The ideal club will have its summer outing.  When properly planned and conducted, a summer camp is of all things to be desired.  For several months it should be enjoyed in anticipation, and if all goes well it will be a joyous climax of club life, an experience never to be forgotten.  But like all good work with boys, it is difficult and exacting.  Safety and the rights of all cannot be conserved apart from strict military or civic organization; and no leader will take boys to camp and assume responsibility for life and limb without a thorough understanding and acceptance on their part of the discipline and routine which must be scrupulously enforced.

Every boy should be provided well in advance with a list of the utensils and outfit needed, and the organization of the camp should give to each one his proper share of work.  The efficiency and dispatch of a corps of boys so organized is only equaled by the joy that comes from the vigorous and systematic program of activities from daylight to dark.

The best way for the leader to become proficient in conducting a camp is to take an outing with an experienced manager of a boys’ camp; the next best way is by conference with such a person.  The Handbook of the Boy Scouts of America will be found very helpful in this respect, and Camping for Boys by H.W.  Gibson, Y.M.C.A.  Press, is excellent.  It is necessary to emphasize the necessity of strict discipline and regularity, a just distribution of all duties, full and vigorous use of the time, extra precaution against accident, some formal religious exercise at the beginning of the day, with the use of the rare opportunity for intimate personal and group conference at the close of the day when the charm of the campfire is upon the lads.  When boys are away from home and in this paradise of fellowship their hearts are remarkably open and the leader may get an invaluable insight into their inmost character.

Whenever possible the minister will bring his boys’ club work into co-operation with the boys’ department of the Y.M.C.A.  Where the Y.M.C.A. exists and the church cannot have moderate gymnasium privileges of its own, arrangements should be made for the regular use of the association’s gymnasium.  It is desirable that the stated use of the gymnasium be secured for the club as such, since the individual use in the general boys’ work of the association is not as favorable to building up a strong consciousness in the church club.  The Y.M.C.A. can best organize and direct the inter-church athletics and it has performed a great service for the church clubs in organizing Sunday-school athletic leagues in the various cities, and in supplying proper supervision for tournaments and meets in which teams from the different churches have participated.  To direct these contests properly has been no small tax upon the officials, for the insatiable desire for victory has in some cases not only introduced unseemly and ugly features into the contests but has temporarily lowered the moral standard of certain schools.