The Boy Scout Movement

Mr. President and Gentlemen,--I have had the great pleasure on other occasions of speaking to this Club, and in this very hall, but I am free to say that this morning I find that the task before me appears to be at least as pleasant, if not more pleasant than any duty that has been cast upon me. While that is so, I must confess that, quite properly, I have a sort of wish that the earth would open and swallow me up, for this reason--that I feel so entirely unqualified to welcome this body of men. Let

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Lt: Gen. Sir Robert Baden-Powell was educated at Charterhouse, joined the Hussars in 1876 and served with them in India, Afghanistan and South Africa; promoted to command of 6th Dragoon Guards; later Inspector-General of South African Constabulary. Founded the organization of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides to promote good citizenship in the rising generation (1908).

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me tell you, as a secret, that it was thought that it would be considered that some charming sort of address would be presented, and to the splendour and knowledge of our guests there was opposed the shadow of gloom of ignorance. (Laughter) It is a matter not to topography, but education. It was suggested to me in tones, if not in words, that it was felt that there should be the vision splendid and correct; that there might be opposed to the abysses of their immensely great knowledge the abysses of ignorance. (Laughter) It is a little more difficult to me, more especially as I am crowded into ten minutes, though I should like to occupy some longer time than that.

It is an exceedingly happy occasion here, and I will ask those who are better known to excuse me for occupying this position; and I would have them to say to themselves that the only drawback of the occasion was that the welcome was not properly done. They may say to themselves, "I could have done it very much better indeed." That lends a certain popularity to a speaker. (Laughter) At all events, I am not so popular as to love to think of the chorus which goes on upon my leaving the room (laughter); still, I feel that upon occasions it is difficult to speak of it conveniently. (Laughter)

I read just lately that to everything there is a season-a time to weep, and a time to laugh, and a time to mourn, and a time to dance. I have also read-and this time from a French writer-that "Friendship is the marriage of the soul"; and certainly if any meeting demonstrates friendship, it is this one. Therefore today we are having a marriage of souls, many of them, and from different climes. It is therefore a fitting occasion on which both to laugh and to dance. (Laughter)

It is in this spirit that I approach this thing; and what shall I say to them so that one may, in a word or two, embody the spirit which moves us? I am reminded of those matchless lines of Shakespeare:--

"Sirs, you are very welcome to our house."

--and then he goes on to say that it is important that they should be greeted, and these are the words

"Therefore I scant this breathing creature."

--and I scant this particular breathing creature by reason of that sense which I have indicated before; especially as, reading a book from which I quoted at the beginning, I also came across this

"That the end of a thing is better than the beginning thereof."

I have to say, for your consolation, that the end and the beginning are very close by. (Laughter) The story is told of a man reading aloud, and boring his hearers terribly, that somebody looking over his shoulder ran his eye to that blank space which comes at the end of a finished document, and said, "Courage, friends, I see land ahead." (Laughter) Land is always in sight; we have but just left the land of our departure; we are just nearing the land to which we are making.

I want to say a word, however, to indicate, if I can, whom it is we are greeting, and who it is that is greeting them. Whom are we greeting? We are greeting those of moment in education. We are greeting those who, in their several ways, and in the various places from which they come, are helping generally to the greater splendour of their own people. For all this I am glad, as we all axe who believe that by such means, in common with others, this week is likely to attain to things which are infinitely greater than things material, though you pile them as Pelion upon Ossa, or any height upon any other height. The things, great as they are in the limited sense, are as nothing compared with those things which are denominated by the comprehensive word "spiritual"; and it is to these things that they give help. (Applause)

We greet them not only as friends, but as our dearest brothers; and that is, of course, in a particular sense true of those who come from other parts of Canada-a portion of the British Empire--or from the other portions of the British Empire which lie beyond the seas, islands or continents, whatever their size, whatever their distance from here. Other countries can say to themselves that they are great by reason, perhaps, of the contiguity of their several parts, but the wonderful Empire which we represent, and after which our Club is called, lies in the fact that despite the distance, we are as near together as can be. We laugh at seas; we bid defiance to oceans; and we claim as near kinship to the men across the sea as to our fellow-countrymen close by our side. (Hear, hear, and applause)

