The Boy Scouts of Westhampton.

FOREWORD

This story was written in 1935, at a Zionist boys camp in Vermont, where the twenty-four-year-old author was in charge of the theater. Goodman took his characters and themes from this jolly kibbutz-in-the-woods, changing Zionism to scouting but with the same boisterous children and earnest counselors--and on the horizon the same dark cloud of European fascism. A great many of these boys were to be slaughtered in the approaching conflict. Boy Scouts, Young Pioneers, or Hitler Youth, all were being marched into their lines and columns by 1935. The Boy Scout motto had become a war cry--Be Prepared!--and in some troops military drill came before hikes and wienie roasts.

Nothing would stem this tide, but at Camp Keeyumah the drama counselor and the boating counselor, Goodman and his friend Meyer Liben, put their pacifist fingers in the dyke with a boyish farce, in the manner of Aristophanes, making fun of the new militancy in scouting with jokes and banter worthy of ten-year-olds :

   Look at all the pictures in the roto on
   Sunday of Mussolini, Hitler, and their
   armies. They look swell. Why shouldn't
   we have somethin' like that too?

In a postcard home Goodman reported that "The Crisis in Troop 703" had been "disgustingly successful"--the young were just as easily swayed by crude antiwar propaganda as by the chest-thumping New York Journal. Starting again with the same materials, he now wrote "The Boy Scouts of Westhampton" in order to think through the larger problem: What could be done to foster good judgment in children, without merely indoctrinating them? One way or another the question persisted through Goodman's long career as an advocate for the young. Over the years he would make common cause with various radical movements--progressive education, gestalt therapy, the New Left--celebrating the sufficiency of ordinary human powers to make a sensible life and a humane society, when not stifled by schooling, mesmerized by media, or straitjacketed by state bureaucracy. As he summed it up for the dust jacket of his last book almost forty years later, the goal was "to restore the matrix of primary experience in a society bedeviled by political, social, and moral abstractions."

   For Goodman the creative
   imagination was preeminent
   among these ordinary powers
   and primary experience, so long
   as its objects were real and not
   beyond a child's developing
   capacities--steering clear of
   obsessive "imagining, wishing,
   expecting" while retaining faith
   that the ground would be there
   under foot for the next step into
   the unknown. The challenge
   for Goodman's paradigmatic
   scoutmaster lay in sensing when
   a child was ready for that next
   step, the not-yet-known that
   must be worked through if the
   young are to grow into adult
   competence--ready to deal
   with abstractions, act virtuously,
   and meet the future with
   prudence as well as courage.
   Consciously in the tradition of
   American pragmatism that runs
   from Emerson and William
   James through John Dewey,
   Goodman used to say that his
   "program" could be summed up
   as "How to take on Culture without
   losing Nature." Much as he considered
   himself a child of the
   Enlightenment, he regarded the
   riches of Western Culture as "crushing
   weights on anybody's poor finite
   experience, unless he can somehow
   appropriate them as his own by education
   and vocation.... And the
   less culture one has to begin with,
   the harder this is to do."

In Goodman's 1935 story he reduced all such dilemmas to a single antithesis: on the one side, undigested fantasies and dogma, swallowed without context or real contact; on the other, what he called "the habit of freedom," grounded in firsthand experience with genuine challenges, in which youthful ability was "adequate to the problem--the material, the tools, and the art; actively absorbed, yet free." This "habit of being adequate, established by long use," would prepare the young for "life's surprises" as no prepackaged knowledge inculcated in classrooms, media, or even books, could possibly do. In later years Goodman changed only his terminology when reaffirming his classic pragmatism. Means and ends coalesced as "autonomy" rather than "freedom" the chance to make one's own mistakes and grow into one's true character, "more graceful, forceful, and discriminating without the intervention of the state, wardens, corporation executives, central planners, and university presidents."

As an artist Goodman conceived autonomy as "free play" within a framework determined by available materials, formal means, and cultural context. But he was a philosopher as well as a poet, and familiar with the learn-through-doing tradition from Pestalozzi and William Morris to John Dewey and Randolph Bourne. And his boy scouts' lively argument over free play vs. fantasy addresses issues still being debated by "progressive," Montessori, and Waldorf educators as well as among traditional teachers and concerned parents, all of them striving to nurture the creative imagination. When does free play slide into make-believe, out of touch with real life? What playthings are appropriate--rattles or dolls, building blocks or costumes, wind-up cars and walkie-talkies or kites and pastels? Are the practical realities and moral lessons of field and forest replaceable by home economics and shop, field trips and summer camp? To what degree are the powerful accumulations of cultural experience in art and myth merely a weight on the young spirit, rather than an opportunity for growth?

