Message on the 21st Anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America.

[Released January 23, 1931. Dated November 26, 1930]

BOYHOOD is the period of development. By the time he comes of age a boy has acquired, in body, brains, and character, the tools he must use in life. His work and play, his love of camping and knowledge of nature, his courage, his sportsmanship, his desire to serve his fellow men, have become a part of him, of what he will always be.

Scouting, too, has come of age. Through twenty-one years it has summoned Youth to the great adventure of lofty living. As the twenty-first year marks Youth's formal passage to legal maturity, so the coming of the twenty-first year of the Boy Scout movement in America marks its entry into an era of maturer service. I hope it may continue through years of increasing usefulness to release that deep love of humanity, that eagerness to make life fuller and sturdier, that is the very core of democracy itself.

HERBERT HOOVER

[Myron Stearns, Boy's Life, 2 Park Ave., New York City]