"A Scout's honor is to be trusted, If he were to violate his honor by telling a lie, or by cheating, or by not doing exactly a given task, when trusted on his honor to do so, he may be directed to hand over his scout badge."
The English version of this first law is longer than ours, and the first half of it is as follows: "If a scouts says: 'on my honor it is so,' that means that 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 honor 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."
This extra paragraph in the official scout law, as written by General Sir Robert Baden-Powell, while not adding anything to the principle involved, illustrates it in a way to make it more alive and clear.
When we have thoroughly grasped the idea of honor itself, it becomes an easy matter to understand that "a scout's honor is to be trusted"; for we know that our honor is actually our sense of obligation to duty and to God. It is a debt that we owe which we can not fail to pay without losing everything that is worth while in life; for, according to the standard of men of honor, life without honor is not worth living, -- not because it means disgrace or contempt in the eyes of men, but because it means that we feel ourselves to be dishonest and untrustworthy.
A man or a boy may have the best intentions of being honorable and might not fail in any important crisis, -- such as a temptation to betray a friend, or accept a bribe, or himself bribe some other person engaged in the performance of duty, -- and yet he may become practically untrustworthy in everyday affairs through a lack of discipline in the habits of punctuality, promptness, and perseverance in carrying out a job. In business communities such as ours, we call this sort of slackness unbusinesslike, but we do not necessarily associate it with any idea of dishonor. If a man has not been trained to keep appointments, to answer letters promptly, or to carry out a piece of difficult work without allowing himself to be distracted, it may not be his fault, because this sort of efficiency, unless learned in youth, is a difficult thing to acquire.
It does not make a man more or less honorable in intention, and yet, if a man is honorable, this business-like habit makes him a thousand times more useful an efficient. One might say: "What is the use of being honorable if you have not the habit of turning your good intentions to the best account?" The answer is that our inward purpose carried out to the best practical conclusion at our command is that by which we shall be judged, and is that which counts in the end. A clever trick efficiently carried out, though serving a useful purpose at the time, will never have the same value in the way of character building as an honest purpose carried out with moderate success but with uprightness and determination. Isolated cases are often misleading in this respect, when judged by their external effect, for the reason that cleverness and trickery are untrustworthy in the long run, while honesty and determination can always be relied upon.
For these very reasons it should be the especial care of boys to form businesslike habits in youth, -- habits of promptness, punctuality, and perseverance; and, at the same time, to be sure that they use tese habits as instruments for honorable action, that is, only with honest and unselfish purpose. Thus all confusion will be cleared away as between honesty of purpose and inefficiency on the one hand, and a dishonest purpose and efficiency on the other.
As regards the untrustworthiness of men who mean honestly but who do not possess the businesslike habits which are acquired by thorough trustworthiness in detail, we may note that although their responsibility is limited, they yet are responsible within the limits of their powers. Moreover, as soon as they themselves begin to realize their habits of unpunctuality, etc., they are responsible for correcting them to the best of their ability.
Often we hear people saying: "I did the best I could see, and what more can a man do?" This statement sounds fair, but it is really misleading; for, a man's ability to see depends just as much upon what he does as a man's ability to do depends upon what he sees. If we really act up to what we see every day, we shall see farther ahead every day; but our ability to see is usually weakened by our unwillingness to go the whole length of what we know we ought to do.
The faithful performance of our everyday duties, for no other reason than because it is right, will help us to be trustworthy in times of special trial.
It is not only the exact carrying out of orders which trustworthiness demands, but the spirit of initiative which will do a useful piece of work in intelligent anticipation of an order. This might, of course, be carried too far, but usually the living interest we take in our duty makes us intelligent in carrying it out.
There are men who seem incapable of this sort of initiative, although they can do very good work under direct orders. These are not trustworthy excepting under certain conditions; more trustworthy is the man who does not need to be watched, but who does his work faithfully from his own sense of duty.
Such is the timber of which patrol leaders and assistant scout masters are made, and, later on, foremen and superintendents and officials; but, even these may get their positions only because they are relatively better than the rank and file, without being really trustworthy in their hearts.
The really trustworthy man is he who in every case and in every detail would rather do right and lose, than do wrong for his own personal advantage. Our great president, Abraham Lincoln, was a man of this type, and we revere and love his memory not only for his great deeds as a statesman and leader, but for the trustworthiness which sprang out of his love for the right and his human affection for other men.
It is the custom of lawyers practicing in court to first state the facts concerning which they are about to plead on one side or the other; and, after the facts have been stated, to make their argument as convincingly as possible, so as to win over the minds of the jury. Of course there are many ways of stating the same facts; they may be stated in such a way as to lend color to one contention regarding them or else to make this contention seem highly improbable. Under such circumstances, it is a test of fair-mindedness in a lawyer whether he states his facts fairly, admitting even such as may be disadvantageous to his own side. When Lincoln was a young and obscure practicing lawyer, he had the habit of stating his facts with so much justice and fairness tot eh other side that he frequently won over the jury before he had even begun his argument or tried to convince them. This is a very good example of the influence which trustworthiness exerts upon other people. Like all simple things, it is easily recognized, and every on likes to trust a man when he is felt to be worthy of confidence. Now when a man begins his life by being a trustworthy boy, so that members of this family and his chums feel they always know where they can find him and can always rely upon his doing what he says, such a boy begins life with a splendid foundation, because a road of unselfish usefulness and happiness lies open straight before him.
Although men of initiative are needed to make foremen and officers, the same quality gives dignity and strength to the life and work of every private.
We are constantly reminded that we cannot have a duty to any man without its being at the same time a duty to God, for one's duty to God includes all other duties. Therefore being trustworthy to men is a duty to God; but, beyond being worthy of the confidence of men, we must strive to be trustworthy in God's eyes. This applies principally to our secret thoughts which no one besides ourselves and God need know, and over which we must always have a watch set so as to reject every idea of evil at its first appoach.
A deep trust in God, because God Himself is trustworthy, is the surest foundation of human courage; and no one is likely to trust in God unless he is trustworthy himself.
Whether a scout is standing watch on signal duty in war time, or whether he has been put in charge of the baby, to give his mother a chance for an outing and rest, or whether he be standing his watch at night as a sea scout on board ship, his obligation of honor is the same, and nothing on earth is an excuse for unfaithfulness. A scout is trustworthy.