Title: Scouting for Girls - Adapted from Girl Guiding
Author: Baden-Powell, Baron Robert Stephenson Smyth
Language: English
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SCOUTING FOR GIRLS

Adapted from Girl Guiding

by

SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL
K.C.B., K.C.V.O., LL.D.

Author of “Scouting for Boys,” etc.



New York
1918

Copyright, 1918, by
Juliette Low



EXPLANATION


_Girl Scouting has a double meaning. To some it means the fun of
playing the games of the Girl Scouts; to others, the fun of “playing
the game” in Scouting Girls. Our desire in producing this Scout scheme
is to offer help to parents, teachers, and patriots who may care to
avail themselves of it when it comes to the duty of training girls._

_The object of the Scout training is to give our girls, whatever may be
their circumstances, a series of healthy and jolly activities which,
while delighting them, will afford them a course of education outside
the school in four particular lines of which there is the greatest
need:_

    1. _CHARACTER AND INTELLIGENCE, through games,
    practices and activities, and honours and tests for
    promotion._

    2. _SKILL AND HANDCRAFT, encouraged through badges for
    proficiency._

    3. _SERVICE FOR OTHERS and FELLOWSHIP, through daily
    good turns, organised public service, etc._

    4. _PHYSICAL HEALTH and HYGIENE, through development
    up to standard by games and exercises designed for the
    purpose._

_I have ventured to describe the above as a course of_ education
_instead of a course of_ instruction _since the girls are led to learn
of their own desire—which is education—instead of having the knowledge
impressed upon them from outside—which is instruction_.

_The Scouts are divided into four grades, to each of which a
corresponding Part of this book applies:_—

    _PART I._    _Brownies, under 11._
    _PART II._   _Scouts, 11 to 16._
    _PART III._  _Senior Scouts, over 16._
    _PART IV._   _Scouts, 18 to 81._

_The latter are what would otherwise be termed officers, but their
position is rather that of elder sisters reviving their youth by
playing among and leading the girls than of officers ordering them
about, or repressing them._

_In each grade the training runs on the same four lines as that shown
on the preceding paragraph, but on relatively higher standards at each
stage, according to the psychology of the girl concerned in it._

_Experience has shown that the scheme is easily applicable, even by
untrained leaders, to all kinds of girls, whether in town or country,
at home or overseas; and that it is capable of bringing about most
satisfactory results._

_This book merely offers an outline of principles, together with a
few samples of details as an indication to guiders of the lines on
which they can carry out the training. Further details are largely
left to their own ingenuity to devise, according to the condition and
character of their girls and of their surroundings._

_In any case the programme of the training should be kept as unlike a
school syllabus as possible in order to give it novelty and freshness._

_The book is worded in such a way that it can be studied by the girls
themselves in the different grades. The paragraphs in italics are more
particularly addressed to the Scouters. In conjunction with this book
the Book of Rules of the Association should be read, and where there
may be any difference in detail between the two the Book of Rules
should be taken as the guide, being more frequently under revision and,
therefore, up to date; and also the monthly_ GIRL SCOUTS’ GAZETTE.

_For further suggestions on the work of Scouters and their aims and
methods see Part IV. Perhaps the most important suggestion that I can
offer here to Scouters may be summed up in the motto:_—

    “Laugh while you work.”

[Illustration: Robert Baden-Powell]

    _January, 1918._



PART I

THE BROWNIES



CHAPTER I

BROWNIES


A BROWNIE is a household fairy who lives under and in the trees. This
is the reason that the Brownies badge is an acorn.

There are many kinds of Brownies, such as Sprites, Elves, Gnomes,
Fairies, Goblins, Pixies, Imps, Nymphs, Will-o’-the-wisps.

Have you ever seen a fairy ring? There are many in the woods and
sometimes in the garden—just a wide circle in the ground of rather
darker grass than the rest of the turf round about it. It is said to be
a track made by the Brownies who come together and dance on the grass
by moonlight, round a toadstool in the middle.

