Exit the Boy Scouts Stage Left. Boys, Men, the "Masculinity Crisis" and the "BSA" as an example of it.

Boy Scouts in more muscular days.  Examining a Browning M2 .50 BMG machinegun during World War Two.

In some circles, it's popular to speak about there being a "Masculinity Crisis" in our society, by which is meant Western Society.  And I've started such threads a couple of times, and then determined not to post them or even complete them.

Although I have posted one on the decline and fall of the Boy Scouts before.  Indeed, fairly recently, here:

No place for boys. . .

or at least no officially sanctioned ones, anyway.  There will still be groups of boys organized without girls, probably largely self organized, and that's a problem.

The Third Liberty Load was a World War One era liberty loan drive.  Nearly every single thing about this poster would be regarded as abhorrent by our social guardians today.*

When I wrote that, it turned out I was actually a bit premature.  But only a bit.  Now the "Boy Scouts" have gone so far as to make sure there's no "boy" in scouting. . . at least not in the name.  Now the organization is officially neutered. . . and I meant that just the way it sounds.

Lord General Baden Powell, once the British Army's Chief of Cavalry, reviewing the Boy Scouts in November 1918.  These scouts look pretty young, so they'd be, I'd guess, the equivalent of Cub Scouts.  He'd be pretty appalled by the modern Boy Scouts of America. .  or rather Scouting BSA.

Before I go any further, I should note, I have no real personal connection with Scouting.  I may have noted that earlier, but I was only very briefly a Boy Scout. So briefly that I usually just say I was never a Scout, which isn't quite true.  I was a Cub Scout when I was a kid, as was probably every boy in my grade school.  I can't say that experience left much of an impression on me.  It made even less of one on my son who was a Cub Scout for a little over a year and then gave it up, the second year truly being a lame experience.  I was never a Webelo, that intermediate mysterious stage in scouting.  I joined the Boy Scouts at some point in late grade school and was only in it for a few months.  I think I did as a good friend of mine who is still a good friend of mine did the same.  It showed some promise but for some reason, perhaps a family trait of being non joiners, I didn't retain interest in it very long.  Just, if I recall correctly, one late spring, the following summer, and a little bit of the fall.  I obtained a couple of merit badges in that time and still have my red BSA beret around somewhere.  Soon after that I was into junior high and joined the Civil Air Patrol, which I was in a little over three years, which I liked much better.

Badge of Better Boyhood or not, my stint in the BSA was short.  Not as short as my father and his brother, however. They were never in the Scouts which was unusual for their time.

I'd note that this is oddly emblematic for some reason of my immediate family.  Neither my father nor his brother were Scouts of any type.  My father went to his final year in high school here when JrROTC was a requirement, but as he transferred into the school in his last year he was only required to take it for one semester, rather than three years.  He later served in the USAF.  His brother wasn't a Scout either, but did do three years in JrROTC as he had no choice.  He later served in the Army.  I didn't do JrROTC but did do CAP, as noted.  I later served in the National Guard.  Nobody has ever been successful in getting any of us to stay in any fraternal organization for long either.  My father was only Knight of Columbus very briefly and probably because he didn't have much of a choice.  His brother was, but probably not for a real long time.  I never have been.

Guess we're not joiners unless it involves heavy weapons somehow.

Anyhow, I note this as I'm not in the personal nostalgia camp on the Scouts, having never really had much association with them.

Nonetheless, I think the decline of the Scouts from a Boys Organization into whatever it is now is pathetic and a reflection of a culture that's increasingly pathetic.  So, yes, there is a bit of a masculinity crisis in Western Society.

And increasingly there's no legitimate place for boys and men.

Now, I didn't say there's  no place. There always well be.  Men will form such associations one way or another.  The founders of organizations like the Scouts knew that and sought to direct it.  And that's something that's important.

Like it or not, there are real differences between male and female in our society. Right now, the "progressives" amongst us really don't like that, and for that matter they don't even like the concept of gender much or the simple fact that gender is biologically determined.