It is the Empire Club which is welcoming our guests today, especially those of them who are, with us, brothers of the Great Confederation-this wonderful Commonwealth, this Empire, the British Empire. And with those who are friends from other countries, so far as their traditions and experiences go, it is the same; but with our own kith and kin peculiarly it is so. We of the Empire Club are not of those faiths who suggest that Canada would be the greater by being divorced from that great thing which is called the British Empire (hear, hear, and applause)-nor freer. We realize that she is both greater and freer by reason of that alliance.

For our part, Sir, we are not content to give up those things which we believe. We realize, in common with our guests here today, the splendour of the traditions of the past. We, in common with them, bear the experiences and emotions of the past days, and we with them have noble hopes and aspirations as to the future. It may be, Sir, that in the course of this Conference there will be greater occasions, from the practical, technical view, than this meeting here this morning. I can conceive of meetings in which there will be more of pomp and splendour and circumstance. I can imagine that the pagentry elsewhere may be greater than here. But I do assert and asseverate that there could not be anything finer to demonstrate the union of hearts than this great gathering today under the aegis of the Empire Club of Canada. (Loud applause)

I had thought not to give today which frequently I have given here and elsewhere; but I find that I can imagine myself so vividly the feeling of those who are our guests, who are from the British Isles, and other parts of the Empire, that I must perforce give you again some lines from Shakespeare. Before giving them, may I say that it is wonderful to me, as it is to you, to contemplate that, such is the sense of honour in our land, that we can allude to a very little game as an indication of the plane of honour. We speak of a man as "playing cricket"--meaning that he is a man of integrity and of honour; and sometimes now we speak of a man being; "a good Scout." (Laughter and applause)

Sir, I find that I have exceeded my time by a minute or two, for which I apologize, but perhaps my plea for that will not be the less but the more readily granted if the average utterance should have to be made tolerable by reminding you of those majestic lines

(Loud applause)

PRESIDENT WILKINSON: Gentlemen, the Empire Club has never been privileged to welcome one who has devoted his life to the service of the Empire to a greater extent than our distinguished guest, Sir Robert Baden-Powell (applause) not only on the field of battle, and more especially at the memorable siege of Mafeking, but in the work of that remarkable and truly wonderful organization, the Boy Scouts. (Loud applause)

SIR BADEN-POWELL was received with three cheers, the audience rising and waving handkerchiefs. He said:

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,--I am not going to get out my watch, because I do not propose to detain you very many moments. I feel such an arrant humbug in getting up to address you, for I cannot help it, because I am no speaker at all; but I cannot help rising to thank you most cordially for that charming and warm welcome that you have accorded to me. After hearing such a speaker as Mr. Grier you do not want to hear the lame and halting utterances of a very poor speaker like myself. I am reminded of a dinner that I once attended, at which those famous war heroes were present, General Nogo and Admiral Togo. General Nogo made a splendid speech, and after him came Admiral Togo, and his speech was still better, and it was just the sort of speech I should make now on this occasion in reference to Mr. Grier. Admiral Togo said, "What Nogo say, I also." (Laughter and applause) But I should like also to add-although I am only a humbug in the matter of speaking in an ordinary manner, I am also a humbug in the matter of being an educationalist. They put me up on a pedestal here; I know it is of clay, but it will go. I also beg to state that I am nothing of the kind. I know nothing about education; I was only half educated myself. (Laughter) But I do feel it a most high honor and a grand privilege that I have been allowed to creep in, under some pretext, so far on this historic occasion for Canada, when this Conference was going on, which I do feel in my bones is going to settle the line of education for Canada, that is going to bring it to the forefront amongst the nations in the future. (Hear, hear, and applause) You see, they have brought over men from the Old Country-which, at first sight, would look to be a very backward tendency; for you are a young country, you are a growing nation, you have got a tremendous future before you, and you bring men from the old, possibly the effete country--(Voices, "No, No")--but you don't want the old methods brought in over here. We want to look to the future. You are a democracy, where the will of the people is going to say what the people are going to have. The whole importance of it is that the will of the people must be an educated will. (Hear, hear, and applause). It must be a will educated to justice, to honour, to truth, to manliness, to fair play, and to all those points that go to make a true good citizen of the world and of God. (Hear, hear, and applause) Therefore you are devising a new, possibly an entirely new species, of education. But it certainly is encouraging to feel that you are leaving no stone unturned to find out what is the best method to adopt, or what is the best collection of methods to utilize. And it is in this way that you have come to look upon the Scout Movement. As you know, that may be helpful.

