Robert Baden-Powell

Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell of Gilwell (22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941) was a soldier, writer and founder of the world Scouting movement. He was the grandson of William Henry Smyth.

Quotes

Be Prepared.

Leave this world a little better than you found it.

Today I send you back to your homes under the Starry Skies and Burning Suns to your people of the thousand years, bearing my symbol of Peace and Fellowship to the Nations of the Earth, pledging you to keep my trust.

☉ — I have gone home.

Be Prepared.
- The motto Baden-Powell chose for the Scouting movement (1907)

The secret of sound education is to get each pupil to learn for himself, instead of instructing him by driving knowledge into him on a stereotyped system.
- The Scouter (January, 1912)

I went and saw a lot of them at their daily practice of fencing with bamboo sticks and practicing jiu-jitsu to make themselves strong and active and good-tempered. I say good-tempered because it is very much like boxing; you have to take a good many hard knocks and take them smiling. If a fellow lost his temper at it, everybody would laugh at him and think him a fool. In jiu-jitsu they learn how to exercise and how to develop their muscles, how to catch hold of an enemy in many different ways so as to overpower him, how to throw him and, what is very important, how to fall easily if they get thrown themselves. I expect the Scouts of Japan, if they visit England later on, will be able to show us a thing or two in this line.
- 1912 after return from Japan

Scouting is not an abstruse or difficult science: rather it is a jolly game if you take it in the right light. In the same time it is educative, and (like Mercy) it is apt to benefit him that giveth as well as him that receives.
- Aids to Scoutmastership (1920) Preface

The Scoutmaster guides the boy in the spirit of an older brother.... He has simply to be a boy-man, that is: (1) He must have the boy spirit in him: and must be able to place himself in the right plane with his boys as a first step. (2) He must realise the needs, outlooks and desires of the different ages of boy life. (3) He must deal with the individual boy rather than with the mass. (4) He then needs to promote a corporate spirit among his individuals to gain the best results.
- Aids to Scoutmastership (1920)

It is the Patrol System that makes the Troop, and all Scouting for that matter, a real co-operative matter.
- Aids to Scoutmastership (1920)

If a man cannot make his point to keen boys in ten minutes, he ought to be shot!
- The Scouter (November 1928); Reprinted in Footsteps of the Founder (1987)

No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way.

The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.
- Letter (September 1940)

Somewhere about 1893 I started teaching Scouting to young soldiers in my regiment. When these young fellows joined the Army they had learned reading, writing, and arithmetic in school but as a rule not much else. They were nice lads and made very good parade soldiers, obeyed orders, kept themselves clean and smart and all that, but they had never been taught to be men, how to look after themselves, how to take responsibility, and so on. They had not had my chances of education outside the classroom.
They had been brought up in the herd at school, they were trained as a herd in the Army; they simply did as they were told and had no ideas or initiative of their own. In action they carried out orders, but if their officer was shot they were as helpless as a flock of sheep. Tell one of them to ride out alone with a message on a dark night and ten to one he would lose his way.
I wanted to make them feel that they were a match for any enemy, able to find their way by the stars or map, accustomed to notice all tracks and signs and to read their meaning, and able to fend for themselves away from regimental cooks and barracks.
- "BE PREPARED", Listener Magazine (1937)

Leave this world a little better than you found it.
- Baden-Powell's Last Message (1941)

"Here is the hatchet of war, of enmity, of bad feeling, which I now bury in Arrowe," said the Chief, at the same time plunging a hatchet in the midst of a barrel of golden arrows."

"From all corners of the earth," said the Chief as soon as the cheering had subsided "you have journeyed to this great gathering of World Fellowship and Brotherhood. Today I send you out from Arrowe to all the World, bearing my symbol of Peace and Fellowship, each one of you my ambassador bearing my message of Love and Fellowship on the wings of Sacrifice and Service, to the end of the Earth. From now on the Scout symbol of Peace is the Golden Arrow. Carry it fast and far so that all men may know the Brotherhood of Man."

"To THE NORTH—From the Northlands you came at the call of my horn to this great gathering of Fellowship and Brotherhood."
"Today I send you back to your homelands across the great North Seas as my Ambassadors of Peace and Fellowship among the Nations of the World."
"I bid you farewell."

"TO THE SOUTH—From the Southland you came at the call of my horn to this great gathering of Fellowship and Brotherhood."
"Today I send you back to your homes under the Southern Cross as my Ambassadors of Peace and Fellowship among the Nations of the World."
"I bid you farewell."

"TO THE WEST—From the Westlands you came at the call of my horn to this great gathering of Fellowship and Brotherhood."
"Today I send you back to your homes in the Great Westlands to the Pacific and beyond as my Ambassadors of Peace and Fellowship among the Nations of the World."
"I bid you farewell."

"TO THE EAST—From the Eastlands you came at the call of my horn to this great gathering of Fellowship and Brotherhood."
"Today I send you back to your homes under the Starry Skies and Burning Suns to your people of the thousand years, bearing my symbol of Peace and Fellowship to the Nations of the Earth, pledging you to keep my trust."
"I bid you farewell."
- Burying the Hatchet - BP Closing Address at the 3rd World Jamboree, Arrowe Park, 12 August 1929

Happiness is not mere pleasure, not the outcome of wealth. It is the result of active work rather than passive enjoyment of pleasure.
- How to be happy though rich or poor (1930)