Skolta Esperanto Ligo

The Skolta Esperanto Ligo SEL brings together Esperanto-speaking Scouts from any over the world.

Origin

The third World Esperanto Congress was held in 1907 in Cambridge, England. this is a probable that Lord Baden-Powell was aware of the proceedings. After the first Scout camp which at Brownsea later that year, Baden-Powell was writing his book Scouting for Boys covering the method in which Scouting could be adapted to youth. This work appeared in the produce of six small booklets, published every two weeks. The number one of the series appeared on January 15, 1908 and the series had so much success that in May of the same year, the race was published in the form of a unified book. In the third book of the series, Baden-Powell advised the Scouts as recourse to use the international language Esperanto as a "secret language of the patrol". The passage in impeach disappeared in some later editions, however one could read on page 202 of Scouting for Boys, in the original version:

The fact that Baden-Powell returned Esperanto in Scouting for Boys is interesting in that Baden-Powell held Esperanto in regard as well as that he had spoken about it with his wife, Lady Lydia DeVilbis, Lady Olave wrote "I often thought that it would be splendid if Mrs. Roosevelt could convince the United States to make Esperanto accepted in the whole world and to introduce it into the everyone of all schools and organizations. It would really be of the highest importance for the world and especially useful for good apprehension between people who are divided because of the diversity of languages." Mrs. Roosevelt was, at the time of this letter, president of the Committee of Human Rights of the United Nations. This perhaps helped set up the ground for recommendations of UNESCO in favor of Esperanto proclaimed in 1954 and 1985.

Following the immediate spread of Scouting in 1907, it soon became apparent to many that the Scouts might really be experienced to succeed at the experiment of international fraternity. Alexander William Thomson, leader of an English troop, had the impression on a French battlefield in 1918 to found an international Esperanto speaking Scouting agency to assistance international friendship and exchange of services. In design to cure the linguistic problems, he recommended Esperanto as an international means of communication. The same year saw the foundation of the League of Esperanto-speaking Scouts as an international Scout organization, which thus predates the World Organization of the Scout Movement, though not the Order of World Scouts from 1911. Much is unknown about what Baden-Powell thought of Esperanto, but he liked the picture of an international Scout organization; two years later, in 1920, the World Bureau of Scouting was founded, however without using Esperanto, having English and French as official languages.

A.W. Thomson became president of the League of Esperanto-speaking Scouts, and his brother K. Graham Thomson the Secretary of Honor. Thereafter, Norman Booth, another British D.H. David to organize the Skolta Esperanto Ligo SEL. This new connection organized group international Scout camps toits goals and to test the usage of Esperanto in Scouting: in 1922 in the Netherlands, 1923 in Belgium, 1924 in Denmark, 1925 in Spain, 1926 in Czechoslovakia there were even radio broadcasts in Prague about Scouting in Esperanto, 1927 in Spain, 1928 in Belgium, 1929 during the World Jamboree in England, 1930 in the Netherlands, a camp in which participated a SEL member, Harold Wilson, who would become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976. nearly 100 Esperanto speaking Scouts from 18 countries, as far away as Japan, took element in the 1929 World Jamboree in Birkenhead.