[4][6][7] At Mafeking, Baden-Powell's adjutant had recruited and trained boys aged 12–15 as cadets and during the siege they acted as postmen, messengers, and later to carry the wounded, to free men for fighting.

Upon his return to England, following the Second Boer War, Baden-Powell learned some British schools had been using Aids to Scouting to teach observation and deduction.

In 1906, Seton discussed youth training ideas with Baden-Powell and shared with him a copy of The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians.

[4] Several friends supported Baden-Powell, including Sir William Alexander Smith, founder of the Boys' Brigade, Cyril Arthur Pearson, who owned newspapers and printing presses, and the novelist Maria Fetherstonhaugh, who provided a quiet Wimbledon house where he could write.

[4] Scouting for Boys was published in six fortnightly instalments of approximately 70 pages each, from January to March 1908.

Only in 1967 was a decline noted by the publisher and in the last decades of the 20th century the book came to be seen as a period curiosity even by the Scout Movement.

Extrapolating this to 87 different language editions worldwide, historic world sales of Scouting for Boys can be estimated at 100 to 150 million copies since 1908.

[12][13] In her introduction to the 2005 edition, Elleke Boehmer criticises the book saying "the text was deeply scored through with a contemporary class prejudice which would have been off-putting to non-middle-class readers, as captured in the sharp aphorism that bees form a 'model community, for they respect their Queen and kill their unemployed' (p. 117) Character observation in many ways meant reading for the signs of working-class poverty.

"[14] Scouting for Boys has been published in over thirty consecutive editions by London based C. Arthur Pearson Ltd., and it is translated to all the major languages of the world.

All chapters have campfire yarns, appealing to boys, most contain sections with games and activities, and they close with recommendations for books to read.

Copyright to Scouting for Boys expired on 31 December 2011, at the end of the 70th year after the death of its author on 8 January 1941 and the book is now in the public domain.