My apologies for being so long in responding to those of you who raised questions with one of  my recent postings.  I havve been getting swamped with e-mail lately.   I am sending this to you privately instead of by the list purposefully for reasons that will become apparent as you read further.

My posting regarding uniforms and boards of reviews seems to have generated a healthy exchange of ideas.  It also seems to have sparked some postings that evidence either my failure to communicate or a misunderstanding of what I was trying to say.

You will probably not find a stauncher supporter of Scout uniforming than the undersigned. I believe in this METHOD of Scouting enough to have accepted the additional workload of serving on the National Insignia and Uniform Task Force.  My posting was in no way intended to convey any notion that uniforming was unnecessary as a method of Scouting.

It was intended to be a criticism of the blind application of locally generated rules at boards of review for rank.  As much as I firmly believe in the importance of uniforming as a method of Scouting, I also adhere to the belief that we need to adhere to the requirements for rank - no less and no more.  I am troubled when a local group of Scouters establishes an additional rule - one not in the requirements book and insists on blind adherence to that rule. In this case a couple of folks posting to the list would not pass a Scout through a board of review unless the Scout were in full uniform.  Attendance at a board of review in full uniform, while to be encouraged, cannot be considered a requirement.

My examples were intended to provoke thought and to illustrate the need for discretion to be exercised instead of a formula rule.  Having worked with boys who came from broken homes or from destitute families where uniforms were not possible and in an area where experienced uniforms were scarce, I can tell you that such a rule would have denied these boys advancement and deprived them of the promise of Scouting.   More than once I have sat on a board of review where the Scout proudly appeared with a Scout neckerchief given to him by the troop draped over a cleanly washed t-shirt, because that was all the uniform the Scout owned.  He no less than any of the boys in more privileged circumstances was growing in citizenship, character, and fitness.  He had done his best, passed the requirements, and worn proudly as much a uniform as he could muster.  Many of these boys later worked mowing yards and shoveling snow to buy a shirt and later a pair of pants to have a uniform - enough to make tears come to the eyes.

My point in posting was that uniforming is a method and not an end in and of itself, in the same way that advancement is a method of Scouting.  We challenge and encourage Scouts by using these methods to grow  in citizenship, character, and fitness.

Though challenged to debate on Scouts-L, I cannot.  My work on the Task Force if widely known would give the appearance that I was speaking for National, when I am merely speaking for myself and giving my own opinions.   Working on the Task Force is a double-edged sword in that I can do much to help, but in so doing I must necessarily be careful in what I post.  I can ask questions, provoke thought, answer factual type questions, and the like, but cannot enter into a philosophical debate in public.