Baron Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell Baden-Powell of Gilwell

“ I yield to no one in enjoyment of the sight of those splendid specimens of our race, trained to perfection, and playing faultlessly; but my heart sickens at the reverse of the medal—thousands of boys and young men, pale, narrow-chested, hunched-up, miserable specimens, smoking endless cigarettes, numbers of them betting, all of them learning to be hysterical as they groan or cheer in panic unison with their neighbours—the worst sound of all being the hysterical scream of laughter that greets any little trip or fall of a player. ”

“ They frequented the circuses, where paid performers appeared before them in the arena, much as we see the crowds now flocking to look on at paid players playing football.
Football in itself is a grand game for developing a lad physically and also morally, for he learns to play with good temper and unselfishness, to play in his place and "play the game," and these are the best of training for any game of life. But it is a vicious game when it draws crowds of lads away from playing the game themselves to be merely onlookers at a few paid performers. ”

“ It is a pity that all British boys cannot have the same sort of training before they are allowed to consider themselves men—and the training which we are now doing as scouts is intended to fill that want as far as possible. If every boy works hard at this course and really learns all that we try to teach him, he will, at the end of it, have some claim to call himself a scout and a man, and will find if ever he goes on service, or to a colony, that he will have no difficulty in looking after himself and in being really useful to his country. ”

“ Remember, a scout always considers it a great disgrace if an outsider discovers a thing before he has seen it for himself, whether that thing is far away in the distance, or close by under his feet.
If you go out with a really trained scout you will see that his eyes are constantly moving, looking out in every direction near and far, noticing everything that is going on, just from habit, not because he wants to show off how much he notices.
I was walking with one the other day in Hyde Park in London. ”

“ So, with the scouts, it has been made one of our laws that we do a good turn to somebody every day. It does not matter how small that good turn may be, if it were only to help an old woman lift her bundle, or to guide a child across a crowded street, or to put a halfpenny in the poor-box. Something good ought to be done each day of your life, and you should start to-day to carry out this rule, and never forget it during the remaining days of your life. Remember the knot in your necktie and on your scout's badge—they are reminders to you to do a good turn. ”

“ Give me the man who has been raised among the great things of Nature; he cultivates truth, independence, and self-reliance; he has generous impulses; he is true to his friends, and true to the flag of his country."
I can fully endorse what this old scout has said, and, what is more, I find that those men who come from the furthest frontiers of the Empire, from what we should call a rude and savage life, are among the most generous and chivalrous of their race, especially towards women and weaker folk. They become "gentle men" by their contact with nature. ”

“ Know this, that Britain, once she puts her hand to the plough for doing noble work, does not withdraw, but presses on till peace and justice are set up, and cruel wrongs redressed. You would yourself remain as King among your people, but beneath the friendly wing of Britain's world-wide power. ”

“ David Livingstone, the great missionary and peace-scout, endeared himself to the natives by his cleverness as a doctor.
Also, if you know how to look after yourself you need never have to pay for medicines. The great English poet, Dryden, in his poem, "Cymon and Iphigenia," wrote that it was better to trust to fresh air and exercise than to pay doctors' bills to keep yourself healthy:
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught;
The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend. ”

“ MOUNTAINEERING. A good deal of interesting mountaineering can be done in the British Isles if you know where to go; and it is grand sport, and brings out into practice all your scout-craft to enable you to find your way, and to make yourself comfortable in camp.
You are, of course, continually losing your direction because, moving up and down in the deep gullies of the mountain side, you lose sight of the landmarks which usually guide you, so that you have to watch your direction by the sun, and by your compass, and keep on estimating in what direction your proper line of travel lies. ”

“ The main causes of the downfall of Rome is similar to that which resulted in the downfall of other great empires, such as the Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Spanish, and Dutch, and that cause may be summed up in each case as the decline of good citizenship and the want of energetic patriotism. Each nation, after climbing laboriously to the zenith of its power, seemed then to become exhausted by its effort, and sit down in a state of repose, relapsing into idleness, studiously blind to the fact that other nations were gradually pushing up to destroy it. ”

