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Robert Baden-Powell
The international Scout Movement was founded in 1907 by Robert Baden-Powell, a lieutenant general in the British army. His aim was to provide young people with wholesome activities such as camping and hiking, opportunity for self-development, and training in citizenship, leadership, and brotherhood. Theosophists quickly saw that the Scout Movement shared many of its values, particularly in providing opportunities for youth all over the world to engage peacefully with each other.
Dr. Annie Besant, President of the Theosophical Society based in Adyar, Madras, India often said that "there were two great Movements which stood for Universal Brotherhood. One was the Theosophical Society ... And the second, the World Boy Scout Movement."[1]
Scouting in India
Boy Scout troops were established in India as early as 1909 in Allahabad, but were open only to boys of English and Anglo-Indian families.[2]
Emblem of Boy Scouts Association in India
The beginnings of Indian Scouting
Hilda Wood wrote a detailed account of the early days of the Scout Movement in India.
The first movement of Boy Scouts in India was due indirectly to Mr. C. W. Leadbeater, who had spoken very highly of the training, and shown General Baden-Powell's book [Scouting for Boys] to his private secretary, Mr. Ernest Wood. The result of this was that in 1913, when Mr. Wood became Hon. Secretary of the Theosophical Education Trust, he introduced scouting at the High School at Madanapalle... where the first Troop was started under the leadership of Mr. Deobhankar. About a year later Mr. Wood arranged with Mr. [Frederick Gordon] Pearce, Assistant Commissioner for Boy Scouts in Ceylon, to send a thoroughly trained Scout Master to Madanapalle; the result was the arrival there of Mr. Aryarathna, who very soon trained a really first class Troop. Stimulated by this success, other Troups sprang up in various places.[3]
She described the many useful contributions of Indian Scouts to society in fighting fires, assisting pilgrims, and finding lost children. They made stretchers made simply of two staves and a turban to carry cholera victims to shelter. "During epidemics of plague, cholera an the like, the scouts are always to the fore, till at last the government and the people called upon the nearest Scout Master whenever help was required."[4]
Mr. Pearce wrote in some detail about the history of scouting in India in the 1918 Report of the Society for the Promotion of National Education:
The seed of the I. B. S. A. was planted in Madanapalle College in June, 1916, by Mr. G. P. Aryaratna, a Patrol-Leader of my old Troop at Mahinda College, Galle, Ceylon, whom I sent to Madanapalle in the hope that he would be able to develop Scouting there, since it had already shown itself so valuable as training for Ceylon boys. That hope was fulfilled, for the Troop he founded flourished amazingly and produced many splendid Scouts and proved conclusively, if proof were necessary, that the system was adaptable to Indian conditions...
In 1917 the Indian Boy Scouts Association took definite shape as an organisation distinct from Sir Robert Baden-Powell's. The reasons for this are plain enough. It was my private hope in December, 1916, that this Movement might be linked to the original Baden-Powell Movement, just as was the case with the Ceylon Troops I had organised in 1915 and 1916. I expressed this hope in a letter published in New India in December, 1916. I also wrote to Mr. Arundale on the subject. These hopes were, however, much damped by the fact that the requests sent by the Madanapalle Troop to the Baden-Powell officials were either ignored altogether or received unsatisfactory answers. Unlike in Ceylon, where the Baden-Powell Movement was organised from the first among Sinhalese boys and with full confidence in Sinhalese and Tamil Scoutmasters, the Baden-Powell Movement in India was limited to Europeans, Anglo-Indians, and a few Indian Christians, all under European Scoutmasters...
