How Can a Leader Lead

A Scoutmaster frequently says, "I have appointed my Leaders as the Chief wishes, but they are not able to lead their Patrols in anything but in theory. In practice I have to do the leadership myself." The answer to this is that it is the principal of every Scoutmaster in the movement to see that his Patrol Leaders are able to lead their Patrols.
It has been said that knowledge is power - this is especially true in the case of boys. A bookworm carries no particular respect, rather the reverse, but a boy who has greater knowledge than his fellows of the ordinary organisms, organizations and other phenomena which are to be met with in everyday life always carries a considerable amount of weight on that account alone. Let this boy be the Leader, if possible. Such a boy, if not born, can be created. The ordinary method of creation is by giving the Leaders and their Seconds special facilities for acquiring knowledge about general subjects. Knowledge can only be acquired in one way - by experience. Experience may be either personal, or obtained from others and from books.
It is quite a good thing to have a small library of technical books specially for the use of Leaders and Seconds. The whole library need not consist of more than a dozen books. The dozen should include two or three copies of "Scouting for Boys," two copies of "Boy Scout Tests," and books on First Aid, Signaling, Boxing, Pioneering, Knot-tying, and other technical subjects. These books are not for ornament and should never be allowed to get dusty. If the books get dusty, the brains of the Patrol Leaders will do the same.
Apart from books, the Leaders and Seconds must have special opportunities of asking the Scoutmaster any questions. They should have special opportunities of access to their Scoutmaster, either at his home, or at a special parade of Leaders and Seconds held once a week at the troop headquarters. (This could be run in connection with the Court of Honor.) It is unnecessary for a Scoutmaster to be a walking encyclopedia, but he must be sufficiently humble to take pains to consult other people about matters in which he is himself ignorant. The Chief says that a Scoutmaster's object with his boys should be not so much to teach them everything himself, but rather to organize their ambition to learn.
A splendid Leader recently forgot how to tie a sheet-bend, and he did not dare to ask his Scoutmaster how to do it for fear of being laughed at. There may have been something wrong with the Leader, but there was certainly something also wrong with the Scoutmaster.
Seconds should, as a general rule, be given the same opportunities of special instruction as the Patrol Leaders. A Second is not only an assistant Leader, but he is frequently a potential Leader as well.
It is essential that Leaders and Seconds should not only read the theory of Scouting, but that they should also practice it. They may be formed into a special study Patrol, of which the Scoutmaster is himself Patrol Leader (under a scouting name such as Grey Wolf - the term "Scoutmaster" being barred). Such a Patrol may specialize in first class work, in camp organization, in woodcraft, and in other outdoor practices, in order that the Leaders may be afterwards better qualified to look after their own Patrols. It is important also that the Patrol Leader's position should be looked upon by himself and by his Scoutmaster as his school of training for ultimate Scoutmastership.