Friendliness

The great difference between bushmen and a stay-at-home city-dweller is, that the first is in shirt-sleeves while the other is buttoned up in his coat. The bushman is open and cheery with everybody at once, while the city person 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 man of the woods or the open spaces do away with this, and life becomes much more pleasant to everybody all round.

A Boy Scout should remember that he is like Kim, the "friend of all the world". But don't let your friendliness lead you into the foolery of throwing away your hard-earned savings in standing treat to your friends.

Our Scout Law says: "A Scout is a friend to all and a brother to every other Scout." This has shown itself very much when our Jamborees have brought thousands of Scouts together from many different nations. The boys have found out that though they come from different countries they are after all very much alike in their tastes and amusements and that they can be jolly good friends with each other.

I want you Scouts to keep up that friendship and to make it wider and stronger. You can do this by writing to your Brother Scouts abroad and visiting them or by getting them to visit you in camp. It will be fun for you and fun for them. But better than that it will be making friendships between you, so that if difficulties should arise later on between the different countries they will not at once want to go to war, but will talk things over as friends and see how to come to agreement without the cruel and unfair test of fighting.

Author

Lord Baden-Powell of Gilwell (Chief Scout, London, UK)

Date of Creation

1908

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