Out of
the more than 115 million boys who have passed through the Boy Scouts of
America in the last 102 years, approximately two million have become Eagle
Scouts, a 2% rate that has climbed to about 4% of all scouts in recent years.
Some may have excelled in outdoor challenges and troop leadership, or while
earning merit badges for oceanography and entrepreneurship. Yet all have been
changed by the experience of what has been come to be called "the Ph.D. of
Boyhood." And these Eagles in turn have changed the face of American
culture in ways both obvious and unexpected.
Many
went on to notable careers and distinguished service to the country. The list
of famous Eagles over the last century includes movie and television stars, six
Medal of Honor recipients, Nobel Prize winners, novelists, a number of
astronauts (including most Shuttle astronauts), Tuskegee airmen and
Japanese-American internees, congressmen, senators and governors, an endless
number of corporate CEOs and university presidents, a U.S. president (Gerald
Ford), and the first man to walk on the moon (Neil Armstrong).
And
that reputation is deserved. A recent Gallup survey (for Baylor University) of
Eagle Scouts, former Boy Scouts and men who never joined scouting found that
America's Eagles are far more engaged with the world around them in almost
every way—in community service, club membership, churchgoing, outdoor
recreation, and the fields of education and health.
Eagle
Scouting's biggest contribution to American life is the one most recognized:
the service project, the "dissertation" of the boyhood Ph.D. Since
the mid-1960s, all Eagle candidates are required, beyond earning the
traditional 21 merit badges, to devise, plan, execute and manage a
community-service project.
Most
of these projects are small: a new bench at the park, painting a school
building, collecting blankets for a homeless shelter. But some are hugely
ambitious: restoring wetlands, building a library in Africa or a playground at
a Russian orphanage, creating an artificial reef—and they consume thousands of
hours.
Those projects
likely make the Eagle Scout service project the single greatest youth service
initiative in history, and one that has touched every community in America in
an important way.
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