It appealed to me enormously when your Mr. Elliott, speaking at the Conference of the Ontario Teachers the other night, said: "We don't want American veneer on our education; we want the true polish on Canadian marble." (Hear, hear, and applause) And may I say that in the Old Country we have got fairly good granite which has got a shine on it (laughter)-and that over there they have found that the Scout Movement is getting hold of the boys while they are yet mouldable, in the early stages of their work, and they can work in the polishing up of the surface of the Old Country. Therefore it is that I have been invited to come over and explain what our methods are, and what we are doing.

Now I am not going to bore you with this now, but I should say how very grateful I am to you for the appreciation that you evidently give to this Scout Movement; because I do feel that in the future we may develop it into a very big institution over here, that will be really helpful to your education in the future. At present it is only in the embryo stage here. You have 48,000 Boy Scouts, which is an increase on last year's numbers of some 12,000, but that is nothing. We are not touching the fringe of the thing yet. But it is just as well we should not do so until we are sure of our ground. I think we are sure that the educational people want us to help, and if they do we will give that help with all our hearts. (Hear, hear)

But it means training our men in the first instance. We can always get the boys; we can get them by the thousands; at this moment we are turning them away, because we have not got men enough to deal with them, the right kind of men. It is not every man that is a boy--man or can train. It does not need a great man of knowledge or scholarly learning, or anything but a human heart and the boyish temperament, and sympathy for others. Such men are hard to find, although you might think it was easy. But we are getting them by degrees, and we are getting our training schools now started in this country for helping them to take the short-cut to the method and manner of becoming a Scout Master; to grasp the ideals of the movement, and then keep them ever before them, not losing themselves in the business of uniforms or clothing or badges, and that sort of thing, but keeping ever before them the aim of turning out those boys as happy citizens and under happy influence, healthy and helpful citizens. I won't go into what I mean by happiness now, but it is the greatest thing in the world--(hear, hear)--and that is what we want our education to aim for--to make happy citizens, and then we shall all be brothers and happy together all through the world. And this is brotherhood. Mind you, these boys now exist in every one of our different countries of the great British Commonwealth, and they feel that they are brothers.

But I want to make a truer brotherhood-one where they are actually in touch with each other. And this I want to bring to your particular attention and consideration, if you will allow me, the fact that next year we are going to have an assemblage of, those boys from all parts of the great Commonwealth. The Australians suggest that they should come over, and they are sending a large contingent of boys to our next jamboree. You know we had a jamboree two years ago to which foreigners came, and Scouts came even from Australia %and South Africa. at the very shortest notice; in fact those from India arrived the day the thing was over, (laughter), but they came all the same. (Applause) This year we are going to give them plenty of notice, and next August, the 28th, we are going to have this jamboree with delegates, especially those from the different parts of the Empire. Both Australia and Canada have asked for it, and are sending their contingents. India is going to send, and I hope that New Zealand is going to send also. What I want to see is, Canada represented there strongly. (Applause)

There are two reasons why we want you. Because I believe so much in the personal touch--(hear, hear)--that if your boys can come over there and make friends with our boys they are going to be friends for life. (Hear, hear) I know it from the last jamboree we had. The wonderful effect that it has had in Europe, where we had 26 different nations that came to our jamboree--just parties of boys, perhaps, but they went back to their own countries, and there has been correspondence between these boys ever since. They spread in their own country amongst all their boys a love for England, and our boys now know they have friends in Czecho-Slovakia, Roumania, Sweden, Norway, or wherever it is, they have got their friends, and they write to them, and they tell their own friends what good fellows those Swedes are, or those Czecho-Slovakians, and through those friends they realize that a boy is a boy wherever you get him, all over the world.