Of course, all such questions are begged in our urban consumer society--all the more reason why every parent and teacher ought to think them through afresh. Can any child develop the autonomous habit of freedom when a flashing screen usurps experiential reality for four or more hours every day, filling the consciousness with secondhand knowledge and stimulating the emotions without actual sensuous contact?

I suppose the contemporary models closest to Goodman's imaginary Westhampton are to be found in the Danish folk schools he admired so much, the Camp Hill communities of the anthroposophists, or the extraordinary undertakings of Aonghus Gordon at Ruskin Mill and The Glass House in the English midlands (www.ruskinmill.org.uk). In the U.S., Warren Wilson College has offered older students a comparable though less daring example, as did the K-12 Manumit School where Goodman himself worked for a few years during the Forties. There have been others, like Mabel Dennison's First Street School in a Manhattan storefront, where Goodman's daughter Susan taught. As he liked to say, "My Father's house has many mansions."

1. As an aftermath of the 25th Jamboree of the Boy Scouts of America, Irving Houghton, after twenty years of absence from the scouting movement, made up his mind to become active again, and accepted an offer to be master of the troop of the village of Westhampton, where he was a physician. He had quit the boy scouts when he was seventeen, deciding that he was no longer a boy. Now, at thirty-seven, he felt a generation distant, and that there was again a place for him.

He knew quite definitely what he, at least, understood scouting to mean--unlike many of the higher-ups who have very confusing notions. It centered around what he called "the habit of freedom." The immediate activity of his troop consisted in becoming practically acquainted with a number of interesting manual or manual-intellectual arts, such as telegraphy, seamanship, cinematography, or architecture--with this condition: that the boys' interest should not be much directed to the ulterior purpose of these arts (such as living in the house), nor even to "successful accomplishment" (having "something to show"), but should be mostly absorbed in the activity itself. It was play, after all. At the same time, he would not allow any make-believe; it was a real, though amateurish, telegraph line they constructed, a real moving picture they turned; and the house they built, though not meant for use, was designed for use, was able to be used, and in fact they used it as a Tuesday meeting place when they finished it. Thus on the one hand, the boy scouts of Westhampton were engaged in the real business of the world; on the other hand, they were not entangled in that business, they were uninfluenced by the need of the results, or by the need of making a living. ("God forbid that the present economic system survive when these boys are grown up!" thought Dr. Houghton.) They kept at each activity just so long as they could act vigorously within its limitations; if it became hampering, especially by spreading beyond their powers, so that they could no longer organize just what they were doing--if there was too wide a gap between means and ends, for instance, so that it was necessary to buy parts, rather than make nearly everything-they dropped it. They were in the world, yet maintained a kind of freedom. And this Dr. Houghton was wont to sum up in slogans: "The disinterested and thrilling experience of manual arts as play" and "Such unintellectual philosophy as is fit for growing powers." Sometimes, also, he used to cite a slogan of Kant's: "Retain our freedom so as to learn to use our powers."

The second great value that Dr. Houghton saw in scouting was in a way a corollary of the first; it was the emphasis of the scouting movement on camping, or woodcraft; not the outdoor life as such, but the outdoor life of the provident woodsman. The attraction of this kind of life was, in the doctor's opinion, the immediate relation between means and ends, effort and satisfaction. The boys built a fire and at once warmed themselves by it, or chopped down saplings and saw the wild material immediately transformed into a lean-to. The "forthright causality of the woods." In the industrial system, on the contrary, there was always an interminable chain of processes before the appearance of the product; it would require a simply prodigious imagination to see the whole in any part of the chain; and it was sure that nobody in fact ever did think in this light of the manufactured articles they used. Workers in factories fell into the habit of certain motions without a rational view of the far off end, and consumers enjoyed conveniences and the different foods with no thought of the farmers or the social system, and no feeling of piety toward the productive earth. This was a very bad state of affairs. But by reliving the life of woodsman and farmer, the boy scouts of Westhampton were brought back to a better frame of mind.

It would be a pity furthermore, thought Dr. Houghton, if the tradition of the older, more primitive life should vanish completely, without leaving a trace. This would be as if the Americans had never gone through those stages; no moral experience would have been preserved. But obviously there were many lessons and many enjoyments, of immense intrinsic value, which could only be realized by living a forest life, or again an agricultural life. It was evident, to some people at any rate, that our present way of living did not offer every possible kind of moral satisfaction--then what a pity if the techniques and values of other ways of experience should not be kept in mind at all! Hence there arose in the doctor's mind the idea, inspired partly by Herbert Spencer, of boyhood as the synoptic age of previous human history. To preserve the point of view of another age when in fact everything else had been changed was impossible; but by a certain practical love and respect for "our country's pre-agricultural history," one could at least attain to a degree of critical detachment from our own times. (Beware, Dr. Houghton! your boys will never merge into our society.)

