Transcript of Fr. Curtiss' sermon delivered February 21, 1932, in commemoration of the twenty-first anniversary of the founding of Troop 1:

"A little one shall become a thousand. Isaiah 60:22.

"I suppose no fond parents as they look with rapture on the face of their firstborn give any thought to its twenty-first birthday. I am sure that when on February 21, 1911, I admitted nine boys as Tenderfoot in the Boy Scouts of America, I gave no thought to such an occasion as we have now in mind. Scouting was just a year old, its future quite unknown, its place and usefulness quite untried; it was indeed a little one as far as one could see. But today, not only has that small group of nine boys grown to one thousand Scouts in Sheboygan, but all over the world. Scouting has justified itself by its numbers and its service to youth.

"I do not think it necessary to tell the oft-told story of those early days, but perhaps it is not amiss that I tell you just why I began that work here in this parish and town.

"I had the happiness to be born and raised as a country boy. When I began my work as a priest, I saw that the strategic point in my work was to engage the interest and adherence of the boys of the parish to my work. I began forty years ago and have every where carried on the same idea: to try to make religion a factor in youth, especially among boys. I have tried various methods in the way of guilds and clubs, and when I heard of Scouting in the year it was started in this country, I sent for the handbook and saw at once it would meet what I felt was needed in my work in two particulars.

"First, I saw that urban life was robbing the boys of our nation of a very precious thing-contact with nature. No one will deny that modern life is artificial and becoming increasingly so. I am talking of boys now, but it applies to girls as well. A boy should have, in order to complete his life and make it rounded and rich in experience, some contact with nature, the more the better. The farm boy has this. He is not so one-sided as the city boy. I challenge anyone to deny this. In large numbers in

"Wisconsin, the men who have built up businesses and made them- selves masters of a fortune and a place of influence have come from the farm.

"A farm boy is resourceful; he knows how to meet emergencies. When something breaks down, he does not wring his hands and send for someone to take charge. In my boyhood, every farm had its workshop. Here farm tools were mended, and much farm machinery was made. On the farm where I spent my boyhood, there were machines in daily use that were made in the workshop. There was a room and all the apparatus for making not only butter but also cheese. I knew all the operations of that, as well as the curing of meats. The sound of the spinning wheel and the clatter of the loom were familiar from my earliest days. I knew the name of every bird that flew over our fields; I could pick out any tree in summer by its leaves, in winter by its bark. I knew the name and habitat of every flower that bloomed in our part of the country. I knew the fun of the sugar camp, the social festivities of the husking bee, and the annual outdoor life of the hop yards. All these things made for a life much richer than that of the boy who knows only city streets and a life that is artificial, custom-made, and monotonous. I felt sorry for the boy to whom a game in a back lot was all of out-of-door life he knew; who couldn't make or mend anything; and to whom food, clothing, and suchlike were as though they had fallen from the clouds from an unknown world.

"The program of Scouting seemed to give to the city boy a chance to get something that was being left out of his life in town. And the outdoor part of Scouting was something I emphasized, as every old Scout of Troop 1 can testify. He learned to build his fires in the open, not his backyard. His swimming test was not in a school tank but in the lake. There was never a Saturday in the life of old Troop 1 that we did not take a hike. Our first one was on Washington's birthday, the next day after the nine were admitted. I can remember hikes when we waded in snow and could find no bare spot for the fire around which we ate our lunch but made it on a bed of snow nearly two feet deep. That old group was an outdoor lot of boys. They used to sleep on the ground at camp and find pleasure in simple things and were willing to undertake hard jobs.

"The second thing about Scouting was the most important in my mind. I frankly say it helped to gild a pill. That pill was religion. I submit that a faithful following of the Scout Law embodied that morality which emanates from true religion. Then Scouting helps to provide a response to discipline. Much of modern Christianity is soft and spineless. Only a background of living by a rule gives permanence to good resolutions. I believe that a boy who has promised on his honor to do his best to do his duty to God and his country and to keep the Scout Law, if he has any conception of honor, will be more readily inclined to be religious than will be a boy who is just drifting through life seeking only amusement and the things that bring him advantage. I gave no religious teaching as such to the Scouts after I had admitted those who did not belong to the parish. I recognize that morality is not of necessity religion. But morality coupled with such a matter as saying night prayers about the campfire, morning prayer about the breakfast table, abstention from taking God's name in vain because a Scout is reverent, going to church because a boy has promised to keep himself morally straight, all tends to religion as an element in boy life. Not very long ago. Sir Robert Baden- Powell, the founder of Scouting, made a statement in a great meeting in London that the prime foundation of the movement is a spiritual one.

"The great hero held up before boys in my youth was not Lincoln. I remember that about all I ever heard of Lincoln in those days was that Old Abe was a great teller of smutty stories. But Washington was set before us as the example of a patriot, of a religious and high-souled character. He was an ideal that the Scout of today may well follow. He knew the hardness of the wilderness trail, the uncertainties of Indian warfare, and the wrench of tearing loose from traditions of life rooted in ages of English history. Both were great men, but to me, ^Washington stands out as more really a Scout than any of our great men.

"It is such an ideal I set before you boys as Scouts. "You are bound to be patriots, to serve God as well as your country, to keep yourselves free from the vices that sully the soul and damage character, and to make the most of the natural gifts that God has endowed you with. I congratulate Troop I on its twenty-first birthday. I hope that its future may be as honorable as its past. Two of your old members now minister at the altars of our church (Fr. Almon Pepper and Fr. William Elwell). Some others have made records in other professions. And I believe all of them are proud and thankful that they once belonged to Troop 1 and feel they owe something to it."

Taken from "Amazing Grace A Sesquicentennial Remembrance"