These days the Boy Scouts of America organization is in the news because it is considering whether to abandon its long-held ban on gay scouts. It has also faced pressure to lift its ban on gay scoutmasters. But setting these hot-button issues aside for a moment, I recently came across an interesting article that suggests the Boy Scouts (of which I was once a member, it’s true) have already changed significantly in other ways over the past century, watering down many of the requirements for its merit badges, for instance.
The site Art of Manliness has published a fascinating side-by-side comparison of the Boy Scouts Official Manual, 1911 edition vs. the latest edition published in 2009:
Camping
Camping is the activity for which the Boy Scouts are best known. In comparing the original camping merit badge to today’s, one can see how the hands-on requirements have been loosened; for example, Scouts formerly had to sleep out for 50 nights, know how to build a fire without matches, and construct a raft. On the flip side, the modern badge has decreased that requirement to 20 nights…
Firemanship/Fire Safety
What’s interesting here is that, as reflected in the change in the badge’s name, the 1911 badge is geared towards preparing the Scout to actually fight the fire and rescue people (as if encouraging boys to rush into a burning building was the most natural thing in the world), while the modern badge focuses on how to prevent and escape fires. It also includes that crucial skill: how to safely light a candle!..
Angling/Fishing
The fishing badge might be the clearest example of the watering down (pun intended!) of requirements in the present day. While Scouts at the turn of the century had to make two different rods themselves and catch ten fish of ten different species with them, the young modern angler must only reel in…one…
Read the full story at The Art of Manliness.
Nathan Harden is editor of The College Fix and author of the book SEX & GOD AT YALE: Porn, political correctness, and a good education gone bad (St. Martins, 2012)
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