These were Dr. Houghton's ideas on scouting, and in accordance with them he tried to run his troop.

The boys of Westhampton, however, did not always see eye to eye with the doctor, or rather feel eye to eye with him. For instance, the following difficulty came up: To raise some money, it was decided to run a moving picture show, and the boys, on the recommendation of their scribe, Gregory, voted to present the film G-Men, a thriller portraying the activities of Federal agents in running down "public enemies"; this had played to packed houses and all the kids in town would come to see it again. But Dr. Houghton tried to impose his veto (which was overruled); he argued, "The appeal of this picture to all you boys is certainly false. Nobody in Westhampton has ever seen a G-Man, or come into contact with any kind of public enemy, except through newspaper headlines and just such pictures. The entertainment of the film consists in the fact that you are shocked by the loud firing of submachine guns or transported by vivacious acting; but you cannot really understand how these climaxes have developed from the premises. To you, therefore, it is not true drama." "Do you mean," exclaimed Morty, the Senior Patrol Leader, "that little kids never get any real fun from playing cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians?" This was, of course, further than the doctor was willing to go, not to be ridiculous. "Can't we just make believe?" said Gregory, the scribe, who was a bright boy, already out of high school, and who understood better than anybody else just what Dr. Houghton felt about most things; "doesn't make-believe also get people to think up all kinds of original ideas and see new points of view. At this the doctor confessed that he had not yet analyzed the matter of G-Men deeply enough, but he had a strong feeling against it. His veto was overruled; the boys also had a strong feeling, but for it.

The trouble was that the doctor had nothing better to suggest.

Almost immediately there came up a similar difficulty: There spread among the boys a mania for building model airplanes, of balsa-wood covered with waterproofed tissue paper, and propelled by rubber-band motors. A New York newspaper organized a "National Junior Birdmen Club," with wings insignia, imitation flying helmets, etc., all centering round the construction of model planes. It was proposed to enroll the Westhampton Boy Scouts as a branch of this club. Dr. Houghton objected strenuously. In the first place, he insisted, the whole idea of a national club was ballyhoo; the wearing of a pin or of a ridiculous hat had nothing to do with building good model planes. It was easy to show this, and, a little shamefacedly, the troop at once dropped this part of the plan. But not content, Dr. Houghton now assailed the notion of building model planes at all. (Once he was pursuing a principle, the doctor never left the warpath.) "They are toys," he said. "I mean by a toy a kind of plaything whose interest is not in its own use or movement, but in some make-believe object that it represents. American flags, for instance, are toys, and of course such things as these imitation aviation hats." Morty, the Senior Patrol Leader, declared that the "movement" of model planes was "interesting in itself," if the doctor would try them sometime. "No," said the scoutmaster, "in themselves they are interesting not as model airplanes but as little flying-machines, which exemplify certain principles of design, aerodynamics, etc. But as such, obviously, kites, new designs of kites with motors, for instance, would be more exciting to experiment with. Why imitate the forms proper only to large flying-machines? Do you see the distinction?" After a while Morty and the rest of the boys admitted that they did. (And indeed, becoming interested in kites and motor-kites, the troop soon invented several new kinds, which won publicity in an aviation magazine. Thinking this over later, some of the boys regarded their scoutmaster with undue wonder; but he had merely asked them to take each thing for what it was.) "Then," Gregory the scribe pointed out, continuing the argument, "we have to defend the models just because they're make-believe. It's the same as G-Men."