Elsewhere, earlier in this blog, I went into the "muscular Christianity" movement of the early 20th Century and how that gave rise to Scouting.  While I'll note that I'm pretty pessimistic about Scouting here, one thing I did there was to somewhat question whether youth organizations have declined as much as supposed.  What can't be doubted, however, is that their character has significantly changed and to a degree, over time, and to a great degree in some organizations, they've become feminized in the dual sense of the word.  I.e., they've become more feminine and they've become feministic to a degree.

Now this would vary by organization, but anyone who has looked at them much can't really dispute that and that's been part of a process that has also been a dual one.  One part has been the fully legitimate expansion of the role of women in society in the modern age, a byproduct I've argued was largely due to the mechanization of the household.  That development, while so often focused on, was much more natural in the organic sense than people are willing to even begin to acknowledge, and therefore much less radical no matter how it might appear to social historians. The other part has been, however, something truly radical in the form of the more radical feminist movement.  Always a minority of women, it's been a progressive cause that's not so much sought to advance opportunities for women as to ultimately argue that men and women don't even exist.

Always a factor of the extreme left, that movement has combined with other social goals of the extreme left for an odd progressive stew.  Indeed an interesting book, based on the author's interview (I haven't read it and am not going to) has been written by a former writer from Cosmopolitan who detailed how in that magazines radical heyday she and others in the magazines simply made stuff up to support the concept of the cause, with that concept being a radically libertine one.  Indeed, she maintains that the magazine was even successful in co-opting some of the original feminist who were much more feminine than their followers and who were more in the category of the "Me Too" movement of today, and who even originally opposed abortion.

Such views, interestingly enough, have always been a feature of the really extreme left, which again makes it surprising to see how successful they've become in modern Western Society in our own day.  The early Socialist radicals who would become Marxists took Marx very seriously and argued that "all wives should be held in common" as Marx had, by which they meant that they were opposed to marriage and any kind of sexual restraint at all.  What Mrs. Marx thought of that I don't know, but if you look at the lives of their children it would seem that the concepts of the father of various types brought personal disaster upon the psychological well being of the children.  Lenin, of course, had a wife and a mistress. Stalin had the the pre marriage moral behavior of an alley cat and is suspected in the death of his wife, but perhaps here is where the interesting aspect of the Marxist view starts.  She wanted to work and Stalin, who had a string of paramours before he married her, wasn't keen on that at all.

Indeed, while Communist revolutionaries in the early days discouraged marriage and encouraged abortion and basically lived lives of pretty amoral abandon in this area (the life and writings of Whitaker Chambers provide some interesting insights into that) generally once they started to be successful they took the opposite approach to a radical degree, showing perhaps that the test of that area of Marxist thought failed pretty quickly. The Soviets in power were downright puritanical in Soviet culture and not tolerant at all of what they'd previously espoused and engaged in.  That spread to the later Communist movements which likewise held that view. So much so, in fact, that the British were able to use that as propoganda against Malaysian Communist who had to live lives of strict conduct in these regards including obtaining permission to marry from their superiors. When it could be shown by the British that the superiors privately didn't behave that way, a door was open to disillusion the rank and file who naturally reacted with "hey?"

All of which is pointed out only because concepts put to the test in this area uniformly fail, none the less we're deep in the midst of them.

And one of the things we're deep in the midst of is an outright attack on masculinity and things male.

Now, that may seem like an exaggeration and it can indeed be grossly exaggerated.  And it might not really be fully understood.  But what can be fairly easily determined is that even a pool of average guys today, selected at random, contains a lot more effeminate men than a similar pool would have two or three decades ago.

Not that this hasn't happened before.  It has.  It's seemingly a cyclical sort of thing.

That takes me back to citing the Strauss Howe Generational Theory which always causes me to note that I'm not a proponent of it.  I've cited it enough however to note that I do feel there's something to it, and here what I think there is to it is that feminization of men does seemingly occur on a repeated basis and I'd tend to agree that in part men tend to be what women want them to be.  In eras when the wolf is at the door men tend to be, if you will, more manly.

But I also think that in our own era there's been a real attack on the basic nature, and the ingrained organic nature at that, of being male.  And its an area where those who attack the media have some traction.  I've heard some really sbsurd analysis, for example, on how Donald Trump is emblematic of old maleness that's passing, and this on one of the news shows.

Oh, bull.

