By MATTHEW R. Stuchlik

Special to The Hays Daily News

The founder of the Scouting program that has spread into a worldwide movement for good was Lord Robert Baden Powell. He was a lieutenant general in the British Army. He lived between 1847 and 1941 and was from Gilwell, England.

Powell was a decorated soldier, talented artist, actor and free-thinker. Best known during his military career for his spirited defense of the small South African township of Mafeking during the Boer War, he soon was propelled to extraordinary fame as the founder of Scouting.

After having been educated at Charterhouse School, Baden-Powell served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910 in India and Africa. In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, he successfully defended the city in the Siege of Mafeking. It was during this career that he began writing.

Several of his military books, written for reconnaissance and scout training in his African years, also were read by boys. Based on his previous writings, he wrote Scouting for Boys, published in 1908, to be read by young boys teaching outdoor skills, leadership, character development, and the patrol method

While writing, he tested his ideas through a camping trip on Brownsea Island in England with the local Boys' Brigade and sons of his friends that began Aug. 1, 1907, which is now seen as the beginning of Scouting. During this trip, he began using the ideas in the book to promote the character, citizenship and physical and mental fitness elements of the Scouting program. Scouting for Boys was the fourth best-selling book of the 20th Century.

After his marriage to Olave St. Clair Soames, he, his sister Agnes Baden-Powell and notably his wife actively gave guidance to the Scouting Movement and the Girl Guides Movement starting in 1907.

The Scouting program has since spread from England and is offered in 216 countries serving more than 40 million youth.

The Scouting movement has doubled its membership during the last 20 years and continues to grow at an astonishing rate worldwide, especially in developing countries.

Powell lived his last years in Nyeri, Kenya, where he died and was buried in 1941.