"Perhaps we ought to say," said Dr. Houghton carefully, "that a certain part of daydreaming and make-believe is real, it's the reality of the future; it is the foretaste of a future realization--everybody wants to be an aviator--stimulating the appetite now and perhaps leading to practical efforts. And furthermore," he admitted anxiously, obviously struggling with the implications of his thought, "perhaps--perhaps even that part of make-believe which doesn't look to the future at all but tries mainly to deny the actual, to lie about it, so to speak, as when people make believe they had a good time yesterday--even this has the wonderful benefit of making a man, or a boy, somewhat skeptical as regards what he has, or what is, somewhat superior to it, as if things weren't to be taken too seriously, somewhat free.! Yet--" He hesitated; then dropped the subject and returned to his first point. "Living for the future," he said decisively, "does not require living in it. Only the most essential parts of a future activity, like aviation for you boys, should have weight in the present. You ought, let us say, to find out where to take flying lessons, where to get the money, etc., and you might think of what it must be like to look down from 2000 feet up, since this is what flying especially consists in. But the mere incidents and accidents of a future activity, such as the fame or pleasure to be derived from it, or the kind of uniform to wear, or the exact makes of airplanes, these should hardly be thought of in the present at all; we ought to find our fun and reward in what we are doing today." "Well, that sounds boring!" cried Jimmy Burnham, one of the patrol leaders, an Eagle Scout--"just what make-believe is, is in thinking that when you have a uniform or insignia, and of course you can't get an airplane, you're as good as flying. Flying lessons! that takes all the fun out of it. When you look at it that way, there's so much work before you ever get anywhere that who wants to do it?" After this long speech, Jimmy looked about fiercely. "Just so!" said Gregory, imitating Dr. Houghton, "too much of a gap between means and ends!" "If you have to be so practical about everything," persisted Jimmy Burnham, "there's no fun for anybody!" "That's a lie, Jimmy!" said Morty, the Senior Patrol Leader, sharply; "nobody can say that the boy scouts of Westhampton don't have fun." "And--yes, in the second place," pursued the doctor, disregarding the controversy and his own interruption of himself, "as for make-believe as freedom, as free play, the best free play is in a concrete situation where there are rules and boundaries, as in a ball game. Then you know where you're at; everything is clear through and through. The freedom is just that you know where you're at, and furthermore that there are no strings attached; it makes no difference whether you win or lose the game, for instance. Imagination is at its best, I think, when working in a concrete subject matter."

"Then what about spontaneity? I mean, what you just do for the hell of it?" said Gregory; "I still don't think you're right." "Spontaneity arises anyway," said the physician; "who can encourage or discourage it?"

2. Now at this time, in 1935, there came a crisis throughout the scouting movement, more portentous than these battles of principle in the Westhampton troop, yet not altogether unrelated to them. It was a time of the fear of war, when those in power in the various nations were thinking of plunging their peoples into armed conflicts, and the people were not exactly unwilling. And in this heightening war fever, even so unimportant a group as the boy scouts was considered worthy of propagandizing; and various attempts were made, among the troops, to introduce military drill, to create a patriotic psychology. The primary aim, of course, was not to prepare the boys for actual fighting (though it was hoped that something might be accomplished in that way too), but to get them used to the idea.

When this situation--which he had somewhat expected, but not with such brashness--became serious, Dr. Houghton, of the Westhampton troop, at once took what defensive measures he could. His own troop he kept oblivious of what was happening, but at the same time he tried to campaign in other troops, wrote letters to the National Council, and called a meeting of the scoutmasters of the sector to which he belonged, all to try to publicize just what interests and influences were behind the new trend, offering the medals for the best drill and running the essay contests on "The American Spirit." Nevertheless, he saw clearly that alone, without an organized sentiment not restricted to scouting, he could do very little to preserve scouting. He wondered whether in a case like this, the best defense might not be some counter-offensive.

But soon the conflict deepened, to involve the boys themselves. (And this is the part that is relevant to our story, for we are dealing not with underlying causes, but with the attitude of the boys.) When it became clear that the boy scouts of Westhampton were not going to have military drill, there was at once set up a rival organization in the village, with the fanciful title of The Lone Star Battalion, part of a National Battalion. This group was devoted frankly to imitating soldiery. On the purchase of their "overseas-type" uniforms, the boys were loaned undersized, partially dismantled rifles to drill with; the youthful officers swung tin sabers and cursed; and at the tail-end of the company on march walked a pair of eleven-year-olds with rolled up stretchers in their arms. These boy-soldiers drilling and marching became a biweekly spectacle in Westhampton.

When the Lone Star Battalion on parade passed by a group of scouts, Dr. Houghton's boys looked after them with a mixture of perplexity and envy. On the one hand, these toy soldiers and imitation stretcher-bearers were certainly ridiculous; yet oil the other, it looked to be real fun, all this marching and dress, while the people of the village stood on the curb and watched. But beside this, the atmosphere of the Battalion vaguely stirred the imagination, evoked colorful and dangerous exploits--air raids, bursting rockets, tremendous explosions. It was said that the officers of the Battalion were building miniature "terrains" out of modeling clay, and were learning the "principles of military tactics"; they were learning the Battle of Belleau Wood. The report of this obviously interesting activity made the Westhampton boy scouts very thoughtful; why shouldn't they have the same? Suddenly their own activities, telegraphy and architecture and woodcraft, seemed colorless by comparison.

