The Founding of the Boy Scouts

On a visit to London in 1909, Chicago publisher William D. Boyce became lost in a heavy fog. An English Boy Scout helped him to find his way. The Scout told Boyce about the Boy Scout movement, founded in England just a year earlier by army officer Robert Baden-Powell. Boyce returned home and founded the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. The new group adopted Baden-Powell’s motto, “Be prepared,” and his slogan, “Do a Good Turn Daily.”

Today the Boy Scouts of America have almost 4 ½ million members in five divisions: Cubs, Tigers, Webelos, Scouts, and Explorers. To become an Eagle Scout, the highest rank in scouting, a young man must have earned at least 21 merit badges. The organization’s goal is to improve its members’ self-confidence and competence and to foster leaders and good citizens. The program includes instruction and skillbuilding in a wide variety of fields, ranging from first aid to ecology. Members earn merit badges for their accomplishments in special fields, and thereby advance through the scouting ranks.

Camping and outdoor skills have always been important aspects of scouting. Every four years Boy Scouts from more than 100 nations gather for a giant camp-out known as the International Jamboree.

Clara Barton

She was called the “angel of the battlefield” by those who saw her caring for wounded and dying soldiers during the Civil War. Her role there made her a national heroine. A strong-minded woman, Clara barton then devoted the rest of her life to helping others.
When the Civil war began in 1861, Barton was working as the first female clerk in the Patent Office in Washington D.C. But reports of suffering soldiers roused her to action. Besides nursing the wounded, she carried supplies and medicines to the battlefield.

Clara barton created a bureau to search for missing Civil War soldiers and mark the graves of the dead.

Barton’s war efforts left her exhausted and ill. In 1869, she went to Switzerland to recover. There, barton learned about the International red Cross, an organization devoted to the relief of suffering resulting from war. In 1870-1871, she took part in Red Cross activities during the Franco-Prussia war. Two years later, Barton returned home and set about forming an American red Cross. In 1881, she achieved her goal and served as the organization’s first president for 22 years. Before retiring in 1904, Barton expanded the efforts of the Red Cross to include aid to victims of peacetime disasters, such as floods and hurricanes.