Camping for Boys E-Book

H W Gibson

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Beschreibung

Do you know how to make a camp bed, test the freshness of an egg or light a match when there is nothing to strike it on? From setting up camp to choosing a motto, treating blisters to making a bow and arrow, Camping for Boys will ensure a happy, healthy time is had by all when out of doors. First published in 1913 in an era before televisions and video games, Camping for Boys was an indispensable guide for any young boy wanting to make the most of the great outdoors. With sections on games for a rainy day, first aid, cooking, building and maintaining the campfire, nature study, forecasting the weather, building a hygienic camp toilet, organisation, leadership and discipline, this valuable little book will help big kids to regain their youth and experience the thrill of the wind in their hair. Also suitable for armchair campers.

Leseprobe

CAMPINGfor Boys

About the author

H.W. Gibson first published Camping for Boys in 1913, having spent much of his life dedicated to the camping movement.

Transcriber’s notes

This book shows a world where character and morality are prized. The goal of camp is not just to get the boys out of the parents’ hair, but to encourage good character and citizenship. Camp leaders are enticed by the contribution they can make to the boys’ futures and are selected (or rejected) based on their own moral virtues.

There are many practical suggestions for safety and comfort aside from the absence of modern materials and conveniences, like nylon and gas stoves.

Medical advice given in the book is from 1913 and may be unhelpful, often contradicts current practice and involves unsafe or now illegal substances.

The Heart of the Camp

Have you smelled wood smoke at twilight?

Have you heard the birch log burning?

Are you quick to read the noises of the night?

You must follow with the others for the young men’s feet are turning

To the camps of proved desire and known delight.

From Kipling’s ‘Feet of the Young Men.’

CAMPINGforBoys

H.W. GIBSON

To the thousand and more boys who have been my camp-mates in camps Shand, Durrell and Becket

First published 1913

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© in this edition The History Press, 2013

The right of H.W. Gibson to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9651 1

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Foreword

1

The Purpose of Camping

2

Leadership

3

Location and Sanitation

4

Camp Equipment

5

Personal Check List or Inventory

6

Organisation, Administration and Discipline

7

The Day’s Programme

8

Moral and Religious Life

9

Food – Its Function, Purchase, Preparation, Cooking, Serving

10

The Camp Fire

11

Tramps, Hikes and Overnight Trips

12

Cooking on Hikes

13

Health and Hygiene

14

Simple Remedies

15

First Aid

16

Personal Hygiene

17

Athletics, Campus Games, Aquatics and Water Sports

18

Nature Study

19

Forecasting the Weather

20

Rainy Day Games and Suggestions

21

Educational Activities

22

Honour Emblems and Awards

23

Packing Up

Endnotes

General Bibliography

Foreword

The author has conducted boys’ camps for twenty-three years, so that he is not without experience in the subject. To share with others this experience has been his aim in writing the book. The various chapters have been worked out from a practical viewpoint, the desire being to make a handbook of suggestions for those in charge of camps for boys and for boys who go camping, rather than a theoretical treatise upon the general subject.

Thanks are due to E.M. Robinson, Dr Elias G. Brown, Charles R. Scott, Irving G. MacColl, J.A. Van Dis, Taylor Statten, W.H. Wones, H.C. Beckman, W.H. Burger, H.M. Burr, A.B. Wegener, A.D. Murray, and H.M. Allen, for valuable suggestions and ideas incorporated in many chapters.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publishers for permission to quote from the books mentioned in the Bibliography: Charles Scribner’s Sons, Harper Brothers, Outing Publishing Company, Baker & Taylor Company, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, Penn Publishing Company, Doubleday, Page & Company, Hinds, Noble & Eldredge, Ginn & Company, Sunday School Times Company, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Little, Brown & Company, Moffat, Yard & Company, Houghton, Mifflin Company, Sturgis & Walton, Funk & Wagnall’s Company, The Manual Arts Press, Frederick Warne & Company, Review and Herald Publishing Company, Health-Education League, Pacific Press Publishing Company.

