there were single Scouting patrols earlier than this in some Norwegian cities. China In Shanghai, a troop of "Boy Scouts" was formed, as a branch of the then existing (British) "Boys' Brigade" whose members were representative of the cosmopolitan but culturally Western population of the city. The 1st Dragon Troop, run on actual Baden-Powell lines, was also formed in early 1909, in Shanghai. These were mostly British boys. The first native Scout troop was organized by Reverend Yen Chia-lin in Wuchang on 25 February 1912 and the Scouting movement spread rapidly all over the country. 1910 By 1910 Argentina, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Suriname, Sweden and the United States had Boy Scouts too. Finland Toimen Pojat (Unga Fribyggare in Swedish), a Scouting troop in Kauniainen, Finland was established in 1910. Toimen Pojat is the oldest continuously operating Scout troop in Finland. During the Russian ban on Scouting in the 1910s before the Finnish independence in (1917), the troop operated underground. Many traditions that distinguish the troop formed during that period. Philippines Elwood Stanley Brown, Physical Education Director of the Manila YMCA, founded basketball, volleyball, and Boy Scouting in the Philippine Islands (then a territory of the USA) in 1910. Hence the first Boy Scout unit in the Philippines was the YMCA troop organised by Brown. In the official Handbook for Boys of the Boy Scouts of America, First Edition, August 1911 (still in print today!), page 354 (page 222 of PDF copy), in a letter from BSA Honorary Vice President Theodore Roosevelt (former US President) to BSA Executive Secretary (later Chief Scout Executive) James E. West, dated 20 July 1911, Roosevelt mentions a letter from a Scoutmaster in the Philippines narrating the noble work of "boy scouts of the Philippines" in rendering assistance during a big fire that hit Manila and in serving at the ten-day Manila Carnival. This is the earliest available documented mention of the phrase "boy scouts of the Philippines" in print. The Manila Scoutmaster's and Roosevelt's letters prove beyond doubt that there were Boy Scouts in the Philippines as early as 1910 - the same year that YMCA International Secretary for Boys' Work Edgar M. Robinson started actively organizing the Boy Scouts of America in the US mainland. Portions of Roosevelt's quote of the Manila Scoutmaster's letter were also printed (before and after the Handbook for Boys