You are mainly seeking 35mm film containers placed at the base
of a metal post or in a guard rail. However there are a few
magnetic key holders. They are only hidden in areas with wide
shoulders and/or ample parking and they tend to shy away from homes
and businesses. As always, be careful as you hunt them, the world
can be a dangerous place.
Eighth Edition /
1972
The Eighth Edition had two covers. First three printings
(pictured below) were a two-tone green cover (the Scoutmaster
Handbook, Patrol and Troop Leadership book, Leadership Corps book,
Troop Committee Guidebook, and other manuals of this era all had
the same boring two-tone green cover). The Scout Handbook has a
color sketch in the upper right corner of four Scouts in blue
neckerchiefs and red berets looking through a telescope at the
moon. This was the first and only Scout Handbook not to have a
complete cover picture. The artist is unknown. The back cover has a
brief paragraph about the handbook.
The last two printings were of a 1976 Joseph Csatari painting
"All Out for Scouting,", featuring Scouts walking across the white
cover dressed and equipped for Scout-like activities (backpacking,
burro-packing, skin diving, archery, canoeing, fishing, cooking,
rappelling, map & compass). This picture also appears inside
the Ninth Edition. The back cover continues the picture. Csatari
was an understudy to Norman Rockwell.
This edition represents the most radical change in Handbook
content the BSA ever made. It introduced more new concepts and
deleted more traditional subjects than any other edition. The
drastic program changes it presented were a disastrous failure for
Scouting.
From September 1, 1972, through the end of 1977, the "Improved
Scouting Program" de-emphasized camping by making outdoor skills
optional in the lower three ranks and by eliminating outdoor merit
badges from the required list for the higher three ranks (the Eagle
list dropped Camping, Cooking, Nature, Swimming, Lifesaving). The
new program also extended inner-city programming to ALL of
Scouting. (The Handbook's entire section on "Lost" shows a drawing
of a boy talking to a policeman, with the text: "Ask for directions
to find the way."). The Scouting program represented by this
Handbook stands in sharp contrast to Scouting before 1972 or since
1978.
The Eighth Edition leaves out a lot of other traditional
Handbook information: how to wear a neckerchief, when to wear the
uniform, lashings, stars, fire without matches, tracking/trailing,
silent signals, semaphore and Morse signaling, edible wild plants,
finding directions without a compass.
Until 1972, Scouts working on the first three ranks had to
complete a long list of basic skills to earn each rank. The Eighth
Edition groups the skills into 12 "skill awards" (Camping,
Citizenship, Communications, Community Living, Conservation,
Cooking, Environment, Family Living, First Aid, Hiking, Physical
Fitness, Swimming), each represented by a metal loop to be worn on
the belt. These provided "instant recognition" as Scouts worked
toward ranks. The BSA discontinued skill awards and returned to the
previous system at the end of 1989.
The Eighth Edition is the first Scout Handbook to discuss ethnic
groups. Non-white Scouts are obviously in evidence throughout the
book, not just a few background characters as in the Seventh
Edition. The discussion of abusable drugs is extensive; earlier
editions barely mention them. The Handbook adds sections on general
communication (in lieu of signaling), family living, and community
living. It contains all the merit badge requirements for the first
time in 14 years.
The book finally adds modern conservation emphases long overdue.
It de-emphasizes pioneering and advocates modern knife and axe
practices; this is the first Handbook not to include information on
the destructive and unnecessary practice of tent ditching. This
Handbook also adopts the international Scout handclasp as
recommended by Baden-Powell (standard handshake with the left
hand). Previously, the BSA had used a left handshake with three
fingers extended.
This edition contains new wording for the explanatory part of
the Scout Law, the first such change since the Law was written more
than 60 years before (although this wording has been slightly
altered a couple times since). The BSA said that this was done to
bring the reading level of the material down to the Sixth Grade
level (although the wording for Loyal only confuses this point with
Trustworthy in a boy's mind: "A Scout is true to his
friends,...").
There were almost 4,000,000 copies printed.
