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GIRL SCOUTS

THEIR WORKS, WAYS AND PLAYS

"_Be Prepared_"

[Illustration: Cover]

[Illustration: Girl Scout Logo]

GIRL SCOUTS
Incorporated
NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
189 Lexington Avenue
New York City

_Series No. 5_




GIRL SCOUTS


MOTTO

"_Be Prepared_"


[Illustration: Girl Scout Logo]


SLOGAN

"_Do A Good Turn Daily_"


PROMISE

          On My Honor, I Will Try:
    To do my duty to God and to my Country
    To help other people at all times
    To obey the Scout Laws


LAWS

       I A Girl Scout's Honor is to be trusted.

      II A Girl Scout is loyal.

     III A Girl Scout's Duty is to be useful and to help others.

      IV A Girl Scout is a friend to all, and a sister to every
           other Girl Scout.

       V A Girl Scout is Courteous.

      VI A Girl Scout is a friend to Animals.

     VII A Girl Scout obeys Orders.

    VIII A Girl Scout is Cheerful.

      IX A Girl Scout is Thrifty.

       X A Girl Scout is Clean in Thought, Word and Deed.




GIRL SCOUTS

Their Works, Ways and Plays


The Girl Scouts, a National organization, is open to any girl who
expresses her desire to join and voluntarily accepts the Promise and
the Laws. The object of the Girl Scouts is to bring to all girls the
opportunity for group experience, outdoor life, and to learn through
work, but more by play, to serve their community. Patterned after the
Girl Guides of England, the sister organization of the Boy Scouts, the
Girl Scouts has developed a method of self-government and a variety of
activities that appear to be well suited to the desires of the girls
as the 60,000 registered Scouts and the 5,000 new applicants each
month testify.


Activities

The activities of the Girl Scouts may be grouped under five headings
corresponding to five phases of women's life today:

      I. The Home-maker.
     II. The Producer.
    III. The Consumer.
     IV. The Citizen.
      V. The Human Being.


I. _Woman's most ancient way of service--the home-maker, the nurse,
and the mother._ The program provides incentives for practicing
woman's world-old arts by requiring an elementary proficiency in
cooking, housekeeping, first aid, and the rules of healthful living
for any Girl Scout passing beyond the Tenderfoot stage. Of the forty
odd subjects for which Proficiency Badges are given, more than
one-fourth are in subjects directly related to the services of woman
in the home, as mother, nurse or homekeeper. Into this work so often
distasteful because solitary is brought the sense of comradeship. This
is effected partly by having much of the actual training done in
groups. Another element is the public recognition, and rewarding of
skill in this, woman's most elementary service to the world, usually
taken for granted and ignored.

The spirit of play infused into the simplest and most repetitious of
household tasks banishes drudgery. "Give us, oh give us," says
Carlyle, "a man who sings at his work. He will do more in the same
time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. Wondrous is the
strength of cheerfulness; altogether past comprehension its power of
endurance."


II. _Woman, the producer._ Handicrafts of many sorts enter into the
program of the Girl Scouts. In camping girls must know how to set up
tents, build lean-tos, and construct fire-places. They must also know
how to make knots of various sorts to use for bandages, tying parcels,
hitching, and so forth. Among the productive occupations in which
Proficiency Badges are awarded are bee-keeping, dairying and general
farming, gardening, weaving and needlework.


III. _Woman, the consumer._ One of the features in modern economics
which is only beginning to be recognized is the fact that women form
the consuming public. There are very few purchases, even for men's own
use, which women do not have a hand in selecting. Practically the
entire burden of household buying in all departments falls on the
woman. In France this has long been recognized and the women of the
middle classes are the buying partners and bookkeepers in their
husbands' business. In America the test of a good husband is that he
brings home his pay envelope unopened, a tacit recognition that the
mother controls spending. The Girl Scouts encourage thrifty habits and
learning economy of buying in all of its activities. One of the ten
Scout Laws is that "A Girl Scout is Thrifty."


