Doubts About Scouts
By: Brian Parks
Since 1912, approximately 1.7 million Boy Scouts have earned the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the organization. According to the web site of Boy Scouts of America, this figure represents only 5 percent of all Boy Scouts, although the number of boys attaining the rank during my scouting career seems to have increased while the qualifications for the award and the extent to which those boys receiving the award have greatly diminished.
I am, myself, an Eagle Scout and it disheartens me to see that, standing among the ranks of such distinguished Eagle Scouts as Gerald Ford, Ross Perot, and Donald Rumsfeld are so many boys who were simply rushed through the ranks of Boy Scouting so that a troop could pin an award on yet another unqualified boy.
This is not to say there are no qualified Eagle Scouts anymore. In fact, it couldn’t be further from the truth. There are several recently inducted Eagle Scouts who have demonstrated the leadership, responsibility, moral stability, and other qualities expected of them. However, I feel the award’s focus and significance has shifted from being an indication of the qualities within a person to the status of a troop in terms of how many Eagle Scouts can be produced.
This phenomenon has caused certain troops to be considered “factories,” simply producing Eagle Scouts by sending them through the ranks. As evidenced by the set of requirements that each Boy Scout must fulfill while advancing through the ranks, fulfilling these requirements is really all they must do. However, the rank of Eagle Scout is intended to indicate more than simply this fulfillment of requirements.
When Robert Baden-Powell started the Scouting Movement in 1907, he drew upon his experience as a Lieutenant General in the British Army in creating a program focused on informal education in the area of practical outdoor activities, including camping, hiking, backpacking, woodcraft, aquatics, and sports. Since then, the Boy Scouts of America has adapted his ideals to the program that has evolved over the years into what Americans know as the Scouting program.
Today, many troops and councils have begun to focus nearly exclusively on the requirements aspect of Boy Scouts, losing sight of Baden-Powell’s vision. Summer camps emphasize the completion of Merit Badges, accelerating the Scout’s path toward Eagle with only the bare minimum effort required. Trips to the outdoors are no longer an integral part of the scouting journey, because only a certain number of camping trips are actually required. Instead, requirements and doing only what is needed to advance seems to be increasingly the focus of many boys’ scouting experience.
There are several explanations for why this may be the case. The first might be the most obvious: we live in a changing society. Over the past century, technology has advanced at an unprecedented rate, leaving hiking and backpacking in the dust and giving kids such things as television and Nintendo. Kids seem to be less interested in outdoor activities when they can shoot things on a TV screen without leaving the safety of their own home.
Another explanation is the lack of enthusiasm from volunteer leaders. As a non-profit organization, Boy Scouts of America relies heavily on volunteers at the lower levels (those that specifically deal with the kids). If these leaders are not enthusiastic or don’t have the time to devote to the outdoor activities that Baden-Powell advocated, the scouting experience will suffer.
More and more, Boy Scouts of America is sacrificing the outdoor program originally started by Robert Baden-Powell in England for what is convenient, at the expense of depriving today’s youth the practical education that has given historically important Eagle Scouts the tools they needed to fill leadership roles.
