This is an article from Canadian Camping Magazine, April 1952.
Towards a Philosophy of Camping – John Hoyle, Director, Camp Gay Venture
There may be those who will question whether a philosophy of camping exists, and there may be others who question the value of attempting to formulate such a philosophy. However, if one steals moment to study the meaning of the word in common usage, the attempt would appear to be justified. Webster gives us one of the definitions: “The body of principles underlying…a human activitity”, shile the Oxford Dictionary suggests, “A study of principles of human action or conduct”.
With such definitions surely we, who are responsible for the lives of campers of an extended period each summer should clarify our thinking so that our philosophy may be based upon authentic principles, which have been satisfactorily integrated, and are readily applicable to young life today. Dr. Karl Bernhardt, speaking recently at a meeting of the Ontario Camping Association, referring to camping said, “You must have a philosophy”. With such an authority behind us, we feel safe in pursuing our course.
The following thoughts are, or course, not original. They owe their genesis to the great Canadian, American, English and European philosophers and psychologists of the past and present who have studied carefully human nature. They have laid a sound foundation. It is left to us to interpret their profound contribution in terms of Canadian camping in 1952.
Let us commence with the most important person in camp, the camper. What is he in reality when you get behind the familiar personality? May we suggest that he is a human spirit endowed by nature with certain strong tendencies pertaining largely to the functions of sel-protection, survival and the will to live. he comes into human society not moral or immoral but amoral. Certainly he may be pre-disposed in certain directions but to a very great extent, his future is in his own hands.
R.L. Sharpe sums this up so effectively in his poem:
Each is given a bag of tools, a shapeless mass, a book of rules; and each must make – ere life is flown – a stumbling block or a stepping stone.
By the time the child reaches camp he has been already influenced deeply by his home, school, church or synagogue, and his entire social environment. However, he is still “in the making”, comparatively easily guided, stimulated, and influenced by those sensitizing media that emerge and are clarified in the freedom of a democratic camp situation.
Every child has numerous needs, some superficial, some which require the skilled hand to discover, if he is to reach out and reach up to a well-balanced life. Obviously a brief article such as this cannot attempt to discuss these in detail. Many of a child’s needs (much of the foregoing material on “Needs” is taken from the author’s book, “Toward the Understanding of Youth”, published by the Canadian Council of Churches, and used by permission) may be found within the bounds of the following four general classifications.
A Realization of Security. The study of human nature shows that one of the most fundamental needs of both childhood and adulthood is a satisfying sense of security. This seems basic to any well-balanced life at every age level. The search for security may be below the level of conscious thought in some instances but the urge is there, inherent in every normal human being. Youth, despite his apparent egotism and self-sufficiency, undoubtedly feels unstable when left completely to his own devices. While he craves experience and demands complete liberty he nevertheless seeks for the security that he looks back to, the security that originated in complete dependence upon mother, father and home. Right here is one of the conflicts of youth, the conflict between the urge to be free, dominant, self-sufficient, and the desire for security and dependence.
New Experience. Youth is restless, youth is adventurous, youth is dissatisfied with things as they are; the youth is scornful of the “status quo”. He must have new experiences for his adequate self-completion. In this incessant and dominant desire for new experiences lies one of the camp’s greatest opportunities, for camp may help children and youth meet the urge for these new experiences constructively on the highest level in a controllable environment.
Recognition. The developing self of the child or youth demands recognition, a recognition of himself as a person, a person apart from others, even those he loves and respects. He wants to be or value, to experience a sense or achievement, to be important; with these claims go an overpowering desire to love and be loved. The child’s stability depends very largely on the emotional satisfaction he receives from being “accepted” by his peers – in camp, his cabin group.
A Power outside of Himself. The craving for a satisfying inner response to a Power outside of himself seems to be inherent in human nature. A well-balanced personality is greatly dependent on a developing understanding of a growing religious experience adequate to his expanding mental, emotional and social life. Once again, surely the camp is in a strategic position through environment, leadership, programme and atmosphere to reveal to the child the permanent values of a healthy personal and social religious experience. Despite all the well-intentioned endeavors of home, church and school, we are failing to meet adequately this vital and very fundamental human urge. It is one of the most difficult urges to meet, but just because it does present so many difficulties, let us not pass it by; let us rather accept the challenge and give to the problem the best that we have to give.
We may summarize what we have said as follows. Children and youth with certain driving urges must be guided aright or they will lead to disaster. How can we attempt to meet them? Does not this challenge suggest that our camp programme needs to be flexible, adventurous, free and above all, purposeful? Purposeful in the sense that camp is not a place solely for physical recreation, but is rather an experience in effective social living and through which children may have the happy opportunity, under the guidance of understanding and trained leadership, to respond in a constructive way to their inner urges. Urges which, if skilfully guided, make for happy, well-balanced personalities; urges which, if left to chance development, will probably lead to failure and unhappiness.
To secure an understanding of the needs of children in general is not so diffucilt, thanks to the vast amount of research already carried out in this field, in no place more thoroughly than in our own Canada through the twenty-five years of tireless effort by the faculty of the Institute fo Child Study in the University of Toronto and other similar centres. However, to understand the needs of each individual child is quite another question, and far too broad a subject to be attempted here. Nevertheless, it may be said that only to the extent that we as camp directors and counsellors are able to discern at least some of the specific needs of each child in our care, may we expect to achieve any lasting measure of success. Every child is different; there is no “average” child to guide us. Somehow, ways must be found by which at least the major needs of each child may be brought to the surface and all the skill of camp leadership focussed in that direction. It would seem that there are times when the child should be encouraged to become aware of those needs and his co-operation sought in meeting the. In other cases such an approach would end in disaster and such assistance as we may be able to give must be subtle and unrealized by the camper.
In this article I have presented the problem but not the cure. That must be lfet to those life-long students of behaviour who are always so willing to share with us from the well of their experience.