Humility
Humility, or being humble, was one of the things which was practised by the knights. Although they were generally superior to other people in fighting or campaigning, they never allowed themselves to swagger about it. So don’t swagger.
And don’t imagine that you have rights in this world except those that you earn for yourself. You have the right to be believed, if you earn it by always telling the truth, and you have the right to go to prison if you earn it by thieving.
There are lots of men who go about howling about their rights who have never done anything to earn any rights. Do your duty first, and you will get your rights afterwards.
The Red Indians had to be courageous to survive. They depended on buffalo meat for food,
and buffalo hunti ng was dangerous.
Courage
Very few men are born brave, but any man can make himself brave if he tries—and especially if he begins trying when he is a boy.
The brave man dashes into danger without any hesitation, when a less brave man is inclined to hang back. It is very like bathing. A lot of boys will come to a river to bathe, and will cower shivering on the bank, wondering how deep the water is, and whether it is very cold—but the brave one will run through them and take his header into the water, and will be swimming about happily a few seconds later.
The thing is, when there is danger before you, don’t stop and look at it— the more you look at it the less you will like it—but take the plunge, go boldly in at it, and it won’t be half as bad as it looked, when you are once in it.
Fortitude
The knights were men who never said “die” until they were dead. They were always ready to stick it out till the end. But it is a very common fault with men to give in to trouble or fear long before there is any necessity. Many of them give up working hard because they don’t get success all at once; probably if they stuck to it a little longer, success would come. A man must expect hard work at first to have success later.
Some of you may have heard the story of the two frogs. If you have not, here it is:
Two frogs went out for a walk one day, and they came to a big bowl of cream. In looking into it they both fell in.
One said: “This is a new kind of water to me. How can a fellow swim in stuff like this? It is no use trying”. So he sank to the bottom and was drowned because he had no pluck.
But the other was a more manly frog, and he struggled to swim, using his arms and legs as hard as he could to keep himself afloat. Whenever he felt he was sinking he struggled harder than ever, and never gave up hope.
At last, just as he was getting so tired that he thought he must give it up, a curious thing happened. By his hard work with his arms and legs he had churned up the cream so much that he suddenly found himself sitting all safe on a pat of butter!
So when things look bad, just smile and sing to yourself, as the thrush sings: “Stick to it, stick to it, stick to it”, and you will come through all right.
A very great step to success is to be able to stand disappointments.
Cheeriness
The knights laid great stress on never being out of temper. They thought it bad form to lose their temper and to show anger.
Captain John Smi th once fell in a bog with his Indian guide tied to his wrist. When captured, his cheerful ness helped hi m to escape.
Captain John Smith was himself a type of a cheerful man. In fact, towards the end of his life two boys to whom he told his
adventures, wrote them down in a book. They said afterwards that they found great difficulty in hearing all that he said, because he roared so with laughter over his own descriptions of his troubles. But it is very certain that had he not been a cheery man, he
never could have come through half the dangers with which he was faced at different times in his career.
Over and over again he was made prisoner by his enemies— sometimes savage enemies—but he managed always to
captivate them with his pleasant manner, and become friends with them, so that they let him go, or did not trouble to catch him when he made his escape.
If you do your work cheerfully, your work becomes much more of a pleasure to you. And also, if you are cheerful it makes other people cheerful as well, which is part of your duty as a Scout. Sir J. M. Barrie writes: “Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep happiness from themselves”. If you make other people happy, you make yourself happy.
And I’ll tell you a secret about making your work easy, whatever it is. If your work is lessons in school, or doing jobs for an employer, or in a workshop or an office, you can, if you like, get very bored and tired of it. If you keep thinking of what you will do to enjoy yourself when you get out and how much better off other fellows are who don’t have to work, then you will get to hate your work—it will hang heavy on you all the time, you will do it badly, and you won’t get on. But if you take the other line and see what
your work will lead to in the end and the good it will bring to yourself or others for whom you are making things, then you will go at it eagerly, and very soon you will find that instead of hating it you will love it, and keep doing it better and better all the time.