Every leader, before going to camp, should read some book upon boy life, in order, not only that he may refresh his memory regarding his own boyhood days, but that he may also the more intelligently fit himself for the responsibility of leadership. The following books, or similar ones, may be found in any well-equipped library.

If this book will help some man to be of greater service to boys, as well as to inspire boys to live the noble life which God’s great out-of-doors teaches, the author will feel amply repaid for his labour.

Boston, Mass., April, 1911.

1

The Purpose of Camping

It is great fun to live in the glorious open air, fragrant with the smell of the woods and flowers; it is fun to swim and fish and hike it over the hills; it is fun to sit about the open fire and spin yarns, or watch in silence the glowing embers; but the greatest fun of all is to win the love and confidence of some boy who has been a trouble to himself and everybody else, and help him to become a man.

(H.M. Burr)

The summer time is a period of moral deterioration with most boys. Free from restraint of school and many times of home, boys wander during the vacation time into paths of wrongdoing largely because of a lack of directed play life and a natural outlet for the expenditure of their surplus energy. The vacation problem therefore becomes a serious one for both the boy and his parent. Camping offers a solution.

The Need

A boy in the process of growing needs the outdoors. He needs room and range. He needs the tonic of the hills, the woods and streams. He needs to walk under the great sky, and commune with the stars. He needs to place himself where nature can speak to him. He ought to get close to the soil. He ought to be toughened by sun and wind, rain and cold. Nothing can take the place, for the boy, of stout physique, robust health, good blood, firm muscles, sound nerves, for these are the conditions of character and efficiency. The early teens are the most important years for the boy physically … Through the ages of thirteen and fifteen the more he can be in the open, free from social engagements and from continuous labor or study, the better. He should fish, swim, row and sail, roam the woods and the waters, get plenty of vigorous action, have interesting, healthful things to think about.

(Prof. C.W. Votaw)

The Purpose

This is the real purpose of camping, ‘something to do, something to think about, something to enjoy in the woods, with a view always to character-building’, this is the way Ernest Thompson-Seton, that master wood-craftsman, puts it. Character building! What a great objective! It challenges the best that is in a man or boy. Camping is an experience, not an institution. It is an experience which every live, full-blooded, growing boy longs for, and happy the day of his realisation. At the first sign of spring, back yards blossom forth with tents of endless variety. To sleep out, to cook food, to search for nature’s fascinating secrets, to make things – all are but the expression of that instinct for freedom of living in the great out-of-doors which God created within him.

Too Much House

‘Too much house,’ says Jacob Riis; ‘Civilization has been making of the world a hothouse. Man’s instinct of self-preservation rebels; hence the appeal for the return to the simple life that is growing loud.’ Boys need to get away from the schoolroom and books, and may I say the martyrdom of examinations, high marks, promotions and exhibitions! Medical examinations of school children reveal some startling facts. Why should boys suffer from nerves? Are we sacrificing bodily vigour for abnormal intellectual growth? Have we been fighting against instead of cooperating with nature?

The tide is turning, however, and the people are living more and more in the open. Apostles of outdoor life like Henry D. Thoreau, John Burroughs, William Hamilton Gibson, Howard Henderson, Ernest Thompson-Seton, Frank Beard, Horace Kephart, Edward Breck, Charles Stedman Hanks, Stewart Edward White, ‘Nessmuck,’ W.C. Gray, and a host of others, have, through their writings, arrested the thought of busy people long enough to have them see the error of their ways and are bringing them to repentance.

Camps for boys are springing up like mushrooms. Literally thousands of boys who have heretofore wasted the glorious summer time loafing on the city streets, or as disastrously at summer hotels or amusement places, are now living during the vacation time under nature’s canopy of blue with only enough covering for protection from rain and wind, and absorbing through the pores of their body that vitality which only pure air, sunshine, long hours of sleep, wholesome food, and reasonable discipline can supply.