But when you are in an era in which the most feminine of men are celebrated, and indeed men who are so confused on their gender that they wish to become women, are celebrated, you know things have become more than a little confused in terms of comporting with nature and biology.

Well, all things straighten out in the end.  It's often said that nature abhors a vacuum but more than that nature simply squashes, on her own time, things that can't exist naturally.  Nature will get you one way or another.  And as such views are uniquely those of a narrow sector of the wealthy, European (which would include European American) Western Society, and not the globe at large, it's pretty arrogant to think that they views will last long

But while they do, some ridiculous and harmful things are made to occur. And the squashing of boys organizations are one of those things.

The Scouts, as detailed before in our earlier threads, were formed because Lord Baden Powell was distressed that British youth had lost its more rugged values.  Coming up in the Protestant Muscular Christianity era and part of it, it sought to combine the lessons and virtues of the outdoor life with Christian values.  It was not a religious organization per se, but it was a Christian one and that really cannot be doubted.  For years and years, and even now, Scout Troops were primarily associated with churches.  Nearly ever major church had one and that meant that Scouting Troops were all Christian as a rule and they were beyond that, sectarian by default if not by design.  Lord Baden Powell himself noted in a book actually entitled Scouting & Christianity that; "Scouting is nothing less than applied Christianity".  Upon the foundation of the movement he had stated:

..We aim for the practice of Christianity in their everyday life and dealings, and not mearly the profession of theology on Sundays....The co-operation of tiny sea insects has brought about the formation of coral islands. No enterprise is too big where there is goodwill and co-operation carrying it out. Every day we are turning away boys anxious to join the Movement, because we have no men or women to take them in hand. There is a vast reserve of loyal patriotism and Christian spirit lying dormant in our nation today, mainly because it sees no direct opportunity for expressing itself. Here in this joyous brotherhood there is a vast opportunity open to all in a happy work that shows the results under your hands and a work that is worth while because it gives every man his chance of service for his fellow-men and for God

You can't get much clearer that that.  Scouting was specifically designed to instill manly virtues in boys in hopes that they'd retain Christian manly virtues as adults.**

This may seem odd to us benighted moderns, but one of the things that has often and periodically been complained about in regards to Christianity is that can become highly feminized.  The reasons for this are often debated but it can be said that one of the reasons is that many of values of Christianity that are associated with compassion seem to lend themselves more naturally to women rather than men. This is so much the case with some that it is easy to forget that not all Christian virtues by a long-shot can be defined by compassion and reducing Christianity to that is grossly in error.

Anyhow, what this has done is to cause cycles in which women predominate in churches. These are cycle, not permanent evolutions, and they don't happen uniformly by any means. The expression of this in the Orthodox churches, for example has been in a different fashion than it has been other churches.  This is true in the Catholic Churches as well, which as is often noted have all male clergy, which doesn't mean that they've been immune to it.***  It's most pronounced in the Protestant churches, some of which have reduced their theology nearly to the "it's nice to be nice to the nice" level.

The Muscular Christianity movement came as a reaction to that in the Protestant Churches in the late 19th Century.  This phenomenon skipped the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, and the Jewish synagogues, at the time, so it was really a Protestant movement.  It was a pretty successful movement however and at least some elements of it, including the Boy Scouts, spread into at least all aspects of the Christian churches in the West.  And it was such a successful movement it proved to be a problem for anti Christian movements in various places.  Nazi Germany, for example, banned the Boy Scouts.

In the spirit of dumping on the Baby Boomers once again, the decline and now the fall of the Scouts is yet another part of their legacy to a degree.  Scouting started to take a hit in the 60s and 70s when the Boomers, who are now the same demographic that wants you to join the Rotarian's, the Elks or one of the two big political parties, didn't want to join anything that featured a uniform.

And the more radical edge of the Boomer movement of the time attacked standards in general and the Boy Scouts were an organization that had them.  Indeed, this was so much the case that to call somebody a "Boy Scout" as a slander is well known.  It's the same as calling somebody a Goody Two Shoes, a slander that absentmindedly recalls the story of an impossibly good maiden whose virtue is rewarded by foot-gear and a happy marriage.

The story upon which a diss is based, although few people probably realize the origin of the phrase.

