From:
David Upham [d-upham@home.com]
Sent:
April 19, 2001 1:09 AM
To: Sam
Elsworth
Cc:
Leader@scouts.ca
Subject:
Uniforms, yet again
I
received your response to my letter which contained some of my concerns
over
the last article in the January Leader magazine. I must say that I was
not
originally impressed. I felt that
adults should be able to discuss
differences
in a civil manner, and I was offended by the last paragraph in
which
you attempted to shoot down my opinions by citing a quote of
Baden-Powell's. Having now received my April issue, I see
that what I
received
was essentially a form letter and not a direct insult.
However,
I still felt that it was not a reasonable reply. Firstly, when BP
quoted
himself as saying he "...didn't give a fig whether a Scout wears a
uniform
or not so long as his heart is in his work and he carries out the
Scout
Law." he was referring to times when he had to resolve situations
where,
during the organization's infancy, during and immediately after World
War I,
as boys were being denied membership because they could not afford a
uniform. When BP wrote "Aids to
Scoutmastership", from which you quoted, he
was
changing his position but you have chosen to take his comments out of
context. He continued with, "But..." and
went on for six paragraphs
extolling
the wearing of the uniform.
Furthermore,
In "B.P.'s OUTLOOK Selections from
the Founder's contributions
to The
Scouter from 1909 to 1940"
(C.
Arthur Pearson Ltd. 1941) there are at least three articles in which he
laments
the lack of respect and regard for the uniform. One of the most
interesting
is when he ventured to wade into a debate over whether Scouts
should
wear shorts, or the more preferred (by the boys), knee pants.
Apparently
they felt the shorts made them look like little kids. He made
many of
the same arguements being made now for the preservation of a uniform
such as
the boys knew they were expected to wear the shorts when they joined
and the
real reason they were dropping out was "...lack of adventure."
i.e. - weak program delivery. He made the same analogies that are being
made to
uniforms worn by other organizations that Scouters are doing now.
I would
like to close by citing his closing line from June, 1917 which
reads,
"However, in any case, we do not lose many boys over it and we lose
none
that are true Scouts."