Character Building

In reading over scores of booklets and prospectuses of camps for boys, one is impressed with their unanimity of purpose – that of character building. These are a few quotations taken from a variety of camp booklets:

The object of the camp is healthful recreation without temptation.

A camp where boys live close to nature, give themselves up to play, acquire skill in sports, eat plenty of wholesome food, and sleep long hours … and are taught high ideals for their own lives.

To give boys a delightful summer outing under favorable conditions, and to give them every opportunity to become familiar with camp life in all its phases. We believe this contributes much to the upbuilding of a boy’s character and enables him to get out of life much enjoyment that would not otherwise be possible.

A place where older boys, boys of the restless age, may live a happy, carefree, outdoor life, free from the artificialities and pernicious influences of the larger cities; [a place where] all the cravings of a real boy are satisfied; [a place] where constant association with agreeable companions and the influence of well-bred college men in a clean and healthy moral atmosphere make for noble manhood; a place where athletic sports harden the muscles, tan the skin, broaden the shoulders, brighten the eye, and send each lad back to his school work in the fall as brown as a berry and as hard as nails.

A camp of ideals, not a summer hotel nor a supplanter of the home. The principal reason for its existence is the providing of a safe place for parents to send their boys during the summer vacation, where, under the leadership of Christian men, they may be developed physically, mentally, socially, and morally.

Whether the camp is conducted under church, settlement, Young Men’s Christian Association, or private auspices, the prime purpose of its existence should be that of character building.

Because of natural, physical, social, educational, moral, and religious conditions, the boy is taught those underlying principles which determine character. The harder things a boy does or endures, the stronger man he will become; the more unselfish and noble things he does, the better man he will become.

No Rough-house

The day of the extreme ‘rough-house’ camp has passed. Boys have discovered that real fun does not mean hurting or discomforting others, but consists in making others happy. The boy who gets the most out of camp is the boy who puts the most into camp.

Mottoes

Many camps build their program of camp activities around a motto such as:

‘Each for All, and All for Each’

‘Help the Other Fellow,’

‘Do Your Best,’

‘Nothing Without Labour,’

‘A Gentleman Always,’ and

‘I Can and I Will.’

Scout Law

Endurance, self-control, self-reliance, and unselfishness are taught the ‘Boy Scouts’ through what is called the ‘Scout Law.’

1 A Scout’s honour is to be trusted;

2 Be loyal;

3 Do a good turn to somebody every day;

4 Be a friend to all;

5 Be courteous;

6 Be a friend to animals;

7 Be obedient;

8 Be cheerful;

9 Be thrifty.

All these are valuable, because they contribute to the making of character.

In the conduct of a boys’ camp there must be a definite clear-cut purpose if satisfactory results are to be obtained. A go-as-you-please or do-as-you-please camp will soon become a place of harm and moral deterioration.

Results

Camping should give to the boy that self-reliance which is so essential in the making of a life, that faith in others which is the foundation of society, that spirit of altruism which will make him want to be of service in helping other fellows, that consciousness of God as evidenced in His handiwork which will give him a basis of morality, enduring and reasonable, and a spirit of reverence for things sacred and eternal. He ought to have a better appreciation of his home after a season away from what should be to him the sweetest place on earth.

2

Leadership

The success or failure of a boys’ camp depends upon leadership rather than upon equipment. Boys are influenced by example rather than by precept. A boys’ camp is largely built around a strong personality. Solve the problem of leadership, and you solve the greatest problem of camping.

The Director

No matter how large or how small the camp, there must be one who is in absolute control. He may be known as the director, superintendent, or leader. His word is final. He should be a man of executive ability and good common sense. He should have a keen appreciation of justice. A desire to be the friend and counsellor of every boy must always govern his action. He will always have the interest and welfare of every individual boy at heart, realising that parents have literally turned over to his care and keeping, for the time being, the bodies and souls of their boys. To be respected should be his aim. Too often the desire to be popular leads to failure.

Leaders

Aim to secure as assistant leaders or counsellors young men of unquestioned character and moral leadership, college men if possible, men of culture and refinement, who are good athletes, and who understand boy life.

