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It is easily answered in the phrase: "We want to teach our boys not merely how to get a living, but how to live"- that is, in the higher sense, how to enjoy life.
Nature lore, as I have probably insisted only too often, gives the best means of opening out the minds and thoughts of boys, and at the same time, if the point is not lost sight of by their Scoutmaster, it gives them the power of appreciating beauty in nature, and consequently in art, such as leads them to a higher enjoyment of life.
This is in addition to the realisation of God the Creator through His wondrous work, which when coupled with active performance of His will in service for others constitutes the concrete foundation of religion.
Some years ago I was in the sitting-room of a friend who had just died, and lying on the table beside his abandoned pipe and tobacco pouch was a book by Richard Jefferies-Field and Hedgerow, in which a page was turned down which said:
"The conception of moral good is not altogether satisfying. The highest form known to us at present is pure unselfishness, the doing of good not for any reward now or hereafter, nor for the completion of any imaginary scheme. That is the best we know, but how unsatisfactory! An outlet is needed more fully satisfying to the heart's inmost desire than is afforded by any labour of selfabnegation. It must be something in accord with the perception of beauty and of an ideal. Personal virtue is not enough. Though I cannot name the ideal good it seems to me that it will in some way be closely associated with the ideal beauty of Nature."In other words, one may suggest that happiness is a matter of inner conscience and outward sense working in combination. It is to be got where the conscience as well as the senses together are satisfied. If the above quoted definition be true, the converse is at least equally certain - namely, that the appreciation of beauty cannot bring happiness if your conscience is not at rest. So that if we want our boys to gain happiness in life we must put into them the practice of doing good to their neighbours, and in addition, the appreciation of the beautiful in Nature.
The shortest step to this last is through Nature lore:
". . . books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in every- thing."Among the mass of boys their eyes have never been opened, and to the Scout- master is given the joy of bringing about this worth-while operation.
Once the germ of woodcraft has entered into the mind of a boy, observation, memory and deduction develop automatically and become part of his character. They remain whatever other pursuits he may afterwards take up.
As the wonders of nature are unfolded to the young mind, so too its beauties can be pointed out and gradually become recognised. When appreciation of beauty is once given a place in the mind, it grows automatically in the same way as observa- tion, and brings joy in the greyest of surroundings.
If I may diverge again, it was a dark, raw, foggy day in the big gloomful station at Birmingham. We were hustled along in a throng of grimy workers and muddy travel-stained soldiers. Yet, as we pushed through the crowd, I started and looked around, went on, looked round again, and finally had a good eyefilling stare before I went on. I don't suppose my companions had realised it, but I had caught a gleam of sunshine in that murky hole such as gave a new pleasure to the day. It was just a nurse in brown uniform with gorgeous red-gold hair and a big bunch of yellow and brown chrysanthemums in her arms. Nothing very wonderful you say. No, but for those who have eyes to see, these gleams are there even in the worst of gloom.
It is too common an idea that boys are unable to appreciate beauty and poetry; but I remember once some boys were being shown a picture of a stormy landscape, of which Ruskin had written that there was only one sign of peace in the whole wind-torn scene. One of the lads readily pointed to a spot of blue peaceful sky that was apparent through a rift in the driving wrack of clouds.
Poetry also appeals in a way that it is difficult to account for, and when the beautiful begins to catch hold, the young mind seems to yearn to express itself in something other than everyday prose.
Some of the best poetry can of course be found in prose writing, but it is more generally associated with rhythm and rhyme. Rhyme, however, is apt to become the great effort with the aspiring young poet, and so you get the most awful doggerel thrust upon you in your efforts to encourage poetry.
Switch them off doggerel if you can. It is far too prevalent.
If a boy only makes himself wear a cheery countenance in the street, it is something. It brightens up numbers of his passers-by. To get the boy to do this as a step to greater happifying is a thing worth trying for.
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