“Happyfying”
No season is happier than the Christmas season, and the secret of that happiness lies in what our founder, Baden-Powell, called “happyfying.” It is the philosophy of the old song, “I want to be happy, but I can’t be happy, ’till I make you happy, too.”
Our Christmas turkey loses its taste and becomes dry fodder unless we have done something to make somebody else happy at Christmas time.
Now that is the spirit of Scouting at Christmas and at all other seasons. It was put into the Scout spirit by Baden-Powell. The implication is clear. Our happiness all year through, as Scouts, grows out of the many acts we do to bring happiness to those around us.
It is a fine thing for the Troop to engage in national or community programs of service. We should do that as good citizens. It is an even greater thing for a Patrol to single out some very human service they can perform for somebody close at hand. And when these Scouts see the smile on the face of the neighbor they have helped, then they know all about “happyfying” and their own lives are blest, too.
And the Scoutmaster, or other Unit Leader, knows about “happyfying,” for is he not making a Christmas gift to the nation every week in the year as he carries on his Scoutmastership? Thus he, himself, receives dividends the like of which no billionaire in history ever knew. So it was that one such Scoutmaster speaking at the last meeting of our National Council was able to say, “When the Scoutmaster looks around him and counts his blessings, he finds that his reward is the richest of all.”
Good Will
The youngest Cub Scout, of course, knows about good will, for does not the Law of the Pack remind him that “A Cub gives good will?” So, in the Boy Scout experience he finds that “The Scout is a friend to all and a brother to every other Scout.” As he grows older he learns more of the World Brotherhood of Scouting and finds that good will among men knows no boundaries of race or creed, or nationality.
The beloved song of the angels at Christmastime, then, is the thing that Scouting is trying to do all year round. Insofar as Scouting builds its brotherhood and gives good will all year round, will it be speeding that day of “Peace on Earth.”
★ We have it on good authority that 53% of the boys of America live “way out there,” in the little crossroads settlements and on the miles-apart farms.
We all know that we have a big opportunity and responsibility to reach out into that open country. We also know that it is a hard job.
To help bring this rural business into the spotlight, SCOUTING Magazine asked eight men to join in one of our Round Table discussions. These men represent all phases of rural life and of Scouting. The “moderator’s gavel” will be wielded by the Chairman of our National Committee on Rural Scouting, Wheeler McMillen, who as the Editor-in-chief of the Farm Journal and the Pathfinder Magazine, has a host of friends throughout America.
Mr. McMillen, will you take over?
McMILLEN: I feel honored to join you fine men, who represent so many aspects of modern farm life. We all have one thing in common—we want that boy who lives on the farm to have a good break. Some of us believe that the Scouting program can play a big part in his growth.
We should face this whole question objectively and constructively. Let’s start by asking a rather blunt question: Do rural boys really need Scouting? Or is their normal life already filled with the ingredients which make for character and good citizenship?
VERNON NICHOLS, SCOUTMASTER: They need it very much. Scouting not only builds character, but it helps especially in developing leadership, a quality often lacking in farm boys.
HOWARD F. FOX, SUPERVISOR, VOCATIONAL AGRICULTURE: The boys who live in small towns need Scouting, but I think those who live on farms need it in less degree.
JOE C. CARRINGTON, COUNCIL PRESIDENT: I can’t agree with Mr. Fox. Farm boys need it even more than town boys, who have more supervised playgrounds, more church and school and club-sponsored programs. The rural boy has very little to round out his life, and really needs Scouting.
L. H. ELEAZER, CUBMASTER: Perhaps the elements are there on the farm, but Scouting can help bring them out. Sometimes when a man is close to a thing, he doesn’t see it in its real light. Also, all rural boys do not stay on the farms where they were reared. These boys need much of the same kind of training their city brothers get.
CARRINGTON: That raises a good point—when the rural boy moves to town, he very often has no entering wedge into the youth programs there. But if he is a Scout in the rural area he can transfer his membership and make a transition which would have been difficult without Scouting. Its universality is an important feature.