Every child loves to go camping, and in common with his elders reveals the close connection with primitive life in general through the pleasure derived from the simplicity of camp life. There in the woods, where conveniences are few, every device and construction counts the utmost, and its purpose is apparent. The whole spirit of such living is more in harmony with child nature and longings than the modern city home; it supplies the craving for physical freedom and places the boy or girl almost entirely on his own resources. What he obtains in the way of pleasure comes from his own efforts and is correspondingly precious. The boy especially finds in camp just as much chance for mechanical skill as elsewhere. Temporary furniture, utensils, cooking conveniences, the shelter, traps, etc., are suggestive. And lastly the unconventional, untrammeled outdoor life stands in that same relation to the boy as it did to the savage (because boyhood is a primitive stage); he puts forth his strongest endeavors to conquer the elements, the climate, the earth, and growing things; to provide himself with food and shelter—in other words, to survive as the savage sought to survive. The idea is truly epic. No wonder the child expands and develops under the simple responsibilities imposed, and absorbs woodcraft with such astonishing ease. The recent extraordinary growth of the summer camp among boys' schools, and the results suggested in the writings of Ernest Thompson Seton, are, with the unfolding of industrial education, two pointed examples of the shifting view of education in the home as well as school. Probably no outside agency will in time become so effective for good as the Boy Scouts, whose code is based on a very primitive framework suited to boys. During a recent visit to California, and while crossing the flat prairies of Kansas, the writer saw a company of scouts at work. It was borne in upon the observer that there was an organization which fitted every locality, every climate; it appealed to boy, not creed, social order, time, or adult dogma.
Copyright, 1910, by Cheshire L. Boone
A Self-recording Telegraph Receiver. An Excellent Example of what the Juvenile Mechanical Mind will Attempt. The Number of Boys Interested in such Projects is Considerable
Wireless Station and Workroom of Donald Huxom, Montclair, N. J. This, too, Indicates how Boys Square Themselves with Scientific Progress
One should at least mention athletics in this connection, because of the excellent physical benefit in both activities. Athletics, however, contains an element which is all-important—team work. And no restraint is so much needed, nor so cheerfully heeded for that matter, by the restless boy and girl as a community of effort. The elimination of a purely selfish personal point of view is very difficult to bring about with the best of children, because they are wrapped up in their own affairs, and nothing serves to introduce them to the rights of others and the value of concerted action for a common good so well as sport. The kind does not matter. Any well-conducted, clean enjoyment of this kind develops that mental pliability and willingness to take a part which is a fundamental of citizenship. Incidentally leaders arise, and the beginnings of organization dawn. It is a great day when the boy learns his first code of signals in the ball team!