“ They had never to manufacture these for themselves, nor to make their own boots or clothing. That is why a "tenderfoot" talks of "roughing in camp"; but living in camp for a scout who knows the game is by no means "roughing it." He knows how to make himself comfortable in a thousand small ways, and then when he does come back to civilisation, he enjoys it all the more for having seen a contrast; and even there he can do very much more for himself than the ordinary mortal who has never really learned to provide for his own wants. ”

“ Remember when sleeping in camp the secret of keeping warm is to have as many blankets underneath you as you have above you. If a patrol were sleeping round a fire you would all lie with your feet towards it like the spokes of a wheel. If your blankets do not keep you sufficiently warm, put straw or bracken over yourselves and newspapers if you have them. It is also a good tip in cold weather, if you have not sufficiently warm clothing, to put a newspaper under your coat or waistcoat up your back and round your body, it will be as good as a great-coat in giving you extra warmth. ”

“ If a scout were to break his honour by telling a lie, or by not carrying out an order exactly when trusted on his honour to do so, he would cease to be a scout, and must hand over his scout badge, and never be allowed to wear it again—he loses his life.
2. A Scout is Loyal to the King, and to his officers, and to his country, and to his employers. He must stick to them through thick and thin against anyone who is their enemy, or who even talks badly of them.
3. A Scout's Duty is to be Useful and to Help Others. ”

“ The Colonial is open and cheery with everybody at once, while the Briton is rather inclined to shut himself up from his neighbours inside his coat, and takes a deal of drawing out before he becomes friendly. The free, open-air, shirt-sleeve habits of the Colonial do away with this, and life becomes much more pleasant to everybody all round. A boy scout should remember that he is like the Colonial, and, like Kim, the "friend of all the world." ”

“ All the fun of hunting lies in the adventurous life in the jungle, the chance in many cases of the animal hunting you instead of you hunting the animal, the interest of tracking him up, stalking him and watching all that he does and learning his habits. ”

“ We call a sailor the "handy man" with admiration, because he seems to be the only kind of man among us who can turn his hand to any kind of job. Well, so can anyone if he only has the idea put into his head and tries it for himself. Our aim should be, therefore, to make the boys "handy men."
But most of all we want to raise the lowest to a higher place. "Go for the worst" is the motto of the Salvation Army in its great work. ”

“ If you want to serve your King and Country there is the Royal Navy open to you, a fine service with its grand traditions, its splendid ships, guns, and seamen. It takes you across the seas to our great Colonies and to foreign lands, from the frozen Arctic to the tropical coasts of Africa. ”

“ Maintain the honour of your country with your life.
Rather die honest than live shamelessly.
Chivalry requireth that youth should be trained to perform the most laborious and humble offices with cheerfulness and grace; and to do good unto others."
These are the first rules with which the old knights started, and from which the scout laws of to-day come.
A knight (or scout) is at all times a gentleman. So many people seem to think that a gentleman must have lots of money. That does not make a gentleman. A gentleman is anyone who carries out the rules of chivalry of the knights. ”

“ Lycurgus said that the wealth of a state lay not so much in money as in men who were sound in body and mind, with a body fit for toil and endurance, and with a mind well disciplined, and seeing things in their proper proportions. ”

“ The way a man (or a woman) walks is often a good guide to his character—witness the fussy, swaggering little man paddling along with short steps with much arm-action, the nervous man's hurried, jerky stride, the slow slouch of the loafer, the smooth going and silent step of the scout, and so on. ”

“ The main point is for us to take the lesson to heart, and see, before it is too late, that our Empire also be not undermined by these defects.
I am not so pessimistic myself as to think with some people that we are already so far on the downward grade as to be in a hopeless condition. On the contrary, I think that we are only near to the parting of the ways where it becomes incumbent upon everyone of us who has the slightest patriotism in him to earnestly help, in however small a way, to turn the rising generation on the right road for good citizenship. ”

“ It is not enough to read about it in a book and think that you know how to do it—but you must actually practise, and practise pretty often, the actual things to be done; such as how to cover your mouth and nose with a wet handkerchief to enable you to breath in smoke, how to tear a sheet into strips and make a rope for escaping from fire, how to open a manhole to let air into a gassy sewer, how to lift and carry an insensible person, how to collar, save, and revive apparently drowned people, and so on. ”

