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Robert Baden-Powell as an educational innovator
Famous for his contribution to the development of Scouting, Baden-Powell was also able to make a number of educational innovations. His interest in adventure, association and leadership still repay attention today.
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell (1857 - 1941) was an accomplished soldier who became first came to wide public notice as the ‘hero of the Siege of Mafeking’(1899 - 1900) during the Boer War. He is better known as the founder of the Boy Scout movement. This achievement and his concern with 'old values' has sometimes obscured the innovational nature of his educational thinking. What is overlooked is his concern with the social lives and imagination of young people, and how he was able to build on this to develop an associational educational form. Robert Baden-Powell placed a special value on adventure; on children and young people working together - and taking responsibility (his 'patrol' building on the idea of 'natural' friendship groups and 'gangs'); on developing self-sufficiency; and on 'learning through doing' (he was deeply suspicious of curriculum forms). In this article we examine some of the key aspects of his approach.

Robert Baden-Powell and the early development of Scouting
In 1885 Robert Baden-Powell started collecting material for a book on army scouting. Eventually published in 1899, because of his celebrity status, it became an instant bestseller- selling more 100,000 copies within the first few months. The ideas were seized upon by a number of people working with boys and young men and Robert Baden-Powell was encouraged to write a version for boys. He was also working on his own ideas about education. The Boys Brigade (founded October 4, 1883 in Glasgow by William Smith [1854-1914) was an obvious place for his work - but while there were many things for Robert Baden-Powell to admire in their activities he was put off by the emphasis on drill and what he saw as a lack of attention to developing the mind and sympathy with others.
Robert Baden-Powell had become concerned about the well-being of of the nation - and of particular young people. It has been said that the poor physical condition of the young men attempting to join the army during the Boer War was a central factor in his championing and fashioning of Scouting. One report at the time (1904) claimed that of every nine who volunteered to fight, only two were fit to do so. Diet, poor housing, and harmful working conditions were identified as contributory factors. However, he was equally worried about people's physical and mental well-being. Physical 'deterioration' and 'moral degeneracy' became themes in many of the talks and speeches that Robert Baden-Powell gave - especially in the period after the Boer War. Reflecting on his experience of the Boys' Brigade he first thought that something could be done within that organization to move away from an over-focus on marching and drill:
Something, I think, also [could] be done towards developing the Boy's mind by increasing his powers of observation, and teaching him to notice details. I believe that if some form of scout training could be devised in the Brigade it would be very popular, and could do a great amount of good. Preliminary training in this line might include practice in noting and remembering details of strangers; contents of shop windows, appearances of streets etc. The results would not only sharpen the wits of the Boy, but would also make him quick to read character and feelings, and thus help him to be a better sympathiser with his fellow-men. (Robert Baden-Powell in the Boys' Brigade Gazette, 1 June 1904 - quoted by Jeal 1989: 362)
Having looked at various different schemes - including Ernest Thompson Seton's vision of camping and woodcraft, and explored different educational forms, in August 1907 he conducted the famous Brownsea Island Experimental Camp. Robert Baden-Powell wanted to test out the ideas he had been working on for his scheme of work for ‘Boy Scouts’. He had completed the first draft of Scouting for Boys. With the experience of the camp validating much of his thinking, he began a long series of promotional lectures around the country arranged with the YMCA (Reynolds 1942: 147-8). On January 15, 1908, the first part of Scouting for Boys was published. Like modern day ‘bit-parts’ it appeared at fortnightly intervals (6 parts) price at 4d each. It quickly appeared in book form (May 1). Sales were extra-ordinary and quickly groups of young men were approaching suitable adults to form troupes (Springhall 1977). The involvement of Arthur Pearson (the publisher) had given the whole enterprise an unedifying commercial edge. Robert Baden-Powell had unwisely entered into a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with him - and had lost various rights and a large amount of money as a result. Considerable efforts were made to set up a separate organization and to limit the publisher’s power.
Scouting for Boys was also read and taken up by a significant number of middle class girls on a self-organized basis (Kerr 1936: 16). In September 1908 at Crystal Palace the first big rally was held with some 10,000 Boy Scouts as well as a number of self-organized Girls Scouts attending (Reynolds 1942: 150). Robert Baden Powell was approached by some Girl Scouts asking him to do something for them also. In the second edition of Scouting for Boys he suggest a uniform for Girl Scouts - blue, khaki or grey shirt (as with the boys) and blue skirt and knickers. However, Robert Baden-Powell had decided to set up a separate organization and scheme. He decided ‘Scout’ was inappropriate and alighted on ‘Girl Guide’. The scheme was ‘to make girls better mothers and guides to the next generation’. In Robert Baden-Powell's mind though, it was to be fairly similar in structure and activity as the boys - ‘Girls must be partners and comrades rather than dolls’ (Jeal 1989: 470). (Details of Baden-Powell's 'Scheme for "Girl Guides"' was published in the Scout's Headquarters Gazette in Novemer 1909. It is reproduced in full by Kerr [1932: 29-34]). With the move to Victoria, the Girl Guides were allocated a separate office and Agnes Baden-Powell (Robert’ sister) was asked to form a committee.
