The Jungle Book

The founder of our movement, Lord Baden-Powell, needed a concept around which to build the scouting program for Cub Scouts. He decided to base the program of Cub Scout training on the story of Mowgli, the little boy, from the Rudyard Kipling story "The Jungle Book", written in 1894.
(If you would like to download your own copy of the Jungle Book for free, go to the Guttenberg Project for more information.)

The use of this book is wonderful because it uses animals to give/teach moral lessons to children. The verses of the Law of the Jungle, as an example, lay down rules for the safety of individuals and families. What a great way to relate life lessons to children.

The following is a short exerpt from "The Jungle Book".

THE WOLF CUB WAY
A Trip to the Jungles

I want you to come with me on a long journey to a distant land, so hold tight, shut your eyes, and let me do the rest. …
That’s right. We have arrived already and can take stock of the surroundings. We are in India, in the heart of the Seeonee Jungles, not so many miles away from the ancient city of Jubbulpore. Night has fallen, and no sound is to be heard save the rushing of a mighty river, the Waingunga.

Presently the moon rises, and floods with its light the clearing in which we are standing. It shows us a bare hill-top, littered with stones and boulders, fringed on all sides by thick jungle, all alive with lurking shadows. Suddenly, from somewhere among the trees there comes the howl of a wolf; than another, and another, and another, till the whole jungle is full of the nerve-shattering noise. If you are wise in the ways of the Jungle Folk you will be able to understand what they are singing. Listen! It is the Night Song of the Jungle:

"Now Chil the Kite brings home the night

That Mang the Bat sets free –

The herds are shut in byre and hut

For loosed till dawn are we.

This is the hour of pride and power,

Talon and tusk and claw,

Oh, hear the call ‘Good Hunting allnbsp;

That keep the Jungle Law!’ "

The song comes nearer and nearer; a number of shadowy forms steal out of the trees and take their places quietly round the great flat rock that crowns the hill-top. They are wolves of the Seeonee Pack, young and old, male and female, assembling for the Pack Council which meets once a month, at full moon.

There is very little talking; a number of young cubs tumble into the circle, overawed by the importance of the occasion, but drinking it all in with great enjoyment non the less. They have been brought in order that the other wolves might inspect them. Then they are admitted into the Pack and are free to run where they please, and, until they have killed their first buck, no excuse is accepted if a grown wolf kills one of them.

While we have been whispering among ourselves the great flat rock has become occupied. Aklea, the old grey wolf who leads the Pack by his strength and cunning, lies there stretched at full length; but so quietly has he come that we had not noticed his arrival. The rest of the Pack throw their noses up towards the moon and howl out a greeting, first squatting on their haunches and then leaping a full bound into the air. When they have ended, Akela lifts his head and cries, “Ye know the Law — ye know the Law. Look well, O Wolves!” and the rest of the Pack take up the call, “Look well — Look well, O Wolves!” One by one the cubs are pushed forward, and each wolf has a careful look at him.

There is an interruption. Instead of a young cub, one of the mothers pushes into the circle a little naked Indian child — Mowgli the Frog. Akela’s cry goes on just the same, but from the other side of the clearing comes the snarl of an angry tiger, “The cub is mine. Give him to me. What have the free people to do with a man’s cub?” At this there is an uproar among the Pack: some take one side, some the other. The matter is not settled till two other animals speak for the man’s cub, as the Law requires. These are Baloo, the wise old brown bear who teaches the wolf cubs the Law of the Jungle, and Bagheera, the Black Panther, the best hunter in all of the Jungle. He is allowed to buy the life of Mowgli at the price of a newly killed bull.

Shere Khan the Tiger goes away disappointed of his dinner, roaring with anger, so that all the Jungle knows he has been defied by the wolves. Thus Mowgli became a full member of the Seeonee Pack.