Everyone is important.
The fourth point on the Scout Law is one of the most important of the twelve. “A Scout is Friendly” implies that a Scout will also be loyal to his friends, helpful to his friends, courteous to his friends, and kind to his friends.
Who are our friends? Jesus was once asked a question just like this. He was asked, “Who is my neighbor?” and he answered by telling a story about a man who had been attacked by bandits. Members of his own community would not help him, but a man from another community did help him. The story is called “The Good Samaritan” (see Luke 10:25-37). The point of the story was that the real “neighbor” was the one who helped, even if his community was considered to be “the enemy.”
Who are our friends? For generations, the Scout Handbook has said, “A Scout is a friend to all and a brother to every other Scout.” There are no exceptions. We are to be friendly to everyone, even to those who say they don’t like us.
A lot of Scout-age boys like to pick on younger kids, or weaker kids, or anyone else they can pick on, but a Boy Scout who says the Scout Law is saying that he will not be a bully.
William T. Hornaday, the man in whose honor the “Hornaday Awards” are named, was the director of the New York Zoo for many years, and he really knew about animals. In his opinion, many people behave worse than the animals, and this is especially true when it comes to bullying. He said that animals don’t bully each other.
Here are two laws of animal behavior that Hornaday observed in a lifetime
of watching animals:
The Second Law. The
strong members of a flock or herd shall not bully nor oppress the weak.
“This law, constantly broken by degenerate and vicious men, women and
children, very rarely is broken in a free wild herd or flock.
In observance of this fundamental law, born of ethics and expediency,
mankind is far behind the wild animals. It
would serve a good purpose if the criminologists and the alienists would figure
out the approximate proportion of the human species now living that bullies and
maltreats and oppresses the weak and the defenseless.
At this moment “society” in the United States is in a state of
thoroughly imbecilic defenselessness against the new type of predatory savages
known as ‘bandits.’” [pp.
226-227.]
The Sixth Law. Of
food and territory, the weak shall have their share.
“While this law is binding upon all the members of a wild flock, herd,
a clan or a species, outside of species limits it may become null and void;
though in actual practice I think that this rarely occurs.
Among the hoofed animals; the seals and sea-lions; the apes and baboons
and monkeys, and the kangaroos, the food that is available to a herd is common
to all its members. We can not
recall an instance of a species attempting to dispossess and evict another
species, though it must be that many such have occurred. In the game-laden plains of eastern Africa, half a dozen
species, such as kongonis, sable antelopes, gazelles and zebras, often have been
observed in one landscape, with no fighting visible.” [p. 230.]
[Source: Hornaday,
William T. The Minds and Manners
of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal
Observations. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922.]
In other words, wild animals understand what it means to be friendly,
what it means to be a neighbor.
No matter where a person comes from, no matter what that person’s
religion is, no matter what language that person speaks, no matter what
“race” that person belongs to, Scouts are to treat that person as a friend,
and if that person is a Scout, he is our brother.
--This meditation by Richard E. Davies (copyright ©2007).