Painting by Norman Rockwell
1940s
1940s
I'm told that Boy Scout numbers have been on a steady decline for years.
This was true in my own experience:
I was in the Boy Scouts in the 1990s. I witnessed my own troop's decline as an institution. The troop actually folded, for lack of members, in the mid or late 2000s. The reasons were various. The biggest reason, or so was my conclusion at the time, can be seen in the thousand-words spoken by the paintbrush of Norman Rockwell, over there ---->
The typical kid born into the 2000s-USA will not identify with that image. It is an "America" that Whites associate with the 1950s. That was (and I guess still is) its appeal.
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I tried to find numbers. The best I can come up with:
2.7 million : 2011's tally for number of boys in the Boy Scouts. [Official, pdf]
3.5 million : The 1990s tally, when I was involved. [Apparently official / excluding "Learning for Life" members]
This was true in my own experience:
I was in the Boy Scouts in the 1990s. I witnessed my own troop's decline as an institution. The troop actually folded, for lack of members, in the mid or late 2000s. The reasons were various. The biggest reason, or so was my conclusion at the time, can be seen in the thousand-words spoken by the paintbrush of Norman Rockwell, over there ---->
The typical kid born into the 2000s-USA will not identify with that image. It is an "America" that Whites associate with the 1950s. That was (and I guess still is) its appeal.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
I tried to find numbers. The best I can come up with:
2.7 million : 2011's tally for number of boys in the Boy Scouts. [Official, pdf]
3.5 million : The 1990s tally, when I was involved. [Apparently official / excluding "Learning for Life" members]
In South-Korea, there would be an obvious explanation: A much lower fertility rate in the 1990s and especially 2000s, than in the '80s, i.e. fewer boys available to join. Not in the USA, where the fertility rate has been stable.
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