Camping For Boys | Page 6

meeting. Printed
report blanks will be given to each leader to be filled out and handed to

the assistant superintendent each Thursday morning. Do not show these
reports to the boys.
Bible Study
Each leader will be expected to read to the boys in his tent a chapter
from the Bible and have prayers before "taps" each night, also to take
his turn in leading the morning devotions at breakfast table. Groups of
boys will meet for occasional Bible study at sunset under various
leaders. Each session will continue twenty minutes--no longer. Sunday
morning service will be somewhat formal in character, with an address.
The sunset vesper service will be informal.
Praying that the camp may prove a place where leaders and boys may
grow in the best things of life and anticipating an outing of pleasure
and profit to you, I am Your friend, (signature)
Opportunities
In securing men for leadership, impress upon them the many
opportunities for the investment of their lives in the kind of work that
builds character. In reading over a small folder, written by George H.
Hogeman of Orange, N .J., I was so impressed with his excellent
presentation of this theme of opportunities of leadership that the
following is quoted in preference to anything I could write upon the
subject:
"The opportunity of the boys' camp leader is, first, to engage in the
service that counts most largely in securing the future welfare of those
who will soon be called upon to carry on the work that we are now
engaged in. Most people are so busy with their own present enjoyment
and future success that they pay little heed to the future of others. They
may give some thought to the present need of those around them
because it more or less directly affects themselves, but the work of
character building in boys' camps is one that shows its best results in
the years to come rather than in the immediate present.
"In the second place, the opportunity comes to the camp leader to know

boys as few other people know them, sometimes even better than their
own parents know them. When you live, eat, sleep with a boy in the
open, free life of camp for a month or so, you come in contact with him
at vastly more points than you do in the more restrained home life, and
you see sides of his nature that are seldom seen at other times.
"Finally, the opportunity is given to the man who spends his vacation in
camp to make the time really count for something in his own life and in
the lives of others. To how many does vacation really mean a relaxation,
a letting down of effort along one line, without the substitution of
anything definite in its place! But he must be a dull soul, indeed, who
can come to the right kind of boys' camp and not go away with his
muscles harder, his eye brighter, his digestion better, and his spirit
more awake to the things that pertain to the Kingdom of God.
"Then again the camp leader must have the ability to forget himself in
others. Nowhere can the real play spirit be entered into more
completely than in camp life. A watchman is the last thing he must be.
That spirit of unselfishness which forgets its own personal pleasure in
doing the most for the general good, is the ideal camp spirit. As Lowell
puts it in the Vision of Sir Launfal, it is:
Not what we give, but what we share, For the gift without the giver is
bare.
"The results of all these points which I have mentioned are some very
positive things. One is the very best kind of a vacation that it is possible
to have. How frequently we hear in response to the question about
enjoying a vacation, 'Oh, yes, I had a good enough time, but I'll never
go back there again.' To my mind that indicates either that the person
does not know what a really good time is, or that his surroundings
made a good time impossible.
"Another result of camp is the real friendships that last long after
camping days are over. Of these I need not speak. You and I know of
many such and what they mean in the development of Christian
character in the lives of our men and boys. And, after all, there is the
greatest result of all, the sense of confidence in the ultimate outcome

that comes with having a share in the work of bringing others to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
"The ideal life for a boy is not in the city. He should know of animals,
rivers, plants, and that great out-of-door life that