“ By squatting low in the shadow of the bush at night, and keeping quite still, I have let an enemy's scout come and stand within three feet of me, so that when he turned his back towards me I was able to stand up where I was and fling my arms round him.
A point also to remember in keeping hidden while moving, especially at night, is to walk quietly; the thump of an ordinary man's heel on the ground can be heard a good distance off, but a scout or hunter always walks lightly, on the ball of his foot not on his heels ”

“ The wastefulness in Great Britain is almost inconceivable, and ought to be made criminal. Men draw big wages of £3 and £4 on Saturday nights, but have nothing to show for it by Monday night. If they had thrift a large majority of our working-men and their families might be in prosperous circumstances to-day, but they have never been taught what thrift may be, and they naturally do as their neighbours do. If the rising generation could be started in the practice of economy, it would make a vast difference to the character and prosperity of the nation in the future. ”

“ A good many fishermen, when they take their flies off the line, stick them into their cap to dry: others stick them into their sleeve. When dry they pull them out, which often tears a thread or two of the cloth.
It is an amusing practice when you are in a railway carriage or omnibus with other people to look only at their feet and guess without looking any higher what sort of people they are, old or young, well to do or poor, fat or thin, and so on, and then look up and see how near you have been to the truth. ”

“ HONOUR. The true knight placed his honour before all things. It was sacred, and he will never do a dishonourable action, such as telling an untruth or deceiving his superiors or employers. A man who is honourable is always to be trusted, and always commands the respect of his fellow men. His honour guides him in everything that he does. A captain sticks to the ship till the last, in every wreck that was ever heard of. ”

“ Arthur Benson, writing in the Cornhill Magazine, says there are four Christian virtues, not three. They are—Faith, Hope, Charity—and Humour. So also in the morning prayer of Robert Louis Stevenson:
The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man—help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces. Let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day. Bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep. ”

“ Sometimes we are so much concerned about there being enough religion in our plans for the boy that we forget to leave enough boy in the plans. According to the notions of some, the ideal boys' club would consist of prayer meetings and Bible classes, with an occasional missionary talk as a treat, and perhaps magic lantern views of the Holy Land as a dizzy climax. ”

“ But a scout will not do it because he is not such a fool. He knows that when a lad smokes before he is fully grown up it is almost sure to make his heart feeble, and the heart is the most important organ in a lad's body. It pumps the blood all over him to form flesh, bone, and muscle. If the heart does not do its work the body cannot grow to be healthy. Any scout knows that smoking spoils his eyesight, and also his sense of smell, which is of greatest importance to him for scouting on active service. ”

“ Other tame animals to understand are, of course, dogs. And a good dog is the very best companion for a scout, who need not think himself a really good scout till he has trained a young dog to do all he wants of him. It requires great patience and kindness, and genuine sympathy with the dog.
A dog is the most human of all animals and, therefore the best companion for a man. He is always courteous, and always ready for a game—full of humour, and very faithful and loving.
Of course a scout who lives in the country has much better chances of studying animals and birds than one who lives in a town. ”

“ It is quite a lesson to watch a Zulu scout making use of a hill-top or rising ground as a look-out place. He will crawl up on all fours, lying flat in the grass; on reaching the top he will very slowly raise his head, inch by inch, till he can see the view. If he sees the enemy on beyond, he will have a good look, and, if he thinks they are watching him, will keep his head perfectly steady 112for an immense time, hoping that he will be mistaken for a stump or a stone. ”

“ Well, when we found we were to be attacked at Mafeking, we told off our garrison to the points that they were to protect—some 700 trained men, police, and volunteers. And then we armed the townsmen, of whom there were some 300. Some of them were old frontiersmen, and quite equal to the occasion; but many of them, young shopmen, clerks, and others, had never seen a rifle before, and had never tried to learn to drill or to shoot, and so they were hopelessly at sea at first. It is not much fun to have to face an enemy who means to kill you, when you have never learned to shoot. ”

“ And then be a man, make up your mind and decide for yourself which you think is best for the country and future of the Empire—not for some two-penny-halfpenny little local question—and vote for that one so long as it works the right way, namely, for the good of the country.
Many people get led away by some new politician with some new extreme idea. Never believe in one man's idea till it has been well considered from all points of view. Extreme ideas are seldom much good ”