The Indian Boy Scouts Association took shape therefore throughout 1917 under the guidance and inspiration of Mrs. Besant, with Mr. Arundale, Lieutenant Tarini Sinha and Mr. Sanjiva Kamath as the chief organisers...[5]
In the Southern States of America during this period there were no integrated Scout troops. In 1918 the Boy Scouts of America's expert on race relations stated that it was futile to expect Southern whites to allow blacks to become Boy Scouts even in segregated troops. The Executive Board allowed the Southern whites to veto the formation of black troops, even when they offered to call themselves names such as the 'Young American Patriots.' In the north segregated troops were also the norm, although by the 1930s some integrated troops existed. [24]
After South Africa the Dominion closest to Baden-Powell's heart was India, and here too there was a 'colour question.' As early as 1916, he expressed himself in favour of Indians becoming Boy Scouts, [25] but when the Viceroy Lord Chelmsford vetoed the idea, [26] Stephe accepted the ban.
The situation was transformed by the emergence of a most unexpected champion of would-be Indian Boy Scouts. During her extraordinary career Mrs. Besant had been an atheist, a freethinker, a birth control pioneer, a Fabian socialist and the spiritual leader of the Theosophists. Throughout the 1920s, as President of the Indian National Congress, she was a dauntless campaigner for Indian Home Rule. During the course of 1916, Mrs. Besant, whose Theosophists ran a number of schools, started some troops of Indian Boy Scouts in Madras and Benares. The Governor of Madras, Lord Pentland, considered her a dangerous political agitator and interned her.
After her release, Mrs. Besant castigated Baden-Powell for toeing the official line. [27] When her Scouts began to multiply in thousands, Lord Pentland arbitrarily declared himself President of the Boy Scouts of India and began to promote his own Scouts in a bid to stop the spread of Mrs. Besant's. The Y.M.C.A. did the same and by 1918 had 200 Scoutmasters in training. But by then Mrs. Besant's boys numbered over 20,000. Baden-Powell knew it would be absurd not to attempt 'to get all the various Indian organizations together,' and in spite of the Viceroy’s hostility he decided ‘to take the Indian boys into the Movement …’ [28] He arrived in India on 7 January 1921, determined to unite with Mrs. Besant – a courageous and well-timed decision since it coincided with her brief period of support for the Government’s constitutional reforms. However, there were plenty of influential people eager to stop him doing a deal with ‘that horrible woman.’ [29]
The highlight of his visit was a great rally to which Mrs. Besant had promised to bring several thousand of her Scouts. These and Pentland’s Scouts had by now amalgamated but there were other groups of Indian boys also at the rally, such as the pro-Independence Seva Samiti. The ceremony did not quite go to plan. ‘It was arranged that Mrs. Besant would come out into the centre and take from me the Scout Promise. With all the dramatic force at my command I called upon her … to repeat after me the words of the Promise. At that moment my mind wandered … and for the life of me I could not remember the words … There was an awkward pause.’ Luckily Mrs. Besant, ‘picturesque in native costume,’ whispered the words, ‘which I then roared out in ringing tones.’ [30] A few months later he had the imagination to write to Mrs. Besant to ask her for stories about native Indian heroes which he wished to include in a new Indian edition of Scouting for Boys. [31] ...
Chapter 16: THE SPIRIT VERSUS THE FORM
1. Committee Men and Boy Men (1917-25)
In the summer of 1918, a Winchester Scoutmaster wrote to Baden-Powell deploring the 'schoolmasterly' type of mind that was 'de-souling' Scouting by 'throttling' it with routine. '"Spirit" is what matters -- "form" must be elastic enough to allow the spirit to express itself adequately in whatever conditions it is trying to work.' [1] Baden-Powell was so struck by this letter that he subsequently gave numerous Scouting speeches on the theme of 'The Spirit versus the Form."
At the end of the Great War, with so many of his promising young Commissioners and Scoutmasters dead, Baden-Powell had been left with an elderly Headquarters' Committee which Arthur Gaddum accurately described as moribund and out of touch. [2] As Baden-Powell looked at these soberly suited and wing-collared gentlemen sitting round the Committee table, they appeared more like the directors of a bank that the leaders of a vigorous youth movement. Their actions as well as their appearance convinced him that they cared less for the spirit than fore the form.