That in and of itself is interesting as to slam somebody for their virtue is essentially to confess being enraptured by the "glamour of evil".  Nonetheless, the Boy Scouts have slowly succumbed to the pressure of a decline of values and standards. Even by the 1970s the organization wasn't what it was in the 1950s and certainly wasn't what it was in the 1930s.  Hit by some scandals in the late 20th Century and early 21st Century it failed to really urge for a societal examination of the source of those scandals as has every other organization that was hit by the same set of them (and it should be noted that schools, uniquely, continue to be beset by the same phenomenon unabated and were always were they were most expressed, and yet this remains unaddressed and unnoticed).  As homosexual advocates gained ground in their advocacy for the normalization of their attractions in the early 21st Century the Boy Scouts prohibition on homosexual leaders and openly homosexual members came under attack and while the Scouts initially leaned back on the organizations Christian underpinnings it soon yielded. Whether it should have or not can be debated, but the fact that the organization basically first relied upon its Christian underpinnings and then rapidly changed course signaled pretty clearly that it was drifting rapidly away from its original organic purpose.

AFL-CIO/BSA poster of the 1970s, showing the red beret that had been adopted by that point in time.  In this case, the red beret is particularly ironic as the AFL-CIO, more than many other unions, had a distinct association with the extreme left at one point in time, although by this point in time the old hard hat elements were no longer in sympathy with the new left of the 1960s.  The "Scouting today's a lot more than you think" line was correct and telling.

It didn't stop drifting and now its no longer an organization for boys and its conceded that it isn't. And by doing that, it really has no purpose at all any longer.  It's vague purpose would have something to do with good citizenship as conceived of a vague, non threatening, non sectarian way.  It would, therefore, have only as its underpinning promoting the civil values in a society that is deeply afraid to have any.

And that's what makes the fall of the Boy Scouts tragic and  nearly, but not completely unique.

It is not as if there were not co ed youth organizations already out there.  4H, FFA, the CAP, etc., are co ed and have been for a long time.  But their purpose is and was distinctly different.

The Boy Scouts always combined a certain agrarian ethos into its foundation and nearly everything about it reflected that to a degree.  It wasn't a Jeffersonian agrarianism so much as it was a certain sort of Cincinnatus agrarianism brought into the Christian age.

Cincinnatus Leaves the Plough to Dictate Laws to Rome.  Note the vaguely similar them to the World War One Liberty Bonds poster we started out with above.

By that what I mean is that the Boy Scouts, while organically a non denominational Christian organization, was one that was founded additionally on the concept that there were manly virtues and a lot of them were rural.  Lord Baden Powell outfitted the Scouts in campaign hats and khaki for a reason.  He didn't gather the Scouts up blue blazers and stripped school ties like English Public (i.e., private) School children. That's what he was seeking to get away from.  They weren't a Christian branch of DECA.

French Boy Scout in American Red Cross sponsored troop, 1918.

This in fact is demonstrated by the looking at the original merit badges, of which there were fifty seven.  It's also interesting so see what became of them.  This chart, based on one on Wikipeda, is the badge and then the symbol at the time, some of which are still in use.  Note how many are outdoorsy, agricultural, or even military in nature (note that they all are).  Some were scientific, some were trades oriented, and some were business oriented.

