It was not much more than 21 years ago that
Sir Robert brought about twenty boys into camp at Brownsea Island, in Poole Harbour, for his great experiment. He taught the boys his own boyish passions of scouting, tracking, tent-pitching, bridge-building, close observation of birds, animals and natural phenomena and so forth. But that was not all. The organization of hobbies was to be raised to a new plane by investing the whole glorious game with the idea of public service and unselfishness The interest of the group was always to be above the interest of the individual. From that has grown a world- wide law among the Scouts that the code of boyhood is above the interests of any boy or boys, and that the brotherhood of men stands above the rights of any man or men. It has often been said, with real stupidity, that the Boy Scout Movement encourages militarism. The barely incidental has seldom been more fatally mistaken for the essential.
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