Years ago, soon after the Boy Scouts were first started, certain critics accused the movement of being a military one. Whenever anything new is started there are bound to be people who get up on their hind legs to find fault with it, often before they know what it is all about. In this case they said that the Scout movement was designed to teach the boys to be soldiers, and quoted in, proof that the crest of the movement was, as they described it: “A spear-head, the emblem of battle and bloodshed.” I was asked by cable what I had to say about it. I telegraphed back: “The crest is the fleur-de-lys, a lily, the emblem of peace and purity.”
_______
Lessons from the Varsity of life, 1933
The actual meaning to be read from the fleur-de-lis badge is that it points in the right direction (and upwards) turning neither to the right nor left, since these lead backward again
