Be Prepared for What?

Scouts, every one of you can tell me, without thinking, what the two words of the Scout Motto are? That’s right, “Be prepared.”

There is a story of a Scout in Oklahoma. His younger sister went too near a gas heater and instantly her clothes were in flames. The father and his 13-year old Scout-trained son rushed up the stairs to try to help. Remembering his first-aid work, the Scout knew what to do and he did it immediately. He grabbed a small rug and rolled the screaming child in it. He had been prepared.

In a moment he had smothered the flames and prevented serious injury to the child. “Thank God my son is a Scout,” the boy’s father told the Scoutmaster. “He knew what to do while I stood confused.”

That’s what it means to be prepared.

Once someone asked Baden-Powell, “Be prepared— for what?” “Why, for any old thing!” he replied.