Law 1. A SCOUT'S HONOUR IS TO BE TRUSTED.
_If a Scout says "On my honour it is so," that means it is so, just
as if he had taken a most solemn oath._
_Similarly if a Scout officer says to a Scout, "I trust you on your
honour to do this," the Scout is bound to carry out the order to the
very best of his ability, and to let nothing interfere with his doing
so._
_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 may be directed to hand over his Scout badge and never wear it
again. He may also be directed to cease to be a Scout._
People of a civilised country, just like boys in a school, are bound
to conduct themselves in a proper manner, because of the law which
causes them to be punished if they misbehave. There is a code of laws
drawn up for this purpose.
But there is another kind of law which binds people just as much as
their written laws, though this one is neither written nor published.
This unwritten law is Honour.
A boy who has clambered over the school wall to go out of bounds and
smoke secretly has committed an offence against the published law of
the school. If next day the master asks in school, "Who has broken out
of bounds?" the boy is not bound by the law to confess that he did; he
can remain silent and thus escape punishment; but he is a
poor-spirited creature if he does so, and has no sense of honour. If
he is honourable he will manfully and honestly tell the master that he
broke out and will stand whatever punishment comes of it. By so doing
he will have proved to the master and to the other boys that he is
manly and not afraid to tell the truth, and is to be relied upon
because he puts his honour before all.
So the first training that the Boy Scout gets is to understand that
Honour is his own private law which is guided by his conscience, and
that once he is a Scout he must be guided in all his doings by his
sense of Honour.