Today, August 1st 2012, is the 100th anniversary of the day the first Eagle Scout completed all 21 merit badges to earn the title. The Wall Street Journal reports:
One hundred years ago on Aug. 1, Arthur Eldred, a 17-year-old Boy Scout from Long Island, became the first person to earn the Eagle Scout rank.
. . .
Eldred's initial accomplishment was to complete the requirements for the rank of Eagle Scout only six months after that supreme award in American scouting was announced in April 1912. The leaders of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), assuming it would take several years for any boy to earn the required 21 merit badges, hadn't yet devised a final review system for Eagle candidates; they hadn't even settled on a design for the medal.
Unsure how to proceed after Eldred qualified for all the badges, the BSA ordered him to come down to its headquarters in Manhattan and put him through what had to be the most intimidating board of review in scouting history—led by the BSA's founders themselves. Eldred apparently passed with ease. And then, as an indication of what kind of remarkable person scouting would now have, while awaiting his award that summer Eldred saved two of his fellow Scouts from drowning.
Eagle Scout insignia (image courtesy of Wikipedia)
Out of the more than 115 million boys who have passed through the Boy Scouts of America in the last 102 years, approximately two million have become Eagle Scouts, a 2% rate that has climbed to about 4% of all scouts in recent years. Some may have excelled in outdoor challenges and troop leadership, or while earning merit badges for oceanography and entrepreneurship. Yet all have been changed by the experience of what has been come to be called "the Ph.D. of Boyhood." And these Eagles in turn have changed the face of American culture in ways both obvious and unexpected.
Many went on to notable careers and distinguished service to the country. The list of famous Eagles over the last century includes movie and television stars, six Medal of Honor recipients, Nobel Prize winners, novelists, a number of astronauts (including most Shuttle astronauts), Tuskegee airmen and Japanese-American internees, congressmen, senators and governors, an endless number of corporate CEOs and university presidents, a U.S. president (Gerald Ford), and the first man to walk on the moon (Neil Armstrong).
. . .
Those numbers likely make the Eagle Scout service project the single greatest youth service initiative in history, and one that has touched every community in America in an important way.
There's more at the link.
Hearty congratulations to the Boy Scouts of America for this very successful program, and to each and every Eagle Scout for achieving that distinction. As a former Cub Scout in a faraway country (where Colonel Baden-Powell first conceived of the idea of Scouting, as a matter of interest) I'm proud to be a distant (and far more junior) cousin in spirit!
Peter
There's no program that's better for young boys than Boy Scouts. I'm pleased that my son was interested in it. He was a Cub Scout for 5 years, with me as his den leader for the last 3 years (and asst. cubmaster for all 5 years). He's now a full-fledged Boy Scout, and is working diligently on his Tenderfoot rank. He and all the other boys in our troop absolutely love all the fun they have. And even though they can often tell when there's some learning hidden in the fun, they still tackle it with gusto.
ReplyDeleteOne of the greatest statements I can say of Scouting is what my first boss told me. I applied for a position though I had no experience and was hired on the spot. He said that "If you are an Eagle you can do anything you set your mind to."
ReplyDeleteI earned the Eagle rank in scouting when I was 17 in 1967.
ReplyDeleteIt is my one and ONLY acheivment in my whole life.
Eveything else after that turned to junk. I still do not know what has gone wrong or why has it gone so wrong for me.
Anonymous, I was a Scout in my younger years, though never anywhere near Eagle Scout, but, the principles of Scouting have been one of the guiding lights of my life, they most certainly put me on the 'right' path, and I and my family have prospered accordingly.
ReplyDeleteI also was 17 in '67.
My point is, how can we help?.