They should be strong and sympathetic, companionable men. Too much care cannot be exercised in choosing assistants. Beware of effeminate men, men who are morbid in sex matters. An alert leader can spot a ‘crooked’ man by his actions, his glances, and by his choice of favourites. Deal with a man of this type firmly, promptly, and quietly. Let him suddenly be ‘called home by circumstances which he could not control.’

The leader must have the loyalty of his assistants. They should receive their rank from the leader, and this rank should be recognised by the entire camp. The highest ranking leader present at any time should have authority over the party.

In a boys’ camp I prefer the term ‘leader’ to that of ‘counsellor.’ It is more natural for a boy to follow a leader than to listen to wise counsellors. ‘Come on, fellows, let’s –’ meets with hearty response. ‘Boys, do this,’ is an entirely different thing. Leaders should hold frequent councils regarding the life of the camp and share in determining its policy.

The most fruitful source of supply of leaders should be the colleges and preparatory schools. No vacation can be so profitably spent as that given over to the leadership of boy life. Here is a form of altruistic service which should appeal to purposeful college men. Older boys who have been campers make excellent leaders of younger boys. A leader should always receive some remuneration for his services, either carfare and board or a fixed sum of money definitely agreed upon beforehand. The pay should never be so large that he will look upon his position as a ‘job.’ Never cover service with the blinding attractiveness of money. The chief purpose of pay should be to help deepen the sense of responsibility, and prevent laxness and indifference, as well as to gain the services of those who must earn something.

Do not take a man as leader simply because he has certificates of recommendation. Know him personally. Find out what he is capable of doing. The following blank I use in securing information:

Leader’s Information Blank,

Name

Address

College or school

Class of

Do you sing? What part (tenor or bass)?

Do you swim?

Do you play cricket? What position?

Do you play an instrument? What?

Will you bring it (unless piano) and music to camp?

Have you won any athletic or aquatic events? What?

Will you bring your school or college pennant with you?

Have you ever taken part in minstrel show, dramatics, or any kind of entertainment; if so, what?

What is your hobby? (If tennis, cricket, swimming, nature study, hiking, photography, athletics, etc., whatever it is, kindly tell about it in order to help in planning the camp activities.)

Leaders should not be chosen in order to secure a cricket team, or an athletic team. Select men of diverse gifts. One should know something about nature study, another about manual training, another a good story-teller, another a good athlete or cricket player, another a good swimmer, another a musician, etc. Always remember, however, that the chief qualification should be moral worth.

Before camp opens it is a wise plan to send each leader a letter explaining in detail the purpose and program of the camp. A letter like the following is sent to the leaders of camps:

Suggestions to camp leaders. Read and re-read.

The success of a boys’ camp depends upon the hearty cooperation of each leader with the superintendent. The boys will imitate you. A smile is always better than a frown. ‘Kicking’ in the presence of boys breeds discontent. Loyalty to the camp and its management is absolutely necessary if there is to be harmony in the camp life.

Personal

Your personal life will either be a blessing or a hindrance to the boys in your tent. Study each boy in your tent. Win his confidence. Determine to do your best in being a genuine friend of each boy. Remember in prayer daily each boy and your fellow leaders. Emphasise the camp motto, ‘Each for all, and all for each.’ Study the ‘tests’ on pages 8 and 9 of the booklets, and be helpful to the boys in your tent who are ambitious to improve and win the honour emblems.

Tents

Neatness and cleanliness must be the watchword of each tent. Sweets draw ants. Decayed material breeds disease. Insist upon the observance of sanitary rules.

It is unwise to have all the boys from one town or city in one tent. The tendency is to form clans, which destroy camp spirit. Get the fellows together the first thing and choose a tent name and tent yells.

Appoint a boy who will be responsible for the boys and the tent when you are not present.