[Illustration: The Brownies’ Totem.]

So our Brownies have a toadstool as their Totem and they make their
ring around it. Like true fairies they can make their ring anywhere,
not only in the woods or out on the grass, but even in the town and in
a room.

When they come together they plant the toadstool in the center and
the Brownie captain (that is, the leader of the Pack) takes her place
by the toadstool. The Brownies then form a ring around her, the Elves
together (there must not be more than eight of them), the Goblins
together, the Fairies together, and so on.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: The Fairy Ring.]

For the Pow-wow (or Talking Ring) they stand close together, so that
their elbows are touching. It is called the Pow-wow Ring, or Talking
Ring, because they can hear the voice and the wise words of the Captain.

For the Dancing Ring they all join hands, and make the circle as wide
as they can reach.


The Promise

Any girl can become a Brownie who is under ten, and who does her best
to carry out the Promise of the Brownies.

This is the Promise:

    1. To be obedient.
    2. To help other people, especially those at home.


The Recruit Brownie

When a girl first joins the Brownies she is only a recruit like a boy
who joins the army, and before she can count as a real Brownie she must
know and understand the Promise, and what is more she must have carried
it out by doing a good turn in her own home.


The Pack

The Goblins go together, the Fairies go together and so on, each
forming a Pack. Some Packs are numbered like Girl Scout troops instead
of being named Fairy, Pixie, Elf, etc.


The Eight

The Captain or Leader of a pack is a grown-up person, and in each pack
there are several parties of eight under a Leader who is selected
if possible from a Girl Scout Patrol, and who is called a Brownie
Lieutenant.


Badge

Each Brownie Pack selects the leaf of any tree for its crest. This may
be a real leaf or any artificial one.

LIST OF TREES

    Oak
    Sycamore
    Elm
    Maple
    Pine
    Ash
    Chestnut
    Beech
    Willow
    Cedar
    Spruce
    Poplar
    Aspen
    Dogwood
    Laurel


Motto

BE PREPARED.

The Yell or Cry: LAH, LAH, LAH. It sounds nonsense but it is not,
because it means Lend a Hand, and LAH are the initials.

    L  A  H
    e     a
    n     n
    d     d

WAR CRY.

[Illustration: Music: We’re the Brownies. Here’s our aim: Lend a hand
and Play the Game.]


Uniform

    Middy Blouse         in khaki.
    Bloomers             ditto.
    Hat                  same as Girl Scout.
    Shoes and stockings  brown.
    Hair ribbon          brown.
    Badges               worn on arm.
    Crest                leaf of a tree worn on breast.


Tests

The Recruit

A Brownie must know:

    The Brownie’s Promise.
    The Salute.
    The Good Turn.
    The Motto.

and must be able to:

    Tie her hair ribbon.
    Wash dishes properly.
    Know how to sit tall.


To be Obedient

In the Brownie Pack every Brownie obeys the wishes of the leader. So
it is in our nation. The Americans are a very big pack, but they have
their one chief, the President. To be successful as an army in a battle
or as the team in a football match all should obey their captain. If
everybody started to play the game in his own way, there would be
confusion, and there could be no results. But if we “play the game”
according to orders our country will always be successful.

And in the same way, as a Brownie you must obey the Lieutenant of your
Eight.


The Good Turn

But now about the second promise, namely, to do a good turn to somebody
every day.

The Brownies and the Girl Scouts have a patent dodge of making
themselves happy. How do you suppose they do it?

By running about and playing at scouting games? By going out into camp?
By lighting fires and cooking their own grub? By tracking down animals,
and getting to know all about their ways?

Yes, they do all these things, and make themselves happy; but they have
a still better way than that. It is very simple. They do it by making
other people happy.

That is to say, every day they do a kindness to some one. It does not
matter who the person is (so long as it is not themselves), friend or
stranger, man or woman, or child.

