Robert Baden-Powell was already an English national hero by 1908 for his military exploits in South Africa. But it was on this date that his name became associated with something that would long outlive him, when he published the first installment of “Scouting for Boys” 107 years ago on January 24, 1908. The six-part serial would inspire the worldwide Scouting movement.

Baden-Powell hadn’t set out to appeal to youngsters. He had originally published “Aids to Scouting” in 1899 as a straightforward military field manual. To his surprise, the book caught on with boys, who were fascinated by the tracking and observation techniques he presented. He decided to repurpose the book for boys, keeping the scouting techniques and throwing in a few moral lessons along the way. In 1909, the year after he published his guide, Baden-Powell held the first Scout Rally at London’s Crystal Palace. It attracted 11,000 youth, including a group of girls calling themselves Girl Scouts.

Baden-Powell had created something far bigger than himself. Scouting spread across the British Commonwealth countries, and then worldwide. The Girl Guides were created to accommodate females, and the Wolf Cubs were designed for children under 11 – the equivalents of Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts in the United States. Eventually, there were Air Scouts and Sea Scouts for those more interested in aviation or maritime adventuring. Baden-Powell couldn’t possibly keep up with it all, or advise all the local groups that wanted to hear from him. Local troop guides, or Scoutmasters, would fill the void.

As of 2010, there were over 32 million registered Scouts around the world, with 10 million registered Guides. While all Scouting troops seek to instill a love of the outdoors along with values like honesty and self-reliance, other aspects of the movement differ worldwide…or even within the same country. While the Boy Scouts of America exclude openly gay Scoutmasters or atheists of any age, the Girl Scouts of the USA are neutral on the issues, a position roughly in line with Canadian, Australian, and many European Scouting organizations. (Baden-Powell himself, the British Empire’s first Chief Scout, has been rumored to have been a closeted homosexual.)

While politics has infiltrated Scouting life, Scouts have had their own ideas over time. The British introduced Scouting to Africa as a way to express colonial authority, but it actually inspired solidarity and resistance among the local Scouts. In the U.S., black Scouts in segregated troops worked toward the rank of Eagle Scout as a measure of their achievement, with other traditional outlets like college and military advancement closed off to them. Some totalitarian countries have banned Scouting entirely, and for good reason. In the end, Scouting works to instill youth with rugged strains of self-reliance and independence…and people like that are very hard to control.