Some of the most successful clubs for boys and girls are those in which
every activity is made a part of a play-world, in which the members
live during, and, to some extent, between, the sessions of the club. In
the Boy Scouts, for example, the lad thinks of himself as a pioneer and
enacts through a skillful variety of exercises many of the resourceful
habits of the early explorers. The imaginative element is conspicuous
also in Mr. Thompson-Seton’s organization, The Wood-Craft Indians. The
program of the Camp Fire Girls likewise makes a strong appeal to the
imaginative and the play spirit.
In the Order of the Knights of King Arthur the boys pretend that they
are members of the ancient Round Table; they bear the names of knights
and heroes; they carry their initiates from one rank to another; they
engage in quests and tournaments, and the influence upon an individual
is distinctly in the direction of absorbing ideals of chivalric
manhood. In a sister organization, The Queens of Avalon, the girls
think of themselves as the queens who in the King Arthur legend dwelt
upon the magic isle of Avalon for the healing of mankind.
In an organization for younger boys, called The Brotherhood of David,
lads between eight and twelve regard themselves as future kings, in
exile, dwelling, like David, in caves and fields and preparing for
sovereignty. The Wolf Cubs--an English organization for pre-adolescent
boys--holds before its members the ideal of a pack of wolves.