When we as Scouts gather today on 23rd April, in various places around the world, we do so to pay tribute to St. George, as we make again our Scout Promise.
Lord Baden-Powell chose St. George as the Scout movement’s role model because of the qualities and values that St. George stands for.
According to the legend, George was a knight who went into battle against the dangerous and evil dragon to save a princess whom the dragon wanted to eat. He fought the dragon and killed it. He did not do this to get honour and glory, nor to get half the kingdom and the princess promised as a reward to whoever could slay the dragon, he did it because it was the right thing to do and he rode on into the world without claiming his reward.
In doing so, he came to stand as a role model and a symbol of some of the things that we as scouts should stand for, courage, strength, orderliness, honesty, and doing what is right, without expecting to get something for doing it.
The dragon became something we associate with evil, bad and dangerous, something which must be fought.
Now today, there are not big dangerous dragons that need to be killed, or princesses that need to be saved but many of us humans have little dragons inside ourselves, dragons that have to be fought every day and we all know some of them. For children, it might be the teasing that makes you tease someone else until that person gets upset, or the disobedience that makes you not listen to what your parents say. It can also be the bad dragon that makes you harm animals or other people.
Adults also have some dragons to fight and very often they are so big and dangerous that they do great harm to other people. Just think of all the people who have had to leave their homes due to wars in the world.
Now if all of us Scouts stand together all over the world and try to fight these dragons and also continue to do this as adults, then we are on our way to making the world a better place to live in, just as our founder Baden-Powell told us to do.
Always remember, together we are strongest.
The WFIS Steering Committee wish you all a very good St. George’s Day.