I want to ask that Canada should send her boys, if it is only a couple of hundred, to meet at our jamboree. There they will make hundreds of friends, each one of them, and they will come back here and tell hundreds of boys, "Well, those British boys are not so bad, after all; they are very much like us." (Laughter) That will spread brotherhood, and it will perpetuate in the next generation that great comradeship that was sealed by blood between our different British nations during the late war. (Applause) We want to keep on that brotherhood of comradeship, and it will be a brotherhood of peace, and not of war this time. (Hear, hear, and applause)

Another little point, and I have done. We are now invited to send boys over here to help to form your future nation. This is a most attractive proposition to us, and to me personally, for I have been in most parts of our Empire, and I have lived in many parts of it for years. I do feel that we ought to be sending out our best blood, and not our offscouring, from the Old Country--(hear, hear)--and I do feel that there is a good and an enormous opening, a glorious future opening before our boys if they can only get overseas. They have not the chance in the Old Country, where it is overcrowded and overdone, but they have a glorious opportunity here. The public, the parents, are beginning to realize it very slowly; they need education in that line badly over there, but this will help to give it to them. It is much better than the beautiful propaganda that is sent out showing the wonderful agricultural country, the wonderful stock, the beautiful farms and all that. Boys don't read those things, but they believe it when other boys come over and tell them about it. Those boys that you send over there will be the best propaganda that you could send--far beyond any pamphlets and maps and pictures and imitation plums. (Laughter)

And then when they come out they know that they are coming to join up again with their brothers over here-it is only a little bit of water in between, and they are coming out to friends; they are not going out to a strange desert. And it helps their parents to send them out when they know that at heart the brotherhood of Scouts is ready to receive them with our left-hand-shake, and father them, and older-brother them in their first troubles over here. They feel safe in entrusting their boys to this country, and in that way the better class of parents are willing to send a better class of boys tan has even been the case before.

That is all I want to tell you--that we are really interested in and want to help Education, migration, anything else that you can suggest to us.

While at another place I was speaking at a luncheon like this, and I was asked, "What can we do to help in such a step?" I said, "Cannot you send a Patrol of boys from your city here--be answerable for their expenses, and send them over?" They said, "Of course we will." I wonder if Toronto will do the same. (Hear, hear) That is all. (Loud applause)

PRESIDENT WILKINSON: This gathering has been very fitly described as a meeting of the East and the West. We are rather too prone to judge of the importance of a place by its size and its population. I have now much pleasure in asking Hon. Willoughby Bullock, Attorney-General of the Bahama Islands--that important group of Islands within the Empire, that we are very proud of-to address you.

HON. WILLOUGHBY BULLOCK was received with applause, and said: I appreciate the honour of being your guest today. I happen to belong to a service which is scattered over all parts of the globe, and it is my good fortune to hold office in a colony which is associated with Canada, socially, commercially and geographically, and it is our earnest hope that those bonds may be strengthened as time goes on. We are only a few days from Halifax or Montreal, and we are all very glad to say that we have been able to complete an agreement under which a direct service of well-sized ships belonging to the Canadian Merchant Marine will ply between Canada and us. (Applause)

