Our World-roving Commissioner--for we have one who travels about to
all countries now--was once in Chile, which, as you know, is a long,
narrow strip of country in South America, three thousand miles long,
and not one hundred miles wide, packed in between the Andes Mountains
and the Pacific Ocean.
The Boy Scouts of Chile are among the best in the world. They have
done a lot of tramping-camps and other expeditions. Finally, their
Government arranged a cruise for them on board a man-of-war, and they
lived for over a week on the ship, about two hundred of them, learning
swimming, boating, navigation, engine-room work; in fact, all the
duties of Sea Scouts.
These boys all had to pay their messing and other expenses, so it was
only the richer ones that were able to go; but since then they have
arranged to go another cruise, and each of the richer ones is going to
take a poorer Scout with him as his guest, and will pay his expenses
for him.
That's what I like to see, and it tells me more than any other reports
that the Chilian Scouts have got the right spirit in them.
A lad from Brixham, in Devonshire, went out to take up some work in
Chile. He was a Boy Scout, and continued while away to wear his
buttonhole badge. One day, when he was out in the back parts of that
out-of-the-way country, a Chilian boy came up to him, gave the Scout
salute, and pointing to his badge, said:
"You Boy Scout? Me Scout too!" and he took him home to tea, and looked
after him, and thus they became good friends.
So you see the use of being a Scout and of wearing your badge.
Even in everyday life at home it is also a good thing to do, because
you may often have a chance of doing a good turn to a stranger Boy
Scout if he could only recognise that you were a scout.
I suppose there is not a day passes without my coming across a Scout,
in plain clothes, wearing his buttonhole badge and so I am able to
spot him and to have a chat with him. Whereas, if he had not had his
badge on, I should probably never have noticed him.
Also, it is a sign to outsiders. People have got to know now how
useful the Scouts are, and they are often anxious to get hold of one
to help them in some difficulty. Well, if they see a boy coming along
with the badge on, they know that he is a Scout, though not in
uniform, and they are able to ask him to do them the good turn.
So wear your buttonhole badge for the sake of other people.