In India in 1921, Baden-Powell had met and taken a liking to a fat and cheerful businessman who had been helping Mrs. Besant with her boys. Sir Alfred Pickford, whose self-confident public manner belied his sensitive nature, had made a fortune in jute before returning to England in 1922. After buying a substantial Surrey estate where he settled down with his spinster sister, he offered his services to Baden-Powell and was soon the Chief Scout's most valued member of the Headquarters' Committee. Throughout the 1920s Baden-Powell considered 'Pickie' his heir apparent, and consequently Sir Alfred was frequently subjected to petty attacks in Committee by envious members. [2] He chaired a Publicity and Appeals Sub-Committee which the main Headquarters' Committee arbitrarily dismantled without speaking to him first, effectively throwing away two years' work. Baden-Powell was infuriated, but although he was now even more determined to get rid of the 'dead wood,' he would find it impossible to do so while a majority of the Committee fell into that category. [4]....
The invention of the Wolf Cubs was of a piece with his determination to make the Movement less formal and more responsive to the needs of the boys themselves. 'If God made the boy a creature of extreme and restless energy, with an inquisitive and eager mind, a sensitive little heart, and a romantic imagination, it is up to you to make full use of these instead of crushing them,' he told prospective Cubmasters. [12] Although 'the Cub gives in to the Old Wolf,' the overall emphasis was on self-discovery rather than discipline -- with acting, drawing and modelling receiving plenty of attention. 'Model the head of a monkey, only take care you don't make it too much like yourself!' Such jokes could be made by 'boy men' and 'elder brothers,' but hardly but the authoritarian 'officer Scoutmaster' of the Movement's earlier days.
In 1920 Baden-Powell wrote to Lord Hampton, the Assistant Chief Commissioner: 'I want to urge all County Commissioners to expand their camping arrangements and get woodcraft well to the fore as our prime activity everywhere.' [13] During the war he had appointed John Hargrave, a young Quaker, as the Commissioner for Camping and Woodcraft. Hargrave advised him that the only way 'for getting ahead with nature-craft' was to 'buy up chunks of nature and form open-air training schools ...' [14] He suggested Epping Forest and it was there, six months later, than an Essex District Commissioner learned that Gilwell Park, a decaying eighteenth-century house with over 50 acres of woodland, was for sale. A Scottish rubber magnate, Mr. W.F. de Bois MacLaren, offered to buy the estate as a camping ground for East End boys and as a training school for Scouters.
From the time of his first visit to Gilwell, Baden-Powell wanted to make the place more important than Headquarters. If Buckingham Palace Road was where the 'form' of the Movement was determined by the Committee men, Gilwell Park would be where the Movement's 'boy men' would guard 'the fountain head of the Scouting spirit.' [15] At Gilwell Scouters were to 'learn boyhood as boy men.' In his diary he noted, 'the right spirit causes the Movement to run itself -- no dependence on Imperial Headquarters needed.' [16] It was a bit like the nonconformist belief in an individual's direct access to God: a Scouter possessing the true spirit would need no priestly guidance from anyone, least of all an old codger on the Committee.
Once the Scouts had acquired Gilwell -- in no small measure due to John Hargrave's urgings -- the question arose as to who should run it. When Baden-Powell made Hargrave Commissioner for Woodcraft in 1917, he was not put off by his youth (he as 23 at the time) not by the fact that he had not been to a public school. Not even the young man's pacifism had discouraged him. Hargrave had served as a stretcher-bearer at Gallipoli; and, given Baden-Powell's usual insistence on it being the patriotic duty of every citizen to fight for his country, by his own standards he was being exceptionally broadminded in promoting Hargrave to such an important position. But in 1918, the Chief Scout hesitated to hand over Gilwell to his handsome young Commissioner.