The population of the Bahamas, which is scattered amongst a number of islands, in many cases difficult of access, is not large enough to support a university or any of those wonderful training colleges which you have here; therefore it is necessary that our young people who wish to adopt a professional career must seek outside the means of doing so. Recently the colony has received an increase in its revenue, and the Board of Education, of which I have the honour to be Chairman, is looking forward to an increased appropriation. We hope to make an arrangement so that our teachers may be benefited by summer courses, and we are looking forward also to building new schools and increasing our staff, and we hope to come to you and ask you to be good enough to lend us some of your educational leaders for a period so that by instruction and inspiration from them we can improve our position. (Applause) I regard it as a great honour to have received an invitation from the Council of Education, who are doing a great work with boundless possibilities. I may mention that there has been a considerable exodus from the Bahamas to the United States for educational purposes, and I attribute this to the ease in obtaining facilities which are afforded in that country, but I am sorry to say that it is not so easy for Bahamians to ascertain what can be done in Canada. I submit to you, gentlemen, that this is a great point in favour of the establishment of a Bureau of Education, on lines similar to that admirable institution which operates at Washington. (Hear, hear)

When I had the honour of being appointed AttorneyGeneral some of my friends in England asked how it was that I had to take service under the American Government. (Laughter) I think this does not speak much for the standard of geographical knowledge in England. It is not necessary for me to tell you that the Bahamas are a group of Islands which owe allegiance to the Crown, and they are proud to do it for they know that the Crown stands for truth, honour and justice. (Applause) In the summer the climate there is hot, and somewhat enervating, but in the winter it is delightful, and I am proud to have among my friends a number of Canadians who have their winter residence there, and I hope the time will come when we shall have more visitors from Canada and receive the benefit of their association and example and help in ways that will make stronger those strands of Empire which hold us all together. (Applause)

PRESIDENT WILKINSON: We are coming a little nearer East, gentlemen, and I now have pleasure in introducing the Principal of Dalhousie University, Dr. Stanley McKenzie, who comes to us not only as the Principal of one of the oldest and most respected Canadian Universities, but also as himself a scientist of very considerable repute.

DR. STANLEY McKENZIE was received with applause. He said:--I ought to apologize, as is ordinarily done when one is expected to speak in a hurry, and I ought to start out by saying how unhappy I am in having to do so; but I will not do that today, for you have only to look at me. (Laughter) I was present at one of the meetings of the Association this morning when the Chairman said that he was going to introduce a speaker from the East; that the wise men came from the East, and the farther East they were the wiser they were; and then he introduced Dean Coleman, of Vancouver, (laughter) so I feel that you at once know what to expect from the representative from Halifax.

Of course we all enjoyed very fully the very eloquent introduction by Mr. Grier, in one portion of which he referred to the fact that this might be considered a sort of marriage ceremony between the East and the West. I could not help thinking of a story which was told me of a marriage ceremony which took place a short time ago in St. John, before a Presbyterian minister, for one part of it seemed to fit my case. The couple came in the evening to this clergyman's house--a little bit of a meagre, shy man, and a great big buxom lady. When the clergyman put the proper question to the lady she spoke right up and said, "Sure, I take him!" Then when it came the man's turn and he was asked, "Do you take this woman," and so on, he replied, "So help me God!" (Great laughter) So, gentlemen, I think perhaps that is my part in this marriage ceremony, and you will let it go at that.

Halifax represents the East, or I represent the East through Halifax, and I would like to tell you--and perhaps you don't need to have this emphasized--that probably there is no more loyal portion of the Empire than that old settled country. (Hear, hear) I have statistics to show that all but 2 percent of the people in the Maritime Provinces hail from the Old Land-which home land was the old granite home land; so perhaps that is why we are not voluble in the way of Empire meetings and Empire talk, though we have our organizations for that purpose. I think perhaps I might be allowed to refer in that connection, as illustrating our attitude, to one of the most famous speeches in all history that I know on an occasion of that kind, which was made by one of our own members of Parliament at the time--Dr. Cowan, of Regina. You probably all know his famous speech; if not, you ought to. At a meeting in Detroit after the war, at the Dental Association of America, there was a great deal of proper glorification by our American cousins of the work they had done--dental work they had done in the war not only for their own troops but for all the country. Dr. Cowan was during the war at the head of our Dental Corps, also the head of the Dental Association, and was at that meeting as a guest, and was asked to speak. Introduce in some of the United States terms to which he had listened for three hours of perfervid oratory as to the glorious part America had taken in the war, he was introduced and asked to say what Canada had done in the war. His speech contained just seventeen words. I do not recall them exactly, but they were to this effect: "Canada has done the best she could in the war, and is saying nothing about it." (Great laughter) I would add that our relationship and our life in the Empire might be expressed in very much the same way.

