What’s In A Name?

So, here we are, rounding out the final week of the first month of 2020. Time is truly flying by. It is interesting to me as I sit here and think about scouting, and the changes that it has seen over the past 2 1⁄2 decades. It becomes even more interesting when I think about scouting in it’s entirety. I often wonder if Lord Baden Powell had thought that scouting would become what it is today. There have been people on both sides of the fence when it comes to girls in boy scouts, and I certainly can understand the dilemma as one would need to look no further than the name Boy Scouts of America. But then I think to myself, how has this world that we live in changed?
In this then lies the solution.

The Boy Scouts of America were created on a set of moral and ethical values- The oath and the law both very explicitly lay out what is expected of a scout. In the period of time that scouting was created, during the great wars of the early 20th century, women were still in the more traditional roles of yesteryear. Now this would be a point where many could potentially jump off and create the argument about it should still be that way or we need to go back to that way, but this is where the world has changed. Women and Men share the same careers. This is precisely why I believe that if Lord Baden Powell were alive today, he would not take issue with the way things are changing. His idea still lives on strong in scouting; The principles of scouting lie in the values, not in the gender of the scout. Today, these principles are alive and well, unchanged from what they were over 100 years ago. So, to my original thought- How has scouting changed? I would argue that all that the program of scouting has not changed, but we are now opening more doors for people who might not be exposed to the ethics and values that scouting teaches, and that my friends, is what it is all about.