His anger getting the better of him, Dr. Houghton called on the organizer of the local Battalion, J. A. Crawford, a young snotnose of twenty-eight, who had twice been elected selectman and was now running for the Assembly; although what he hoped to accomplish by this visit, he did not know, and of course the two had very little to say to each other. "I know for a fact, Crawford," Houghton burst out with a certain lack of tact, "that you get thirty percent on every uniform sold to those kids." "Thirty-three percent," corrected Crawford with a smile. And throughout the interview, while the doctor became more and more enraged within and more sober in manner, the snotnose wore an increasingly impudent grin.

"Let me give you some friendly advice, doctor," he said. "I know that you intend to describe in detail to your boys the horrors of war, the gas attacks, the mutilations, the air raids on defenseless civilians, plague, famine--all the Four Horsemen. It won't work, no matter how gory you make it. All that is merely ideas in the mind; we give them something to occupy their hands. One copy of War-Birds Magazine will counteract any number of horror stories, because boys are not naturally benevolent, they prefer excitement. There isn't one of them who doesn't have somebody at home he'd like to murder. And furthermore, if you intend to make political speeches about imperialist wars, that won't take at all, it's farfetched. We have better propaganda than you."

"I don't intend," said Dr. Houghton carefully, "to tell my boys anything except what each thing is--including the Lone Star Battalion--as they can see it with their own eyes and minds. At the same time, I shall be calling on some of the parents and ruin you for the Assembly."

"That's what you think. But I'm not sure but that I'm going to devote myself exclusively to the Battalion anyway. You see, we are bound to increase in numbers; in every state in the union we are now going to meet in the local armories. You meet, I think, in the school houses."

"We have built our own place," snapped the protestant Dr. Houghton, and he went out.

But he was disturbed about his boys. From sympathy and long experience he was able to put himself in their place, he knew what they were feeling: the compound of ridicule, perplexity, resentment, envy. When the Battalion marched by, and some such witty epithet as "boy sprout" was let fall, there was a fist fight. (It was true! there was not one on either side, who did not have somebody at home that he wanted to murder.) But tension of this kind, founded partly on jealousy, can very easily flame into admiration and love. "The crisis will come," thought the doctor, "when some of the boys will want to quit the scouts and join the Battalion." But he underestimated the attachment of the boys to their own group; for their idea was to incorporate into their own organization some of the features of the Battalion; they did not think of quitting.

At the same time, around the world the people were hurrying toward their general war. Was it possible, was it even correct, to quarantine his little band from the universal desire? Was he exempt from it? He observed himself and judged that he felt no such desire.

"If only I can be sure of myself!" he thought anxiously. "So far, in each argument I have had with the boys, they have brought me to a pause. In the end I hear my own difficulties coming from the mouth of Gregory or Jimmy Burnham. It proves, I suppose, that I argue at least honestly, if not wisely. No no, I will not speculate about it deeper, beyond where I dare act, but I'll say: this is just the same difficulty again and again. I must not get to think, just because I myself am concerned as a man and see the matter from a national point of view, that to these boys there is any difference between this make-believe and the make-believe of G-Men. Or cowboys and Indians, as Morty said. They cannot see--how should they see?--what is involved here. But let them at least see clearly just what is in front of them, the toy guns and the cursing officers. What a lot of damage romantic ideas have done in the world, and will continue to do!" So the scoutmaster isolated the matter, to keep his control of it; he planned ahead what he would say, and he determined to discuss three points:

1. That a principle is more important than a case because it can be applied to many cases.

2. That the Lone Star Battalion offered only make-believe, but it is dangerous to meddle with anything except in its real state.

3. That to them the real issue of war, with its far off causes, could not possibly be clear, and they ought therefore not to meddle with it.

Then suddenly, just as if any definite formulation at once removed the possibility of error, Dr. Houghton felt a renewed sense of his responsibility. "God grant that my influence be only for good," he prayed.

3. On the Friday night and Saturday hike, which the boy scouts of Westhampton generally took by bicycle--three weeks after the coming of the Battalion--they camped near Meredith Center, went for a swim in the sound, and cooked their supper as darkness fell. There was one large center fire, and two on either side, along the shore--six at each fire, twenty-nine boys in all and the scoutmaster. After they ate, a new member of the troop, Billy Wells, a lanky boy just twelve--who ate with Dr. Houghton--brought forth a wire popper and began to pop corn for everybody. As they watched him, a conversation about the Battalion that had started between Billy and Morty Brody, the Senior Patrol Leader, became general. But the scoutmaster, seated against a rock, looked on and said nothing.