In sitting down, may I be allowed to say that there is perhaps no Empire Club or Overseas Club or any other organization that could take as the major portion of its activities the stimulation of education. What we need in order to love the Empire and to hold ourselves in the proper place in regard to it is a knowledge of the Empire--(hear, hear)and a knowledge of ourselves; and that we can get only by education. I feel that this kind of a Conference which is being held at Toronto this week is one of the greatest possible means of doing Empire work in the very best possible method. I thank you again. (Loud applause)

PRESIDENT WILKINSON: I feel that our next speaker scarcely needs any introduction, as he is already famous in Toronto from his former utterance-Dr. Kerby, of Calgary, an eminent educationalist of that city, and I have much pleasure in asking him to address us.

DR. KERBY was received with hearty applause, and said: A coloured preacher recently preached an eloquent sermon, and in the midst of it again and again used the Latin phrase--in statu quo, in statu quo. When he finished one of his elders came up and asked what he meant by it. The minister replied, "I will tell you; that is a Latin phrase which, in English, means we're in a devil of a fix." (Laughter) Now, that is exactly the fix I am in. When I was making my way into this dining room a friend said, "See here, your big guns from the West are not here, though they were expected to be here to respond, and we will ask you." (Laughter) Well, I am just simply a poor backwoods parson, born in old Ontario, and spending the last 20 years of my life within sight of the Rockies, but I want to tell you, Mr. President, that the West is still on the map. (Hear, hear, and applause) We have coal to burn; (laughter) 17 percent of the entire coal deposits of the world are out in the West, and as to the Province of Alberta-(applause)--85 percent of the entire coal deposits of Canada are out in that province; and I want to tell you that we have at the present time facilities for mining 25,000,000 tons a year, and we are only mining 5,000,000, for the reason that the people of Ontario prefer to fill up Uncle Sam's coffers by buying Pennsylvania coal. (Laughter and applause) We are still growing in Western Canada the finest quality of wheat in the world. An Italian the other day came out into the Province of Saskatchewan, and after he was there a little while he swallowed, by accident or on purpose, one single solitary grain of that No. 1 hard northern wheat, and after half an hour he went out and had a coughing spell, and he coughed up a 50=pound sack of flour. (Great laughter) Mr. President, we have oil out in that country. (Laughter) A few days before I left Calgary for Toronto there was found in southern Alberta the largest producing oil well ever found in Canada, and it is the real thing. (Applause) I want to say, before I sit down, that there is still in the West a genuine love of, and loyalty for Canada and the Empire. (Hear, hear, and applause) We have not the slightest intention of breaking away and joining Uncle Sam. (Applause) I thank you for honouring the West. I am sorry the big guns did not get here to do greater honour to the great West of Canada, but we are one country in East and West. We talk too much in terms of East and West. (Hear, hear) We want to talk in terms of the Dominion of Canada. (Hear, hear, and applause)

PRESIDENT WILKINSON: Gentlemen, I regret that time does not permit of our hearing any more of our friends who are with us today. (Voices, "Go on, go on.") I feel that we really should not go on, in view of our announcement that we would close at 2 o'clock. I know we all regret having to do so. I feel safe in saying that I express the sentiments of our Club today when I pronounce this gathering as perhaps more than any other an impetus to the unity of the Empire. (Hear, hear, and applause) In a few words I wish to express to each of those who have spoken our sincere thanks and appreciation for the inspiring addresses, and also our appreciation of the fact that at least there is a certain degree of optimism still remaining in the West. (Laughter and applause) We assure all our guests that on their return to Toronto, which I hope will not be fax distant, they will receive from the Empire Club a cordial and warm welcome. (Applause)