Agriculture		Plow	Merged into Plant Science, 1975.  This is an interesting change, it should be noted, as plant sciences and agriculture aren't exactly the same.
Angling		Fish	Renamed Fishing in 1952, which makes sense.
Archery		Bow and Arrow
Architecture		Arch
Art		Palette
Astronomy		Star
Athletics		Wingfoot
Automobiling		Red Wheel	Now Traffic Safety
Aviation		Airplane
Bee Farming		Bee	Discontinued 1995
Blacksmithing		Anvil	Discontinued
Bugling		Bugle
Business		Crossed quills	Renamed American Business in 1966.
Camping		Tepee
Carpentry		Carpenter's Plane	Partially replaced by Woodwork, 1952. Carpentry introduced again in 2010 as historic merit badge.
Chemistry		Retort flask
Civics		Fasces	Renamed Citizenship, later split into Home, Community, Nation, and World
Conservation		Forest	Now Fish and Wildlife Management and Environmental Science
Cooking		Kettle
Craftsmanship		Calipers	Split into various Building and Handicraft merit badges
Cycling		White Wheel
Dairying		Butter Churn	Merged into Animal Science in 1975.
Electricity		Lightning Bolt
Firemanship		Crossed nozzles	Now Fire Safety in 1995
First Aid		Cross
First Aid to Animals		Cross w/Dog	Now Veterinary Medicine and perhaps a more advanced discipline.
Forestry		Pine Cone
Gardening		Ear of Corn
Handicraft		Hammer and Plunger	Split into various Building and Handicraft merit badges
Horsemanship		Horseshoe
Interpreting		Handshake	Discontinued in 1952.
Invention		Gear	Discontinued in 1915.
Leatherworking		Leather Stamp
Lifesaving		Life preserver
Machinery		Wrench	Discontinued in 1995.  Ironically, machinist are a much revived trade and the nation is now short of them.
Marksmanship		Target	Split into Rifle Shooting and Shotgun Shooting
Masonry		Trowel	Discontinued in 1995. Again, ironically the trades are booming.
Mining		Shovel	Renamed Geology
Music		Lyre
Ornithology		Hummingbird	Now Bird Study
Painting		Paintbrush
Pathfinding		Indian Head	Now Orienteering.
Personal Health		Heart	Replaced by Personal Fitness in 1952
Photography		Camera	Very surprising, I"d note, that it was such an early badge
Pioneering		Ax and Pickax
Plumbing		Faucet
Poultry Farming		Rooster	Merged into Animal Science, 1975
Printing		Printing Press	Merged into Graphic Arts, 1987
Public Health		Torch
Scholarship		Torch & Book
Sculpture		Head
Seamanship		Anchor	Split into Motorboating and Small Boat Sailing, 1964
Signaling		Semaphore Flags	Discontinued in 1992. Introduced again in 2010 as historic merit badge.
Stalking		Raccoon	Discontinued 1952. Introduced again in 2010 as historic merit badge, and renamed Tracking
Surveying		Telescope
Swimming		Man Swimming
Taxidermy		Talon	Discontinued in 1952.

Here's the current list, it's bigger, but its still not the case that there's zillions of them. This is also taken from Wikipedia.  As noted, you can find quite a few that have carried over, but note how many of these lack the original focus, and how Scouting is no longer nearly as outdoorsy as it once was, if the badges are any guide.

