I'm sure there were still plenty of boys for whom it worked. The BSA that I liked, however, had passed into history, much like how chemistry sets were emasculated at about the same time.
If I remember correctly, this one had an experiment to distill alcohol and another about creating chloroform.
https://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/column/2013/07/07/ba...
Kosmos really made amazing kits for teenagers who were fascinated with science and technology.
I scanned in one of their manuals (with their kind permission):
https://generalatomic.com/teil1/index.html
for the first in the Electronik-Labor series, so you can see for yourself!
It really opened my eyes to the beauty of the Arizona desert, which I grew to love very much.
The swimming and lifesaving merit badges also made me confident in the water, which I thank the BSA for giving me the impetus to do.
And, of course, the knots have served me well, and I can make fire with one match. I wish the Scouts had taught a lot more woodcraft. They didn't even teach building an emergency shelter.
This is now a requirement. I don't remember the exact merit badge, but one of them had me and a friend huddled up between two logs surrounded by pine boughs for a summer night somewhere in the sierras.
It was cold, but manageable. What got me was a bug of some sort fell into my ear and I spent the whole night alternating between trying to pick out out with my finger, shaking my head wildly in attempt to make it fall out, or just lying there listening to it scurry back and forth in my ear canal.
> Improvise a natural shelter. For the purpose of this demonstration, use techniques that have little negative impact on the environment. Spend a night in your shelter.
Though my issue was as much with the increasing top heaviness of the funding as anything else.
Kids today have more oversight and less freedom. God forbid you build a rope bridge because someone might fall off it and sue you to oblivion. Even playing unsupervised around the neighborhood is frowned upon and can result on the police showing up.