戦前における海洋少年団の理念

―退役海軍軍人・原道太の言説に注目して―

抄録

  The purpose of this paper is to clarify ideas of the Sea Scouts movement in prewar Japan, especially those of Michita Hara, who was a retired naval officer. The period under discussion in this article is between 1923 and 1938. The first Sea Scouts troop was set up at Kobe in 1923, and 5 other troops were established in the following year. Accordingly, in 1925 the Sea Scouts Department was founded in the Federation of Boy Scouts in Japan. This department held its own leader training courses and training camps for scouts annually. Michita Hara, as the director of the Department, arranged almost everything concerned with these activities. In spite of his naval background, he didn't consider Sea Scouts activities as military training during this period. Besides, using scouting educational methods, the patrol and badge systems, he thought about what sorts of activities were essentially needed for boys' growth, and ultimately for world peace. However, with a shortage of a capable people and useful equipment, the department and individual troops needed naval support on some occasions. In those cases, the naval officers accepted their offers and did only what they were asked. This article concludes that Sea Scouts movement shouldn't be regarded totally from the beginning to its collapse in 1945. After 1938 the whole organization fell under the control of the Navy, but before that year the situation was completely different.