Too much attention cannot be given to the matter of ventilation. When it rains, use a forked stick to hold the flaps open in the form of a diamond. In clear weather, tie one flap back at each end (flap toward the feet), allowing a free draft of air at all times. On rainy days encourage the boys to spend their time in the pavilion. Whenever possible, insist upon tent and blankets being thoroughly aired each morning.

Three inspectors will be appointed for each day; fifteen minutes’ notice will be given and boys will not be allowed in or around their tents during the period of inspection. Leaders may suggest but not participate in arranging the tent.

The Honour Banner is to be given to the tent showing the best condition and held as long as marks are highest.

Swimming

The leader of swimming must give the signal before boys go into the water. Boys who cannot swim should be encouraged to learn. The morning dip must be a dip and not a swim.

Boats

No boats are to be taken unless an order has been issued by the tent leader (or by the superintendent). The man at the wharf always has power to veto orders at his discretion.

Order of Day

It is the leader’s part to see that the order of the day is carried out and on time, including the setting up of drill. (See Camp Booklet.) ‘Follow the leader’ is an old game which is still influencing boys.

Work

Three tents and their leaders are responsible for the work at camp, and will be expected to report to the assistant superintendent after breakfast for assignment of work. These tents are changed each day, so that the boys and leaders come on duty only one day in seven.

Each tent is under its respective leader in doing the following work:

Tent 1 Sanitary work, such as policing the campus, emptying garbage cans, sweeping the pavilion, disinfecting, etc.

Tent 2 Preparing vegetables for the cook, drying dishes, pots, pans, cleaning up the kitchen, piazza, etc.

Tent 3 Cleaning the boats, supplying wood for the kitchen, putting ice in the refrigerator, etc.

The next day tents 4, 5 and 6 will come on duty, and so on until each tent has been on duty during the week.

Leaders for the day will call the squad together after breakfast and explain the day’s plans. Encourage the boys to do this work cheerfully. Lead, do not drive the boys when working. Not more than three hours should be consumed in camp work.

Sports and Pastimes

Bring rule books on athletics. Study up group games. Bring any old clothes for costumes; tambourines and bones for minstrel show, grease paint, and burnt cork – in fact, anything that you think will add to the fun of the camp. Good stories and jokes are always in demand. Bring something interesting to read to your boys on rainy days. Think out some stunt to do at the social gatherings. If you play an instrument, be sure to bring it along with you.

Bank

Encourage the boys to turn their money and railroad tickets over to the camp banker instead of depositing them with you.

Camp Council

Meetings of the leaders will be held at the call of the superintendent. Matters talked over at the council meeting should not be talked over with the boys. All matters of discipline or anything that deals with the welfare of the camp should be brought up at this meeting. Printed report blanks will be given to each leader to be filled out and handed to the assistant superintendent each Thursday morning. Do not show these reports to the boys.

Bible Study

Each leader will be expected to read to the boys in his tent a chapter from the Bible and have prayers before ‘taps’ each night, also to take his turn in leading the morning devotions at breakfast table. Groups of boys will meet for occasional Bible study at sunset under various leaders. Each session will continue twenty minutes – no longer. Sunday morning service will be somewhat formal in character, with an address. The sunset vesper service will be informal.

Praying that the camp may prove a place where leaders and boys may grow in the best things of life and anticipating an outing of pleasure and profit to you, I am

Your friend,

(signature)

Opportunities

In securing men for leadership, impress upon them the many opportunities for the investment of their lives in the kind of work that builds character. In reading over a small folder, written by George H. Hogeman, I was so impressed with his excellent presentation of this theme of opportunities of leadership that the following is quoted in preference to anything I could write upon the subject:

The opportunity of the boys’ camp leader is, first, to engage in the service that counts most largely in securing the future welfare of those who will soon be called upon to carry on the work that we are now engaged in. Most people are so busy with their own present enjoyment and future success that they pay little heed to the future of others. They may give some thought to the present need of those around them because it more or less directly affects themselves, but the work of character building in boys’ camps is one that shows its best results in the years to come rather than in the immediate present.

