Purpose of Merit Badges
Merit badges exist to encourage Scouts to explore areas that interest them and to teach them valuable skills in Scoutcraft. The award of merit badges sometimes leads to careers and lifelong hobbies. Scouts earn a merit badge by satisfying specified criteria; a Court of Honor is then held to present the badge. Scouts can earn badges at any point in their Scouting career, although this was not always the case — in the 1960s, Scouts first had to earn the rank of First Class Scout before being allowed to work on and earn badges. The higher ranks of Star, Life Scout and Eagle require merit badges be earned. Certain badges are mandatory to receive these higher ranks. For a few years during the 1980s and 90s, First Aid merit badge was a requirement for the First Class Scout rank. Other mandatory badges include Citizenship in the Community and Environmental Science (see full list). The number of merit badges required for each of these higher ranks has varied historically, as has the ratio of mandatory merit badges and non-mandatory badges for those ranks. Since 2005, Scouts must earn a total of 21 merit badges for the Eagle Scout rank, 12 of which must be from the mandatory list. Once Scouts attain the Eagle rank, they can earn Eagle Palms, a core requirement of which is earning more merit badges.
Read more about this topic: History Of Merit Badges (Boy Scouts Of America)
Famous quotes containing the words purpose of, purpose, merit and/or badges:
“War is in truth a disease in which the juices that serve health and maintenance are used for the sole purpose of nourishing something foreign, something at odds with nature.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.... A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice—is often the means of their regeneration.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
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—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“Whether our feet are compressed in iron shoes, our faces hidden with veils and masks; whether yoked with cows to draw the plow through its furrows, or classed with idiots, lunatics and criminals in the laws and constitutions of the State, the principle is the same; for the humiliations of the spirit are as real as the visible badges of servitude.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)