IV. _Woman, the citizen._ The basic organization of the Girl Scouts
into the self-governing unit of a Patrol is in itself an excellent
means of political training. Patrols and Troops conduct their own
meetings and the Scouts learn the elements of parliamentary law.
Working together in groups they realize the necessity for democratic
decisions. They also come to have community interests of an impersonal
sort. This is perhaps the greatest single contribution of the Scouts
toward the training of girls for citizenship. Little boys play
together and not only play together, but with men and boys of all
ages. The interest of baseball is not confined to any one age. The
rules of the game are the same for all, and the smallest boy's
judgment on the skill of the players may be as valid as that of the
oldest fan. Girls have had in the past no such common interests. Their
games have been either solitary or in very small groups in activities
largely of a personal character. If women are to be effective in
modern political society, they must have from very earliest youth
gregarious interests and occupations.


V. _Woman, the human being._ Political economy was for a long time
known as the "dead science" and was quite ineffective socially. This
was largely because it attempted to split man, the human being, into
theoretical units such as "the producer," or "the consumer." In the
same way many organizations for women have died because they have not
remembered that woman is first of all a human being. Thus nearly all
institutions for women, even those supposedly purely educational in
character, have existed to shelter her from the world, or to segregate
her, or have been designed to make her into a good servant or to
"finish" her for society. The activities of the Girl Scouts have been
selected on quite a different plan. They have not been designed for
women as women, but for women as human beings. Real work may be
followed with a great deal of enjoyment provided it is creative and
awakens the instinct of workmanship. But it is when at play that a
human being realizes his own nature the most fully. So dancing, sports
of all kinds, hiking, camping, boating, athletics and story-telling
are encouraged not only as a means of recreation and for physical
development, but are made a basic part of the Girl Scout program.


Methods

The activities of the Girl Scouts are, of course, not peculiar to this
organization. Every one of them is provided for elsewhere, in schools,
clubs, and societies. But the way in which they are combined and
co-ordinated about certain basic principles is peculiar to the Girl
Scouts.

In the first place all these activities have a common motive which is
preparation for a fuller life for the individual, not only in her
personal, but in her social relations. It is believed that the habits
formed and the concrete information acquired in these activities both
contribute to the girls being ready to meet intelligently most of the
situations that are likely to arise in their later life. This concept
is expressed in the Girl Scouts Motto--"Be Prepared."

The method of preparation followed is that found in nature whereby
young animals and birds _play_ at doing all the things they will need
to do well when they are grown and must feed and fend for themselves
and their babies.

To play any game one must know the rules, so the Girl Scouts have Laws
that they believe cover most of the needs of the Game of Life.

    The Girl Scouts Laws are ten:

       I A Girl Scout's Honor is to be trusted.

      II A Girl Scout is loyal.

     III A Girl Scout's Duty is to be useful and to help others.

      IV A Girl Scout is a friend to all, and a sister to every
           other Girl Scout.

       V A Girl Scout is Courteous.

      VI A Girl Scout is a friend to Animals.

     VII A Girl Scout obeys Orders.

    VIII A Girl Scout is Cheerful.

      IX A Girl Scout is Thrifty.

       X A Girl Scout is Clean in Thought, Word and Deed.

These Laws are known by all Girl Scouts, but the _Promise_ to obey
them is made only after they are understood and voluntarily accepted.
The Promise summarizes the Laws and is:

          On My Honor, I Will Try:
    To be true to God and my country
    To help others at all times
    To obey the Scout Laws

The heart of the Laws is helpfulness and so the Scouts have a
_Slogan_: Do a Good Turn Daily. By following this in letter and spirit
helpfulness becomes second nature.

Because the Girl Scouts are citizens they know and respect the meaning
of the flag, and one of the first things they learn is the Pledge:

I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the republic for which it
stands; one nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.


_Organization and Drill._ Some observers have criticized the Girl
Scout organization because of its apparent military character. It is
true that the girls wear a uniform of khaki, and are grouped in
Patrols, corresponding to the "fours" in the Army; that they salute,
and learn simple forms of drill and signalling. But the reason they do
this is because the military organization happens to be the oldest
form of organization in the world, and it works. It is the best way
men have found of getting a number of persons to work together.
Following directions given to a group is quite a different matter from
doing something alone, and most of us need special training in this. A
group of eight has been found to work the best because it is the
largest number that can be handled by a person just beginning to be a
leader, and moreover elementary qualities of leadership seem to exist
in just about the proportion of one in eight. It is probably on this
account that children take so kindly to the form--rather than because
of any