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Young Knights of the Empire

34 of 87

do not let themselves give way to temptation, either to talk it or to do anything dirty. A Scout is pure, and clean-minded, and manly._ When boys are getting big, they generally want to show off and to impress other boys with their "manliness"--or at least what they think is manliness. It generally begins with smoking. They think it fine to smoke, so they suck and puff at cigarettes, partly because these are cheap, and partly because a pipe would make them sick. The reason why half of them do it is because they are arrant cowards, and are afraid of being laughed at by the other boys if they don't do it. They think themselves tremendous heroes, while in reality they are little asses. Then they like to use swear words because they think this makes them appear tremendously ferocious and big. Also they think it the height of manliness to tell smutty stories and to talk dirt. But these things don't say much for the boy who does them. He generally curls up and hides them directly a man is present. He only produces them for swanking in the presence of other boys, This shows that he is not really very proud of his accomplishments, and the boy who has a sense of honour in him knows at once that such things are against his conscience-law and he will have nothing to do with them. This often puts him in a difficult position when among boys who are showing off, as they will be ready to jeer at him; but if he has honour and pluck--in a word, if he is a true Scout--he will brave it out and, as a result, he will come out the only real man of the party. The probability will be that though they do not show it at the moment, some of the others will see that he is right and that they are wrong, and will pluck up courage themselves and follow his example in being clean and straight. If, by his conduct, a Scout can in this way save one fellow, he will at any rate have done something in the world. You may think there is no harm in a little joking of a risky kind, or in the occasional secret smoking of a cigarette, although you allow it may be silly; but if you look into it, and especially when you have, later on, seen results such as I have seen that come of it, you will at once understand there is great harm--great danger in it. It is the beginning; and the beginning of anything is very often the important point. If you talk or listen to what is wrong, you get to think about what is wrong and very soon you get to doing what is wrong. By doing things which you would not care to do before your father or mother, you are becoming a bit of a sneak. You do these things secretly, you are not straight. A fellow who is not straight at starting is pretty sure to go on being crooked for the rest of his career. He knows all the time in his inmost heart that he is a sneak, and he can therefore never take a pride in himself and others are bound to find it out sooner or later, so he never gets a real friend nor a good employer. Then these things are likely to do him bodily harm. Smoking is poison to a growing lad. It may not do you much harm if you take to it when you are grown up; but while you are still forming your muscles as a lad it is almost certain to do damage to your heart, your wind, your digestion, and very likely your eyesight and teeth. I take it that most boys want to be good healthy runners and able to play at all the games, and I am certain that every Scout wants to Be Prepared to be a good healthy man for his Country. Well, you can't do it if you begin by smoking as a boy. Drinking begins, like everything else, in a small way; but it very soon grows on a fellow unless he is on the look out to stop it. More than half the crime in Great Britain is due to drink, and so is most of the poverty, and three-quarters of the insanity. And it is much the same with thoughts about women; they soon grow into wrong action, and if these are kept up they grow into habits which lead in an awful number of cases to misery, disease, and madness. Brace up! Be a man! Keep off these dangers. If fellows around you are swanking in dirt, leave them and go elsewhere. Don't let yourself BEGIN loafing about, taking drinks, talking smut, or doing what you know is wrong; give yourself bettor things to

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