Читать книгу Scouting for Boys - Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell Baron Baden-Powell of Gilwell - Страница 53

In Towns: Practise your boys first in walking down a street to notice the different kinds of shops as they pass and to remember them in their proper sequence at the end.

Then to notice and remember the names on the shops.

Then to notice and remember the contents of a shop window after two minutes' gaze. Finally to notice the contents of several shop windows in succession with half a minute at each.

The boys must also notice prominent buildings as landmarks; the number of turnings off the street they are using; names of other streets; details of horses and vehicles passing by; and—especially—details of the people as to dress, features, gait; numbers on motor cars, policemen, etc.

Take them the first time to show them how to do it; and after that send them out and on their return question them, as below.

Make them learn for themselves to notice and remember the whereabouts of all chemists' shops, fire alarms, police fixed points, ambulances, etc., etc.

In the Country: Take the patrol out for a walk and teach the boys to notice distant prominent features as landmarks such as hills, church steeples, and so on, and as nearer landmarks such things as peculiar buildings, trees, rocks, gates, etc. By-roads or paths, nature of fences, crops; different kinds of trees, birds, animals, tracks, etc., also people, vehicles, etc. Also any peculiar smells of plants, animals, manure, etc.

Then send them out a certain walk, and on their return have them in one by one and examine them verbally, or have them all in and let them write their answers on, say, six questions which you give them with reference to certain points which they should have noticed.

It adds to the value of the practice if you make a certain number of small marks in the ground beforehand, or leave buttons or matches, etc., for the boys to notice or to pick up and bring in (as a means of making them examine the ground close to them as well as distant objects).

Telling Character: Send scouts out for half an hour to look for, say, a brutish character, or a case of genteel poverty, etc.

The scout must on his return be able to describe the person accurately, and give the reasons which made him think the person was of the character he reports.

He should also state how many other characters he passed in his search, such as silly, good-natured, deceitful swaggering, wax-moustached, and so on, judging of course by their faces, their walk, their boots, hats, and clothing, etc.