Hargrave was an utopian who craved a way of life combining Seton's tribal dreams with a revival of medieval arts and crafts. He would tolerate industrial processes only provided they were used to free whole populations for his ideal outdoor life. Impressed initially by Hargrave's charismatic personality and his artistic talent, Baden-Powell's unease about his new Commissioner's 'ultra views, and the possibility of his going off at a wrong tangent' had grown steadily. [17] In Hargrave's Wigwam Papers (a series of articles which appeared in The Scout during 1916), he introduced a new category of 'Woodcraft Scouts' who would wear a loose sweater with buckskin fringes and moccasins. In spite of his problems with Seton (which flared up again in 1917), Baden-Powell noted tolerantly in his diary: 'Saw Hargrave -- no objection to his getting names of troops doing Seton Woodcraft in Scouting, but don't make it a branch of the Movement.' [18]
It is stated by those scholars who have studied the matter that Hargrave's rebellion was caused by the continuing militarism of the Scouts. [19] Hargrave himself certainly said so during 1920 and 1921; but his rift with Baden-Powell really dates from late February 1919 when, according to his own history of his breakaway movement, he held his first meeting of 'like minded men.' [20] That same February Baden-Powell had told Hargrave that he did not mean to appoint him Camp Chief of Gilwell Park.
In 1920, under the pseudonym of 'White Fox,' Hargrave began a series of articles for the London Scout Council's official organ The Trail. Quoting the socialist newspaper Our Circle, he attacked the Scout Movement for its militarism and its church connections. [21] He declared it absurd, in view of Baden-Powell's public pronouncements on the evils of war, that the 1919 revised edition of Scouting for Boys should retain references to shooting. In private, Baden-Powell conceded that such passages ought to have been omitted. [23] But with the evidence mounting that Hargrave was planning his own movement, Baden-Powell could not afford to be conciliatory. In August 1920 Hargrave became Head Man of the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift (an archaic Kentish dialect phrase meaning 'proof of great strength'), so his expulsion from the Boy Scouts the following January was hardly abrupt. Nor is it factually correct to suggest, as one scholar has done, that Hargrave began to organize his movement only after being expelled from the Scouts. [23]
Hargrave would have been a disastrous Camp Chief for Gilwell and might have done the Scouts serious damage if appointed. He was autocratic, vain and many of his views -- such as on the 'natural' inequality of the sexes and the role of leaders in society -- were of greater interest in Germany than in his own country. [24] Although his defection made Baden-Powell look over-trusting and gullible in the eyes of the Committee, the Chief Scout accepted what had happened philosophically and wrote: 'It is such a pity that so promising a young fellow, with his undoubted talents should go off the rails. ....
In 1922, 60,000 Cubs and Scouts assembled at Alexandra Palace to greet the Prince of Wales on his return from his world tour, with a ceremony called 'The Posse of Welcome.' The press responded favourably again -- as did George V, who promoted Baden-Powell to the highest rank in his personal order of chivalry. Already K.C.V.O., Baden-Powell was now gazetted G.C.V.O.
The year 1924 brought the Imperial Jamboree at Wembley, the World Camp at Foxlease and the Second International Jaboree in Denmark. At these events, Baden-Powell coupled pleas for peace and world brotherhood with denunciations of the Great War.The present unsatisfactory conditions in the world are the after-effects of war -- that war that was to have ended wars ... But we have more nations in rivalry with one another than there were before, and more armed men in the world ready for war than ever existed in history. We civilized peoples, with our education and our churches, have little to be proud of in having committed this reversion to primitive methods of savagery for settling our disputes ... Schools merely continue their teaching of academic history, largely restricted to the more creditable doings of their own particular country, and with little regard to that of other nations ... The war and its upset of old ideas has given the opportunity for implanting entirely new ones. Buddha has said: 'There is only one way of driving out Hate in the world and that is by bringing in Love.' The opportunity lies before us where in place of selfishness and hostility we can enthuse good will and peace as the spirit in the coming generation ... We in the Movement can prove by example that such a step is possible ... [9]