Gregory said, "What do you think of the Battalion, Dr. Houghton?" "Naturally they're a lot of crop," said Jimmy Burnham, "but they have some things we could incorporate in our troop." "As what, for instance?" said Morty aggressively. "For instance, making 'terrains,'" said Jimmy. Somebody wanted to know whether he could belong to the troop and the Battalion both. "What would he do in his spare time?" said Gregory.

"The great thing about a principle," said Dr. Houghton, "is that it can be applied in many cases." "What?" said Billy Wells.

"What has that got to do with anything?" thought Morty, who was often perplexed by his scoutmaster's procedure. But Gregory, the scribe, was glad when the doctor began in this seemingly irrelevant manner, for it meant that he wanted to begin at the real beginning. And this meant that he had been thinking of the question, was interested in it, and that therefore there would be a good discussion. All this Gregory knew by introspection.

"Answer some questions, Billy Wells," said Dr. Houghton to the corn popper. "Yes sir" "How many are two fires and two fires?" "Four fires," said Billy Wells. "How many are two trees and two trees?" "Four." "How many are two dirigibles and two dirigibles?" "It's the same thing," protested Billy, "four dirigibles." "Is it the same? did you ever see four dirigibles?" "Me? No, I saw only two," said Billy promptly, "the Akron and the Los Angeles." "What about the Graf Zeppelin?" said Jimmy Burnham. "Well, I never saw that," said Billy. "If you never saw more than two, how do you know that two more would make four? could you count them? how could you count what you can't see?" "It hasn't got anything to do with seein' 'era,' said Billy, becoming excited and dropping his g's, "and what difference does it make whether they're dirigibles or not? Two and two is four" "The word is dirigible," said Gregory. "Look here, Billy," said Dr. Houghton, "do you mean to tell me that you can add up two ants plus two ants--how many is that?" "Four." "--and two elephants and two elephants--" "Make four." "--the same way? Think about it, don't answer right off; try to make a picture in your mind." Billy thought, standing next to the fire. "It's the same way," he said after a moment, "two of 'em and two of 'em is four of 'em; it's plain arithmetic." "It doesn't make any difference how big or how small they are?" "No." "What about how far away they are? Would two elephants in Africa plus two more make four? Or what about two in Africa and two in the zoo?" "Yes--yes--same thing!" cried Billy joyfully, for he began to realize that the scoutmaster did not disagree with what he felt to be more and more sure. "Yesterday?" "Yesterday!" "Tomorrow?" "Tomorrow!" said Billy; he had never been so sure of anything in his whole life; "once you know how to add 'em, you can add up all kinds of things, no matter where you are, even if you was never there!" ("Of course," Dr. Houghton made a mental reservation, following Kant, "this applies only to possible experience; it wouldn't apply, for instance, to two free wills plus two free wills, because these you couldn't count in the first place.") "So you seem to think," he said to Billy, "that if you know arithmetic you know as much about counting dirigibles as Dr. Eckener who makes them, or about counting lions as Martin Johnson does? Is that what you think?" "Yes," said Billy ecstatically. "Gee, you're smart," said Gregory, "aren't you glad you studied?" "Yes," said Billy.

"But can you add two horses and two cows? You can't!" said Frankie Walsh, a second-class scout. Billy looked anxiously toward Dr. Houghton; he had been told this in class 2A in school and had never thought of it since; but now it came to confront him in a moment of joy. "Is that so?" said Gregory "--they make four animals." "Y-yes!" said Billy. "How many are two men and two women, Billy?" asked Dr. Houghton. "Four--people," said Billy Wells. "How much," enumerated Jimmy Burnham carefully, "is a fire--a dirigible--bad luck--and the Mikado of Japan?" "Four items in an empty head," said Gregory. "No," said Jimmy, "it makes an accident in the Japanese air force!"

"Two horses plus two cows make four animals!" said Billy Wells to himself, aloud.

"Now if I wanted to avoid the topic of the Lone Star Battalion," thought Dr. Houghton, "I need merely ask the following question: how is it that one drop of quicksilver added to one drop makes not two drops, but only one drop! Then we shall be talking about these till half past nine. And maybe that would be best after all: a free discussion of the logic of quantity! Perhaps s ought to--" He half made as if to speak, then did not.

There was a pause during which the fire seemed to crackle loudly, shooting up in great flames. The hacking of a hatchet, that had been sounding all the time, was heard, suddenly stopped; and a boy came with an armful of neat kindling sticks which he built onto the middle fire, while the others died down.