As John Springhall (1977: 64) has noted, in the decade from 1908 to 1919, 'no other influence upon British boyhood came anywhere near Baden-Powell's movement'. He continues:
The actual timing of the appearance of the first Boy Scout may be explained as an outcome of the post-Boer War mood of imperial decline and social reassessment... [H]owever, the historian needs to go back further, at least to Thomas Hughes idealization of Rugby and the 'muscular Christianity' of the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Despite subsequent new directions, the ideological roots of Scouting remain buried in the public school ethos of Charterhouse in the 1870s, the methods of colonial warfare in the 1880s and 1890s, and the intellectual climate of the 1900s.
The key words of the old Scout Law: honour, loyalty and duty were part of the old public school tradition; and Robert Baden-Powell's stress on the worth of activity and games (and disdain for 'effeminate' and intellectual scholarship) could have come directly from the pages of Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's Schooldays (Springhall 1977: 54). When this was combined with woodcraft and a love of the open air, a desire for class harmony and an appreciation of what might be happening in the imaginative life of boys then the scene was set for some serious innovation in informal education practice.

Robert Baden-Powell and 'doing good'
One of the fascinating features of Robert Baden-Powell's scheme is the centrality accorded to 'doing good'. As we noted above, there is a strong link here with his own experience of public school. For some years prior to the publication of Scouting for Boys Robert Baden-Powell in his speeches to various youth groups and organizations had been encouraging boys and young men to 'do good'. By 'doing good', he once wrote (in 1900), 'I mean making yourselves useful and doing small kindnesses to other people - whether they are friends or strangers' (quoted by Jeal 1989: 363). This concern famously became incorporated into Scout Law:
3. A scout's duty is to be useful and to help others. And he is to his duty before anything else, even though he gives up his own pleasure, or comfort, or safety to do it. When in difficulty to know which of two things to do, he must ask himself, "Which is my duty?" that is, "Which is best for other people?" - and do that one. He must Be Prepared at any time to save life, or to help injured persons. An he must try his best to do a good turn to somebody every day.
4. A Scout is a friend to all, and a brother to every other scout, no matter to what social class the other belongs. Thus if a scout meets another scout, even though a stranger to him, he must speak to him, and help him in any way that he can, either to carry out the duty he is then doing, or by giving him food, or, as far as possible, anything that he may be in want of. A scout must never be a SNOB. A snob is one who looks down upon another because he is poorer, or who is poor and resents another because he is rich. A scout accepts the other man as he finds him, and makes the best of him.
"Kim", the boy scout, was called by the Indians, "Little friend of all the world", and that is the name that every scout should earn for himself. (Robert Baden-Powell 1908: 49-50 - these became laws 4 and 5 in the second edition of Scouting for Boys - 1909)
Recent conceptions of informal education such as that of Jeffs and Smith (1990, 1999) have also placed a strong emphasis upon seeking to live life well, and of looking to the well-being of others. However, such an approach (drawn from broadly from Aristotle and virtue ethics) clearly prioritizes the 'good' over the 'correct' - and this is a tension that Robert Baden-Powell would have found troubling. His conception of the good was deeply entwined with notions of duty - particularly towards his country. The Scout Law stated:
2. A Scout is loyal to the King, and his officers, and to his country, and to his employers. He must stick to them through thick and thin against anyone who is their enemy, or who even talks badly of them.
7. A Scout obey orders of his patrol leader or scout master without question.
Even if he gets an order he does not like he must do as soldiers and sailors do, he must carry it out all the same because it is his duty; and after he has done it he can come and state any reasons against it: he must carry out an order at once. That is discipline. (Robert Baden-Powell 1908: 49, 50)
For Robert Baden-Powell, then, there existed a possibility that that those above in the hierarchy might have a questionable understanding of what might be for the best in particular situation - but it is still the duty of the scout to carry out their wishes. Michael Rosenthal (1986: 162) has commented that the Scout Law and the overall direction of Scouting for Boys provided scouting with 'a model of human excellence in which absolute loyalty, an unbudgeable devotion to duty, and the readiness to fight, and if necessary die for one's country, are the highest virtues'. Duty and patriotism were certainly central to Robert Baden-Powell's vision - but so was kindness to others. The Scout Laws also call upon Scouts to smile and whistle, to be a friend to animals and to be courteous. What is less clear is what happens when there is conflict between the different laws.