-- Baden-Powell: Founder of the Boy Scouts, by Tim Jeal
Scouting in Indian schools
Most schools supervised by the Society for the Promotion of National Education placed great emphasis on scouting, which was an integral part of the curriculum. For example, the National High School at Hyderabad, Sindh, reported in 1918:
The appointments of a qualified Physical Instructor and of a trained Scout Commissioner have given a great impetus to Physical Culture and Scouting. Every class in the school takes Drill twice a week and scout games are very popular. Good grounds have been laid out for team games, and hockey, cricket and foot-ball are played with much zest. The scouts have formed a troop of their own, and their example is being followed by other local institutions. All the students are imbued with a fine spirit of service and did good service in putting down two big fires and serving as volunteers at two special Conferences at Karachi and Hyderabad. Their work on these occasions was publicly commended.[6]
The Andhra Jatheeya Kalasala, Masulipatam in Madras wrote: "Volunteering and relief-work is set as occasion arises as a lesson in self-discipline and organisation and a scout-section is a permanent adjunct of the Institution and its work."[7] The National Boys School in Benares City reported:
Scouting has become one of the chief activities of the school, and has had a most beneficial influence on the students, improving their health and spirits, and stimulating in them the spirit of service and an esprit de corps. Frequent camping excursions are made on holidays, and there have been instruction classes in first aid, ambulance, fire-drill, signalling, tracking, music, cooking, etc. During the Kumbha Mela [a major pilgrimage] at Allahabad, some of the Scouts and members of the Band of Service attached to the school did excellent work and impressed the authorities by their energy, high sense of duty and courage.[8]
The IBSA Scout camp scene below shows bridge building (left), stretcher bearing, fire rescue, and tent building.
1919 IBSA Scout camp
1919 Scouts at National HS, Teynampet, Madras
1919 Signaling at National HS, Madanapalle
1919 First aid at National HS, Madanapalle
Annie Besant and Indian Scouting
In 1918, Dr. Annie Besant organized the Indian Boy Scout Movement, with the aid of Mr. Pearce and Shri M. V. Venkateshwaran.
First-day cover celebrating Indian Scouting, with Annie Besant stamp, 1963
Lord Pentland, the then Governor of Madras [now Chennai], organized another Association confined to English and Anglo-Indian boys. These two organizations were popularly known as Besant Scouts and Pentland Scouts. When Lord Baden-Powell came to India in 1921 Dr. Besant, who liked him immensely, expressed her willingness to help a union in every possible way. One particular obstacle was that the Pentland Scouts insisted that even if the Indian Scouts joined them they should wear the Scout hat and shoes, whereas the Besant Scouts insisted on wearing the green turban and be permitted to go barefoot if they so desired. Baden-Powell did not consider that the Scout hat ... was anything essential as a part of the equipment of a Scout and readily agreed to the use of the turban. The amalgamation of the two organizations then took place, and Dr. Besant was appointed Honorary Commissioner for All-India of the Boy Scouts Association.[9]
Dr. Besant used her weekly national newspaper, New India, to promote Scouting. For example, on May 23, 1923, an entire column of the paper was given to a description of a training camp for "Scouters" (Scout leaders) in Malayattoor, Cochin. About 25 men, representing all classes and castes, engaged in a full range of Scouting activities in a hilly forest location, demonstrating brotherhood and enthusiasm.[10] C. Jinarājadāsa, who worked closely with Mrs. Besant for many years, wrote:
To identify herself more closely with the Scout Movement, she had woven for her a silk sari of khaki colour, with a green border, and a turban in khaki on which was placed the Scout emblem. Whenever in her later years she was present at a Scout Rally she was always dressed in this Scout uniform.[11]
She wrote a message to the scouts at Adyar in 1929:
If I had a dozen sons – I have only one – I would send them all into the Scout Movement, as soon as they could enter its lowest grade. And I would send the daughters into the Girl Guides… Now do you think that I could say anything stronger than that, as a recommendation to you, who read this, in the way of advice as to joining the Scouts or the Guides…
Perhaps you may like to know that I took the Scout's pledge from our Chief Scout, Sir Robert Baden-Powell, here in Madras, at a big Scout Rally.[12]
Unknown Scout leader with Rukmini and George Arundale
Two years later she wrote.