"But what about the Battalion?" asked Morty, the Senior Patrol Leader, who wore the badge of Life Scout sewed on his left sleeve. The others stood surprised; was this the original subject? How long ago the five minutes seemed!

"I had meant to point out," said Houghton with a slow smile, "that the coming of the Lone Star Battalion, and the fascination it seems to have for some of you, are not really different from some other recent occurrences in our troop; the underlying principle is the same. It is interesting to see how once a question of principle comes up and is not thrashed out, it comes up again and again, a recurring question; but if once we understand the principle, we can apply it to all future cases--just as those who understand addition can apply it to all kinds of things. This is why I began to ask Billy about the dirigibles. First I said: 'The great thing about a principle,' I said, 'is that it can be applied in many cases.' Then I asked Billy: 'How many are two fires and two fires?' But you see, we became so interested in the example that we forgot Paul G, the argument." "Yes," said Frankie Walsh, "that's funny. Sometimes you get off the subject and you talk until you're a million miles away; then you stop and you wonder how you got there; and it's interesting if you trace it back." "That's true--" began Jimmy Burnham.

"What happened in our troop that was like the Lone Star Battalion?" asked Morty. "Dr. Houghton means the Junior Birdmen Club," said Gregory. "Yes, that and G-Men too," said the scoutmaster. "Who remembers what I had to say about G-Men and the model airplanes?--you remember that we had two long arguments." "Yes, you said that in the first place we couldn't get a genuine thrill out of the picture because we couldn't really understand it," said Morty carefully, "and that all the violent excitement--the machine guns and so forth--was therefore bad; and you said that the model airplanes were only toys, not little flying-machines." "And what are toys?" "You said that things were toys when a person wasn't interested in the way they moved, but in what he could make believe that they were. For instance, kites aren't toys but model airplanes are." "And you pointed out," Gregory added, "that anyway the helmets and the national club had nothing to do with building models. You pointed that out first." "Yes, very good," said Dr. Houghton thoughtfully, "how can you remember it so well?" "Why, it's all down in the minutes," said Gregory. "What!' cried the doctor, "is it all written down and reread at the business meetings?" "Yes," said Gregory, "and talked over." "Then I must be careful what I say," said the doctor.

"Lone Star Battalion!" he exclaimed. "Why is it called Lone Star?" "That's a kind of cowboy name," said Gregory. "Yes, that's just it. Why a cowboy name? Supposing each thing had to be called just what it is: The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, for instance, would be A. C. Hartford's Chain of Grocery Stores, or The Chain of Grocery Stores Run to Make Profits for A. C. Hartford, and this new name would influence us when we went to buy something. The Lone Star Battalion would have to be called The Boy Make-Believe Soldiers of Westhampton; the Junior Birdmen would be The Boy Makers of Toy Airplanes.

"But the make-believe of the Battalion is much stupider than that of the Junior Birdmen, for at least the model airplanes used to fly, but the guns don't shoot." "Wow!" said Jimmy Burnham, "supposin' those kids had guns that shot! what wouldn't happen!" "That's just it," said the doctor. "Look, Jimmy, answer questions: what do the boys in the Battalion think they are?" "Why, they think they're junior-soldiers," said Jimmy Burnham. "And what are soldiers mainly used for? what's the good of a soldier?" "They're used especially in a war." "In any kind of war? in civil wars as well as foreign wars?" "Yes, in any kind of a war," said Jimmy wonderingly. "Well, what do they do in a war?" asked the scoutmaster. "Why, for instance, they try to capture places, and shoot the defenders." "And they use real guns to shoot with?" "Yes," said Jimmy.

"Well, here in Westhampton, where are the places they have captured and where are the dead people? You see, as far as the boys are concerned, the whole idea is a toy; they don't have anything to do with the real use of soldiers, except in imagination. But although they don't fight a war, they have all the accessories: uniforms, toy guns, and officers that swear at the little boys. Now tell me, isn't there a big difference between their drilling and the telegraph that we built from the school to our log cabin? We don't wear Western Union caps, but we have the telegraph line; they wear overseas caps, but they don't have a war." "Explain it again," said Jimmy. "Well, for instance, we made a moving picture; and first we took the camera apart and saw how every part worked; and then we experimented exposing film, to see how that worked; and then we shot the film, and developed it, and finally edited it. So we really know a little about the essential part of moving pictures, so far as taking them goes." "Yes, we do," said Jimmy, who was the cameraman. "But have any of the boys in the Battalion ever knelt down on one knee and taken careful aim with a real gun and shot somebody, and then run past where the dead man was lying and aimed again, and shot, and perhaps himself received a wound in the shoulder meanwhile? But you said this was the main use of soldiers." "There seems to be a difference," said Jimmy Burnham slowly.