In the second place, the opportunity comes to the camp leader to know boys as few other people know them, sometimes even better than their own parents know them. When you live, eat, sleep with a boy in the open, free life of camp for a month or so, you come in contact with him at vastly more points than you do in the more restrained home life, and you see sides of his nature that are seldom seen at other times.

Finally, the opportunity is given to the man who spends his vacation in camp to make the time really count for something in his own life and in the lives of others. To how many does vacation really mean a relaxation, a letting down of effort along one line, without the substitution of anything definite in its place! But he must be a dull soul, indeed, who can come to the right kind of boys’ camp and not go away with his muscles harder, his eye brighter, his digestion better, and his spirit more awake to the things that pertain to the Kingdom of God.

Then again the camp leader must have the ability to forget himself in others. Nowhere can the real play spirit be entered into more completely than in camp life. A watchman is the last thing he must be. That spirit of unselfishness which forgets its own personal pleasure in doing the most for the general good, is the ideal camp spirit. As Lowell puts it in the Vision of Sir Launfal, it is:

‘Not what we give, but what we share,

For the gift without the giver is bare.’

The results of all these points which I have mentioned are some very positive things. One is the very best kind of a vacation that it is possible to have. How frequently we hear in response to the question about enjoying a vacation, ‘Oh, yes, I had a good enough time, but I’ll never go back there again.’ To my mind that indicates either that the person does not know what a really good time is, or that his surroundings made a good time impossible.

Another result of camp is the real friendships that last long after camping days are over. Of these I need not speak. You and I know of many such and what they mean in the development of Christian character in the lives of our men and boys. And, after all, there is the greatest result of all, the sense of confidence in the ultimate outcome that comes with having a share in the work of bringing others to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

The ideal life for a boy is not in the city. He should know of animals, rivers, plants, and that great out-of-door life that lays for him the foundation of his later years.

(G. Stanley)

3

Location and Sanitation

Dirt

Clean camps are most easily kept by not allowing them to become dirty.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Godliness means a right relation to things spiritual, cleanliness a right relation to things material. An old definition says that ‘Dirt is merely misplaced matter.’ Of all the vehicles of disease, the most important perhaps is dirt. The word dirt in its strict sense comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘drit,’ or excrement. ‘Dirt,’ then, is not earth or clean sand – not clean dirt, but dirty dirt, that is, matter soiled by some of the excreta of the human or animal body. Cleanliness must be insisted upon in a boys’ Camp – not the cleanliness that makes a boy squeamish about working with his hands upon some necessary job, but cleanliness that makes him afraid of sharing his tooth brush or table utensils or his clothes.

Cleanliness is not the shunning of good, clean dirt, but a recognition of the fact that to pass anything from one mouth to another is a possible source of death and destruction.1

‘Death to dirt’ should be the watchword of the camp. The camp should be a model of cleanliness. Every boy should be taught the value of good sanitation and encouraged to cooperate in making proper sanitation effective.

Avoid Swamps

The location chosen for a camp should be away from swamps. Avoid swampy and low places as you would a plague. Damp places where there are mosquitoes, should be well drained, and open to an abundance of sunshine. Mosquitoes breed only in water, but a very little water is sufficient if it is dirty and stagnant. Two inches of water standing in an old tin can will breed an innumerable horde. These ‘diminutive musicians’ are not only a nuisance, but dangerous, as malaria and typhoid spreaders by their poisonous stings.

The Site

In selecting a camp site bear in mind these things:

1 A sandy sub-soil, with good drainage. Avoid very sandy soil; sand provides but little hold for tent pegs, and there is grave risk of damage should there come a gale.

2 An open campus surrounded by hills or sheltering trees, and facing the water.

3 Plenty of good drinking water and water for swimming.

4 Base from which supplies and provisions are to be drawn should be within convenient distance, not more than four miles away.

5 Camp should be away from civilisation, far enough to be free from visitors and the temptation to ‘go to town’ on the part of the boys. Nothing demoralises a boys’ camp so quickly as proximity to a summer resort.