Looking back over a long life, now that I am more than eighty years of age… I am inclined to say that I consider the part I took in the introduction of Indian boys and youths into the Scout Movement was one of the most useful steps in my life. It bought together the young of the two Nations and founded, I hope and believe, many friendships which will last after the two go out into the larger world… Games and athletic exercises are among the most pleasant and potent ways of forming lasting friendships..[13]
Dr. Besant was given the Silver Wolf Award by Lord Baden-Powell in 1932. It is the highest honor offered by the Scout Movement.
George Arundale and Indian Scouting
During his years as Principal of Central Hindu College, George S. Arundale became a Scout Officer, and he continued his work with the Scouts well into his term as president of the Theosophical Society, serving as Vice-President of the Provincial Council of the Boy Scout Association in the Madras Presidency.[14]
By 1933 when he began his term as TS president, the Scout Movement had expanded into at least 32 countries, with a total of 2,251,726 Scouts.[15]
In 1935 Dr. Arundale delivered a radio address on the Madras Corporation Broadcasting Station, describing the benefits of the Scout Movement to India:
If India is to achieve material well-being, if she is to become, within the great Commonwealth of Nations to which she belongs, a potent force for peace and international comradeship, she must have good citizens - boys and girls, men and women; for citizenship begins at birth, first with rights, but soon with duties.
The Scout and Girl Guide Movements exist to produce good citizens...[16]
Boy Scouts’ Hobby Club
The Boy Scouts' Hobby Club formed in 1923 at Mizar Lodge in Conjeeveram [now Kanchipuram] in south India. The objective was to encourage scouts worldwide to engage in correspondence to strengthen a sense of brotherhood by discussing hobbies. All members received the international magazine of the club, Brotherhood.[17]
Scouting in Sri Lanka
In Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), "the Baden-Powell Movement was organised from the first among Sinhalese boys and with full confidence in Sinhalese and Tamil Scoutmasters,"[18] circumstances very different from those experienced by early scouts in India. Scout troupes were established at several schools operated by the Buddhist Theosophical Society:
1913 – Dharmaraja College, Kandy
1914 – Mahinda College, Galle
1916 – Ananda College, Colombo
The principal of Mahinda College, Frederick Gordon Pearce, and Mr. G. P. Aryaratna, Patrol-Leader, established the very successful troop at Mahinda College. Both were recruited to help establish scouting in India.
Letter from Sidney A. Cook to Troup 38
Scouting in United States
Theosophists, like Americans generally, were very supportive of the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts. As early as 1913, Alma Kunz wrote a book review of the Boy Scout Handbook.[19] Adelia H. Taffinder saw the Boy Scout Movement as a natural adjunct to the Order of the Star in the East, and wrote in great detail about the requirements for Scouts.[20] The headquarters of the Theosophical Society in America, under the leadership of Sidney A. Cook, the Society's president, sponsored a scout troop in the 1930s. He encouraged the Diamond T Motor Truck Company, of which he was an officer, to support the Chicago Council of the Boy Scouts of America. The company received an illustrated brochure of appreciation.[21] Herbert A. Kern, Sr., an influential member of the Society, was chairman of the Southwest District of the Boy Scouts of America, Chicago.
Troop 38
The headquarters of the American Theosophical Society [renamed in 1934 to in Wheaton, Illinois sponsored a scout troop in the 1930s. TS member Albert F. Hardcastle and Donald Greenwood served as scoutmasters, and Society president Sidney A. Cook was chairman of the troop committee. Society staff members and other local Theosophists helped by raising funds. Helen Browne Freund, an opera singer, performed a benefit concert.
One of the services that the scouts performed was raising and lowering the American flag every day during the Society's 1934 summer convention. These are some of the troop's other activities:
Performed in a circus with other Scout troops.
Assisted at a horse and mule pulling contest at Colonel McCormick's farm performing first aid, parking cars, and delivering messages.
Attended Outdoor University, which was provided by Du Page Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America. Instruction was in campcraft, outdoor cooking, and nature study.
