the strawberry, and say that doubtless the wit of man could have invented a better organization for boys than the Scout movement but that doubtless it never has. Like many magnificent successes, Sir Robert Baden Powell's organization is based on such simple ideas that the wonder is that these ideas were never thus used before. Any child who had played at Red Indians might have grown up to apply the game to serious purposes, drawing upon the inextinguishable instincts and affections of youth. But it remained for the genius of Sir Robert Baden Powell to introduce the spark of life.

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