"But we aren't supposed to think of that."
"Of course not, and it's right, too," agreed Harry. "But we learn to be
obedient. We learn discipline. And we get to understand camp life, and the
open air, and all the things a soldier has to know about, sooner or later.
Suppose you were organizing a regiment. Which would you rather have--a
thousand men who were brave and willing, but had never camped out, or a
thousand who had been Boy Scouts and knew about half the things soldiers
have to learn? Which thousand men would be ready to go to the front first?"
"I never thought of that!" said Dick, mightily impressed. "But you're
right, Harry. The Boy Scouts wouldn't go to war themselves, but the fellows
who were grown up and in business and had been Boy Scouts would be a lot
readier than the others, wouldn't they? I suppose that's why so many of our
chaps join the Territorials when they are through school and start in
business?"
"Of course it is! You've got the idea I'm driving at, Dick. And you can
depend on it that General Baden-Powell had that in his mind's eye all the
time, too. He doesn't want us to be military and aggressive, but he does
want the Empire to have a lot of fellows on call who are hard and fit, so
that they can defend themselves and the country. You see, in America, and
here in England, too, we're not like the countries on the Continent.
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