Participated in a winter rally where teams competed in drills, signaling, first aid, knot tying, and making fire by friction.[22]
Article about walnut project in The American Theosophist
1933 Walnut Tree Planting
On April 15, 1933, Troop 38 and the staff of the American Theosophical Society [renamed in 1934 to Theosophical Society in America] headquarters participated in the National Nut Tree Planting Project, which was a cooperative effort to plant one million trees each year for five years. Black walnuts and other varieties were collected by Boy Scouts from national shrines such as George Washington's Mount Vernon estate, Gettysburg battlefield, and Arlington National Cemetery, and shipped across the country. Theosophical Society staff members worked with Scouts to clear a 6000 square foot nursery bed, 15 feet by 400 feet in size, and together planted the 1700 nuts that were provided. Leading the effort was Mr. John S. Campbell, a member of the TS and Chicago Representative of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. After two years, the young trees were four feet tall, and were distributed to permanent locations in the local community. The first twelve went to an experimental farm near Wheaton, with the boys of Troop 38 present, along with their adult Theosophical Society leaders - Mr. and Mrs. Campbell, Albert F. Hardcastle, and Donald W. Greenwood.[23]
Staff members planting walnuts
Official letter from American Forestry Association
Offical certificate from American Forestry Association
Notes
1. C. Jinarajadasa, "Dr. Besant and the Scout Movement" The Theosophist 69 (November, 1947), 157.
2. Bharat Guides and Scouts web page.
3. Hilda Wood, "The Indian Boy Scouts," The Messenger 9.8 (January, 1922), 190.
4. Wood, 190.
5. "The Indian Scouts," Report of the Society for the Promotion of National Education, 1918 (Adyar, Madras, India: The Society for the Promotion of National Education, 1918), 46-47.
6. "The National High School, Hyderabad, Sindh" Report of the Society for the Promotion of National Education, 1918, 27.
7. "The Andhra Jatheeya Kalasala," Report of the Society for the Promotion of National Education, 1918, 40.
8. "The National High School, Benares City" Report of the Society for the Promotion of National Education, 1919 (Adyar, Madras, India: The Society for the Promotion of National Education, 1919), 79.
9. C. Jinarajadasa, "Dr. Besant and the Scout Movement" The Theosophist 69 (November, 1947), 156-157.
10. V. Ramanathan, "Scout Notes: the First Scouters' Training Camp, Cochin," New India (May, 23, 1923), 4.
11. C. Jinarajadasa, "Dr. Besant and the Scout Movement" The Theosophist 69 (November, 1947), 158.
12. Annie Besant, "Annie Besant – Scout" The Theosophist 64 (October, 1942), 51. Reprint of a message delivered March 7, 1929.
13. Annie Besant, "A Message to Indian Scouts" The Theosophist 52 (March, 1931), 420b.
14. George S. Arundale "How the Boy Scout Movement Helps the World" The Theosophist 56 (April 1935), 65.
15. Anonymous, "Boy Scouts: The Growth of the Movement" The Theosophist 57 (January, 1936), 381.
16. Arundale, 65.
17. S. R. Krishnan, "The Boy Scouts' Hobby Club" The Theosophist 44 (February, 1923), 558.
18. "The National High School," General Report of the T. S., 1918, 46-47.
19. AFK [Alma Kunz], Review of The Boys Scouts of American: Handbook for Boys The American Theosophist 14.12 (September, 1913), 1028.
20. Adelia H. Taffinder, "Scoutcraft in America" The Herald of the Star 6 (December, 1917), 636.
21. Perry A. Lint "An Expression of Appreciation." [illustrated brochure] Sidney A. Cook Papers. Records Series 08.08. Theosophical Society in America Archives.
22. Various pieces of correspondence. Sidney A. Cook Papers. Records Series 08.08. Theosophical Society in America Archives.
23. Frank Ridgway, "Day by Day Story of the Experimental Farm" Chicago Daily Tribune (November 11, 1935).