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“Be prepared.” The Boy Scout motto. Clear, declarative, strong enough to stand for 100 years -- which the Boy Scouts of America does today.

According to a half-century-old “Boy Scout Handbook,” the motto harkens back to the days of chivalry, when the motto of knights was, “Be always ready.”

The idea is that a Scout is a modern knight. The young citizen -- citizenship is central to Scouting ideals -- is expected to keep himself strong, learn to meet emergencies and never let himself be taken by surprise.

The allusion to knighthood could well be true. The Boy Scouts of America were incorporated Feb. 8, 1910. Chicago publisher W.D. Boyce was the founder. But the roots of the movement trace back to England, where Lord Robert Baden-Powell started the Boy Scouts in 1907.

Scouting legend has it that when Baden-Powell was asked, “Be prepared for what?” he replied, “Why, for any old thing.”

Boyce brought Scouting to America because he was not prepared to navigate a London fog. The year was 1909 and London was pea-soup deep in mist that had virtually stopped traffic. Boyce, in England on business, had stopped under a light post to orient himself so he could find a downtown office address. Out of the fog, a boy appeared.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“I wish you’d tell me how to get to this address ...”

“I’ll take you there.”

After arriving at the office, Boyce reached into his pocket to get a tip for the boy. The American was gently rebuffed.

“No, thank you, sir,” the youngster said with a salute. “I am a Scout, and a Scout does not take anything for helping someone.”

Boyce had witnessed a basic tenant of Scouting in action: Do a good turn daily.

Curious about this Scouting organization, Boyce had the boy take him to the headquarters of the British Boy Scouts, where the publisher met the general who had founded the movement.

The boy departed before Boyce learned his name, but he is immortalized with a statue of an American buffalo at the International Boy Scout Training Center at Gilwell Park, England.

On the statue’s base, these words are inscribed: To the unknown Scout whose faithfulness in the performance of the daily good turn brought the Scout movement to the United States of America.

The “Boy Scout Handbook” reflects on that singular act this way: “One good turn to one man became a good turn to millions of American boys. Such is the power of the good turn. You can never tell ...”

Way to go, guys. One hundred years young and still going strong.