<P> The movement employs the Scout method, a programme of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports . Another widely recognized movement characteristic is the Scout uniform, by intent hiding all differences of social standing in a country and making for equality, with neckerchief and campaign hat or comparable headwear . Distinctive uniform insignia include the fleur - de-lis and the trefoil, as well as badges and other patches . </P> <P> The two largest umbrella organizations are the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), for boys - only and co-educational organizations, and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), primarily for girls - only organizations but also accepting co-educational organizations . The year 2007 marked the centenary of Scouting worldwide, and member organizations planned events to celebrate the occasion . </P> <P> Scouting virtually started itself, but the trigger that set it going was the 1908 publication of Scouting for Boys written by Robert Baden - Powell . At Charterhouse, one of England's most famous public schools, Baden - Powell had an interest in the outdoors . Later, as a military officer, Baden - Powell was stationed in British India in the 1880s where he took an interest in military scouting and in 1884 he published Reconnaissance and Scouting . </P> <P> In 1896, Baden - Powell was assigned to the Matabeleland region in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as Chief of Staff to Gen. Frederick Carrington during the Second Matabele War, and it was here (in June, 1896) that he first met and began a lifelong friendship with Frederick Russell Burnham, the American - born Chief of Scouts for the British Army in Africa . This was a formative experience for Baden - Powell not only because he had the time of his life commanding reconnaissance missions into enemy territory, but because many of his later Boy Scout ideas took hold here . During their joint scouting patrols into the Matobo Hills, Burnham augmented Baden - Powell's woodcraft skills, inspiring him and sowing seeds for both the programme and for the code of honour later published in Scouting for Boys . Practised by frontiersmen of the American Old West and Indigenous peoples of the Americas, woodcraft was generally little known to the British Army but well - known to the American scout Burnham . These skills eventually formed the basis of what is now called scoutcraft, the fundamentals of Scouting . Both men recognised that wars in Africa were changing markedly and the British Army needed to adapt; so during their joint scouting missions, Baden - Powell and Burnham discussed the concept of a broad training programme in woodcraft for young men, rich in exploration, tracking, fieldcraft, and self - reliance . It was also during this time in the Matobo Hills that Baden - Powell first started to wear his signature campaign hat like the one worn by Burnham, and it was here that Baden - Powell acquired his Kudu horn, the Ndebele war instrument he later used every morning at Brownsea Island to wake the first Boy Scouts and to call them together in training courses . </P>

Who founded the boy scout movement in 1908