"But some make-believe is dangerous!' said Scoutmaster Houghton in an intense voice, and everybody became very still. "Please pay close attention, so you understand what I mean." "Pay attention everybody," said Morty, looking around.

"Doing something only in imagination is deceptive, the real thing might surprise you. Suppose you got used to the idea of swimming in imagination, and thought you knew how to swim, and then jumped in the water. You might drown. Now they don't fight a real war, so they can't get to see what it really is; but at the same time, the boys of the Battalion get used to the idea of a war, just as if war were an ordinary thing. But it's not an ordinary thing, as they would discover if they engaged in the reality instead of in make-believe. They would be surprised--like the man who imagined that he knew how to swim. But the boys of the Battalion are getting into a certain state of mind, and it won't be long before they imagine they know war, when they only know war in imagination. Do you see? how some make-believe leads to dangerously false notions. One is always in danger of being surprised. So it's best to play safe and not to become seriously occupied with anything unless it's the real thing, in its real state; otherwise you're running a risk."

When the scoutmaster stopped talking at this point, everyone thought that he had finished; he sat looking into the fire; and he himself felt that he had said more than enough, although he knew he would have to say something else, something about the "habit of freedom." Looking into the fire, with its glowing and crumbling castles, many of the boys tried to think hard about the Battalion, about the activities there, to see why they had been envious. But now they could not divorce any of their thoughts of the Battalion--marching and the music of the band, drill, the construction of "terrains"--from thoughts of building model airplanes or of merely imagining that one knew how to swim. And all of these thoughts were enveloped by the idea of "principle," that made the idea of belonging to the Battalion seem trivial in comparison. They realized that the next time they saw the Battalion pass by, all of these other considerations would crowd into their minds. And enveloping all of this, were the golden dancing flames.

But one boy, little Billy Wells, was not thinking in that direction at all. He was trying to retain, to revive, the feeling of excitement he had experienced before, when he had been so sure. From time to time he repeated to himself, "Two horses and two cows make four animals"--and this sentence brought a flush into his cheeks and tingling in his ears. With open mouth he had watched Dr. Houghton talking, not understanding what he was saying, but fascinated at the way one idea seemed to follow another. He wondered whether he would begin to talk again. He felt that if Dr. Houghton would again ask him questions, about addition or anything else, he would again become wildly happy. Except that now he began to grow a little drowsy from looking into the fire.

"What do you think, Dr. Houghton--do you think that all wars are necessarily bad?" asked Gregory, the troop scribe--and the scoutmaster started, from his fixed stare into the fire. "Do you think that if the Lone Star Battalion had to face the real thing, and not the make-believe, there would be few members?"

"Gregory," said the scoutmaster, "you boys, most of you, aren't of the age where national and international politics can have much reality for you. There are causes behind the coming war which you don't know; you cannot grasp them and you cannot yet weigh arguments pro and con on such a matter, to make up your own minds what you ought to do. Now my ideal in this troop, as you know--as I've often told you and Morty and Jimmy--is for everyone to work only on those things he can adequately control, which he can learn or do or make merely by trying hard. The boy scouts of Westhampton are to avoid whatever is too complicated to handle; and I do not intend to confuse your minds--"

At this, as if he felt a sudden chill, an apprehensive chill, pass through him, the scoutmaster stood up to the fire and held out his palms as if to warm them.

"The habit of freedom," he said to the boys, "so hard to acquire and to maintain." "What is it?" asked Gregory. "It is activity," explained Irving Houghton, "where we are adequate to the problem--the material, the tools, and the art; actively absorbed, yet free. There is a certain native wildness that roams off into every sort of make-believe, a kind of freedom that is soon turned into disappointment and fright; but there is also a habit of being adequate, established by long use, that is not destroyed by life's surprises.

"And since this sense of freedom is the best thing possible (I am speaking always of things under our control), and none of the successes of life is quite so good, it is clear that this training comes first and that life and its problems must wait. Now so far as I can help it, the Boy Scouts of Westhampton will get to know things in the proper order, and they shall have the habit of freedom. If woodcraft will give this, because in this life a boy can follow the means to the end, it is certainly for us, though the year is 1935. But if I am asked, or commanded, to propagandize these boys for war, or for peace, and they are not yet adequate to political reality, it is certainly not for us, because I do not intend to confuse them with make-believe."

1935