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Importance of Character
"A nation owes its success, not so much to its strength in armaments, as to the amount of character in its citizens.""For a man to be successful in life, character is more essential than erudition."
So character is of first value whether for a nation or for the individual. But if character is to make a man's career for him, it ought to be developed in him before he starts out; while he is still a boy and receptive. Character cannot be drilled into a boy. The germ of it is already in him, and needs to be drawn out and expanded. How?
Character is very generally the result of environment or surroundings. For exam- ple, take two small boys, twins if you like. Teach them the same lessons in school, but give them entirely different surroundings, companions, and homes outside the school. Put one under a kindly, encouraging mother, among clean and straight playfellows, where he is trusted on his honour to carry out rules of life and so on. On the other hand, take the second boy and let him loaf in a filthy home, among foul-mouthed, thieving, discontented companions. Is he likely to grow up with the same amount of character as his twin?
There are thousands of boys being wasted daily through being left to become characterless, and therefore, useless wasters, a misery to themselves and an eyesore and a danger to the nation.
They could be saved if only the right surroundings or environment were given to them at the receptive time of their lives. And there are many thousands of others who may not be placed on quite so low a level (for there are wasters in every class of life), but who would be all the better men and more valuable to the country and more satisfactory to themselves if they could be persuaded, at the right age, to develop their characters.
Here, then, lies the most important object in the Boy Scout training-to educate; not to instruct, mind you, but to educate, that is, to draw out the boy to learn for himself, of his own desire, the things that tend to build up character in him.
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