BSA Merit Badges 1911 vs. 2012 at AOM

[Eclipse]

Had this article been written about the cadet program, or CAP in general, it would be just as apropos.  My kids are in Scouts right now,
and I don't know if CAP will be in their future, that is still TBD, however I can certainly see significant differences between the BSA programs
36 years ago and what it is today.

So sad that many parents have allowed lawyers to do their jobs, to the detriment of the very thing they were looking to protect.  Just as
we no longer teach people to drive, we just assume crashes are inevitable and make the cars into sponges, everything now is about the
attempt to avoid any risk at all cost, while planning the fun, and much of the value, out of everything.
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/04/15/the-boy-scouts-of-america-then-and-now-a-comparison-of-the-1911-and-modern-handbooks-and-merit-badges/

"Firemanship/Fire Safety
What's interesting here is that, as reflected in the change in the badge's name, the 1911 badge is geared towards preparing the Scout to actually fight the fire and rescue people (as if encouraging boys to rush into a burning building was the most natural thing in the world), while the modern badge focuses on how to prevent and escape fires. It also includes that crucial skill: how to safely light a candle!"

"Conclusion
All organizations that have been around for decades change and evolve in order to stay relevant with the current culture. I still think the Boy Scouts are a worthwhile organization in which to enroll one's son or take part in as a young man. And I don't think all the changes made to the modern badge requirements are entirely a "bad" thing. Some are sadly inevitable in our highly litigious society, where the BSA is just a bee sting away from a lawsuit. And excelling in modern society does require a higher degree of "soft skills" than it used to; the ability to plan and explain things will greatly help a young man though life as our workplace has become more thought-based and less hands-on.

Yet, I have to say that the spare, stripped-down requirements of the 1911 badges greatly appeal to me. Surely all the modern, preliminary study of the underlying context for a skill is important, but sooner or later you've got to get down to actually doing the thing. And the sooner the better in my opinion! There's something to be said for learning by trial and error. In a world where everything is increasingly abstract, the more the Scouts can be a refuge of hands-on activity – a place where one can actually get their hands dirty with the concrete, tangible things of nature, the better. There's also something to be said for challenging young men more than we sometimes do. Too often they struggle under the tyranny of low expectations, but they're eager to rise to the challenge once pushed.