Name	Created
American Business	1967			Business, Economy of the United States.  It'd be interesting to know what the original thought behind this change was, given when the occurred.
American Cultures	1979			Ethnic groups in the United States.  This badge is sort of anthropology type badge, and I wouldn't criticize it merely for that reason by any means, or criticize it at all. However, the appearance of these sorts of badges does show the change in focus of the organization.
American Heritage	1934			History of the United States, Historic preservation
American Labor	1987			Trade unions.  Trade unions?
Animal Science	1975			Animal husbandry
Animation[6]	2015			Animation. Again, this sort of change really shows the change in focus away from the original one.
Archaeology	1997			Kind of gives you that Indian Jones and the Last Crusade feel, doesn't it.  But it only came in during 1997.
Archery	1911
Architecture	1911
Art	1911
Astronomy	1911
Athletics	1911
Automotive Maintenance	2008
Aviation	1911			Aviation.  Neat!
Backpacking	1982			Backpacking.  While some of the changes have been in the other direction, this one goes back to the original focus. So the change hasn't been only one way.
Basketry	1927			Basket weaving
Bird Study	1914			Ornithology
Bugling	1911			This really shows the military focus of the original organization.  It's interesting that it's still there after all these years.
Camping	1911			Camping. Still there, and has been all along.
Canoeing	1927
Chemistry	1911			Chemistry.  It's surprsing to me that this one was one of the original ones.
Chess	2011			Chess.  I like chess, but it's highly sedentary.  A merit badge for it?
Citizenship in the Community	1952
Citizenship in the Nation	1951
Citizenship in the World	1972			Global citizenship in the world.  No way this would have been in here earlier.
Climbing	1997
Coin Collecting	1938			Coin collecting.  Again, a surprisingly early sedentary badge.
Collections	1991			Collecting?  I'm not really sure what this is, but it must be dedicated to collections of, I'd suppose, any worthy type.
Communication	1968
Composite Materials	2006			Composite materials?  No idea.
Cooking	1911
Crime Prevention	1996			I'ts interesting that this has become one.
Cycling	1911
Dentistry	1975			Dentistry?  Wow.
Digital Technology	2014
Disabilities Awareness	1993			This is a noble addition, but again awareness of something is social in nature.  I'm not saying that this is unworthy, but it does reflect a directional change.
Dog Care	1938
Drafting	1965
Electricity	1911			Electricity as a badge in 1911 scares me.
Electronics	1963			Electronics were really hot in the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Emergency Preparedness	1972			Emergency management
Energy	1976
Engineering	1967
Entrepreneurship	1997
Environmental Science	1972
Exploration	2017
Family Life	1991			Family values as an addition can only really come about when there's a decline in family values.  Sad addition.
Farm Mechanics	1928
Fingerprinting	1938
Fire Safety	1995
First Aid	1911
Fish and Wildlife Management	1972
Fishing	1952
Fly Fishing	2002			Fly fishing as separate from fishing is interesting in that it was about this time that fly fishing, following A River Runs Through it, became a big yuppie thing.  We fished anyway we cold fish, including fly fishing, around here when I was a kid (and we still do) and we didn't know that it was some sort of high class thing. We just thought we were fishing.
Forestry	1911
Game Design	2013			Game Design. If ever there was a badge that symbolized a turn towards the sedentary urban, this is it.
Gardening	1911
Genealogy	1972
Geocaching	2010			Geocaching is something I really like, and this does seem to me to be in keeping with the original spirit of scouting but in a modern context.
Geology	1953
Golf	1976			Golf.  I'm not keen on golf so I probably ought to just keep my comments to myself on this one.
Graphic Arts	1987
Hiking	1921			Hiking
Home Repairs	1943
Horsemanship	1911			I'm glad this discipline is still there.
Indian Lore	1931			Native American culture is the focus of this one.
Insect Study	1985			Entomology is the focus of this one.
Inventing[7]	2010			Invention?
Journalism	1927
Kayaking	2012			Kayaking. Again, a worthy outdoors addition.
Landscape Architecture	1967
Law	1974			Law?  M'eh.  They should dump this one.
Leatherwork	1951
Lifesaving	1911
Mammal Study	1985
Medicine	1991
Metalwork	1927
Mining in Society	2014
Model Design and Building	1963
Motorboating	1961
Moviemaking	2013
Music	1911
Nature	1952
Nuclear Science	2005			Nuclear physics.  Oh my.
Oceanography	1964
Orienteering	1973
Painting	1911
Personal Fitness	1952
Personal Management	1972
Pets	1958
Photography	1911
Pioneering	1911			Pioneering.  I'm not really sure how this varies from orienteering, but it must.
Plant Science	1974
Plumbing	1911
Pottery	1927
Programming	2013			Computer programming?  Again, a sign of the modern age that has nothing to do with the outdoors.
Public Health	1911
Public Speaking	1932
Pulp and Paper	1972			I'm stunned this was introduced when it was and that it remains.
Radio	1923
Railroading	1952			Rail transport.  I wish I'd known about that one during the brief time I was a Scout.
Reading	1929
Reptile and Amphibian Study	1993
Rifle Shooting	1988			I'm also glad this one remains.
Robotics	2011
Rowing	1933
Safety	1927
Salesmanship	1927			Sales.  The introduction of this one in 1927 sort of symbolizes, in my view, the business spirit of the 1920s.  Of course, that was about to come to an end in 1929.
Scholarship	1911
Scouting Heritage	2010
Scuba Diving	2009
Sculpture	1911
Search and Rescue	2012
Shotgun Shooting	1988			Again, another one I'm glad to see that it remains.
Signs, Signals, and Codes	2015
Skating	1973
Small-Boat Sailing	1964			Sailing.  I'm surprised this one came in so late.
Snow Sports	1999
Soil and Water Conservation	1952			Soil conservation, Water conservation.  These came in remarkably early.
Space Exploration	1965			Space exploration.  This one no doubt reflects the spirit of the age it was introduced.
Sports	1972			Sports?
Stamp Collecting	1932			Stamp collecting.  Stamp collecting was really big at this time.  It's interesting that this was acknowledged in a merit badge, sedentary activity that it is.
Surveying	1911			Surveying was a significant and important rural activity.
Sustainability	2013			Sustainability.  Some would criticize this, I suspect, as progressiveness but I think that this actually fits pretty well with the original mission of the Scouts.
Swimming	1911
Textile	1973			Textiles   Weird to see this coming in during 1973.
Theater	1967
Traffic Safety	1975
Truck Transportation	1973
Veterinary Medicine	1995
Water Sports	1969
Weather	1927
Welding	2012			Welding. Glad to see this one come in.
Whitewater	1987
Wilderness Survival	1974
Wood Carving	1923
Woodwork	1923

