About Scouting for Boys
Untitled DocumentLong before The Dangerous Book for Boys, there was the book that started it all – including the Boy Scout movement – Robert Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys, which is the fourth best-selling book of the 20th century! Marvelously illustrated by Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys also contains additional information on types of knots and outdoor cooking. Scouting for Boys was based on Baden-Powell's experiences as a boy in rural England, and with the Mafeking Cadet Corps during the Siege of Mafeking during the Second Boer War, when boys aged 12 - 15 were pressed into service as scouts in order to free up men for fighting. The book incorporated ideas in Baden-Powell's earlier military books, which were used by the British Army to train its scouts, and after its publication in 1908, the scouting movement exploded. By 1939, there were 3.3 million Scouts in 32 different countries.Robert Baden-Powell was born in 1857 in London, England and began his military career in India, followed by South Africa and Malta, where he worked as an intelligence officer. A talented artist, Baden-Powell traveled disguised as a butterfly collector with the plans of military installations incorporated into his drawings of butterfly wings.
At the start of the Second Boer War, Baden-Powell returned to South Africa and led the garrison at Mafeking during its infamous siege, when it was surrounded by 8,000 Boers. Due to his cunning, they survived the 217-day siege and Baden-Powell returned home a national hero. During WWI, he was actively involved in spying and intelligence work. In 1912, at age 55, aboard an ocean liner on his way to New York to begin a Scouting World Tour, Baden-Powell met and married 23-year-old Olave Soames, who along with Baden-Powell's sister Agnes, was instrumental in the formation of the Girl Scouts.
At First World Scout Jamboree in 1920, Baden-PoweIl was named Chief Scout of the World, and in 1939 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which was not given out due to the start of WWII. With his health failing, Baden-Powell and Olave moved to Kenya, where he died on January 8, 1941. His gravestone bears a circle with a dot in its center, which is the Scout trail symbol for "Going Home".
Did You Know? Baden-Powell's friendship with American adventurer Frederick Russell Burnham is commemorated with side-by-side mountains in California, Mount Baden-Powell and Mount Burnham. To read Scouting for Boys on your Palm, you must first have eReader installed. If you don't already have it, it is widely available for free on the Internet. Then, use your desktop software to install the book to your handheld, and start eReader. It's that easy.