Now, it would be really unfair to claim that the original focus of the organization had completely disappeared. But it wouldn't be to suggest that it's been muted.  Theater, textile computer programming. . . these wouldn't have really had a place in the early Scouts, or even the Scouts if the mid 20th Century.  And it was that outdoorsy focus that brought kids into it.  I suspect it still brings a fair number in today.

And the original founders of the organization knew that and used it in concert with their concept that the outdoor themselves taught manly virtues and that a proper introduction to them could combine with a Christian worldview to make good men out of interested boys. At the point where the organization admits girls and then takes the "Boy" out of the name, none of that really remains.  So Scouting now is something else.****

It isn't that there can't be organization, even ones with some outdoor focus, that are co-ed.  But as anyone who has been around a group of boys, including young boys, or teenage boys, knows, boys around girls aren't the same. And the phrase "boys will be boys" is true in more than one way.  Boys will find a way to be boys, for good or ill, irrespective of whether or not its in any organized or productive fashion.  And men will be men, for good or great ill, as well.^

The feminized progressives of our society today won't believe that, and that fact has lead to an effort which produces some fairly feminine men on one hand, and men who simply disregard any societal responsibility on the other.  The problems that Lord Baden Powell noted in part in his day are likely greater in the post Boomer wilderness created by the generation of the 60s than they were in the Industrialized English blight of his.  A real Boy Scouts is likely more needed than ever.

Too bad there isn't one.

No place left, at least no organized official place, for boys.

_________________________________________________________________________________


*Except perhaps for one thing, which would have been regarded as abhorrent at the time, but which wouldn't be now.  The illustrator, the great German born J. C. Leyendecker was almost certainly a homosexual and not really particularly closeted at that.  Both Leyendecker brothers were great illustrators.  Norman Rockwell credited J. C. as his mentor.  The entire family, including their sister, were very close but they lead tortured life.  His brother died young of suicide while suffering from drug addiction.  J. C. lived for years with his siblings and his principal male model in what was almost certainly a homosexual relationship but those close to him said nothing about it.  Had it been widely known it would have almost certainly destroyed his career.  He was at one time at least as popular of magazine illustrator as Rockwell and a much more widely circulated commercial artist.

**Scouting was so hugely popular, however, that it did spread to non Christian countries and there were Muslem Scouts in Islamic countries fairly early on.

Muslem Boy Scouts, Nebi Musa, 1936.

***There's a fairly widespread men's movement in Christian Churches today with there being some very pronounced men's movements in the Catholic Church.  In at least the Catholic Church this is a reaction, in part, to the clergy that came up in the 1960s and 1970s which is considerably more liberal and less traditional than younger Catholics.  As part of this Catholics of various ages, but particularly younger ones, have taken sort of a "man up" approach to certain things in recent years.

****It's interesting to note that one organization that wasn't impressed with the change in name, and implicity focus, of the Boy Scouts was the Girl Scouts.“Girl Scouts is the premier leadership development organization for girls,” the CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA stated after the Boy Scouts made their announcement. “We are, and will remain, the first choice for girls and parents" she also declared.  She's likely right.

^And frankly at least some teenage boys and teenage girls are incapable of learning the original virtuous lessons if in really close contact with each other.  JrROTC is an example of that, or can be, with some notable instance of improper conduct and the tragic inevitable result.  The U.S. Navy,  not exactly a youth organization, but with a lot of young people in it, provides another example in the notable number of pregnant female sailors it produces constantly, a scandal that it manages to keep pretty quiet except amongst sailors.