And the kindness, or “good turn,” need not be a big thing. You can
generally get a chance of doing a little kindness in your own home,
such as helping your mother or a servant to do some little job about
the house; or you can, if away from home, help an old lady to carry
her parcel, or take a little child safely across the street, or do
something of that sort.

But whatever you do, you must not take any reward for doing it. If you
take money for it, it is not a good turn, but just a piece of work that
has been paid for.


The Brownies’ Smile

Brownies always smile, and if they are in difficulty, in pain, in
trouble, or in danger, they don’t cry, they just grin and bear it.


The Salute

When a Brownie shakes hands with another Brownie, or with a Girl Scout
or Boy Scout, she does so with the left hand. That is the secret sign
of brotherhood between them all.

Then also as a Brownie _you_ must understand and be able to make the
salute, which is done by holding up your hand with two fingers like
this:

[Illustration: How to salute.]

The Salute is another sign that you are a Brownie, even though you may
not be dressed in uniform, and that you recognize the person you are
saluting also as a Brownie.


Investiture of a Brownie

When a girl has passed her test as a recruit she is admitted into her
Eight as a Brownie, and she can then go on and pass her tests for a
Second Class Brownie.

The pack is formed up in the dancing ring, and the recruits stand in
the Pow-wow circle, with the Brownie Captain in the center.

The Brownie Captain says to the Recruit: “You have learnt what the
Brownies are, and how they owe their duty to be obedient, to help other
people, especially their own family, every day. What have you done to
help in your home?”

When the recruit has answered, the Brownie Captain again asks: “What is
your motto as a Brownie?”

“Be prepared.”

“Do you know that if you now make the Promise you must always stick to
it afterwards and do your best to carry it out? So do you still wish
to make it?” If the recruit is willing the Brownie Captain then says:
“Come to the Totem Pole and repeat your promise as a Brownie.”

The recruit, touching the Totem Pole with her left hand, and with her
right at the salute, then repeats the Brownie Promise. The Brownie
Captain then pins on her left breast the badge of her Eight, and says:
“You are now a Brownie, and wear the badge of the Eight. Will you
promise to try?”

The Brownie Captain then shakes hands, left handed with the Brownie.
The Brownie salutes with her right hand, faces about and salutes the
Pack, and then runs to join her Eight. Her Eight all shakes hands with
her, left-handed, to welcome her into the Eight.


Second Class Brownie

To become a Second Class Brownie you must:

    I. Intelligence.     Describe the flag of the United States.
                         Tie the following knots: Reef, Sheet, Bend,
                               Clove hitch and Fisherman’s.

   II. Handcraft.        Hem a duster or darn a stocking.
                         Do up a parcel.
                         Set a table for two for dinner.

  III. Service.          Bind up a cut finger or grazed knee.

   IV. Health.           Perform two physical exercises (which should
                               be selected by the Captain).
                         Know how and why you should keep your nails
                               cut and clean; why you should keep your
                               teeth clean and why breathe through the
                               nose.
                         Bowl a hoop or hop around a figure 8 course.
                         Throw a ball ten yards with right hand and
                               then with left hand.
                         Throw a ball so that a girl 6 yards away
                               catches it 4 times out of six.


Tying up a Parcel

The first duty of a parcel is to be neatly and strongly tied up so that
it does not come unfastened, but, poor thing, it cannot do this for
itself, so you have to do it a good turn by tying it up. Wrap it neatly
in strong paper.

Just as you tuck in the corners of the blankets on your bed to keep you
warm and snug, so the corners of the paper should be tidily folded at
the ends of a parcel and doubled over flat.

The string should be drawn quite tight, and have only small knots which
won’t slip. It is therefore most important that you should learn, as
Scouts do, how to tie knots properly.

When a parcel is going by post it gets thrown around a good deal and
has to stand a lot of banging about, so bear that in mind when you are
tying it up.

It is always wisest to write the name and address of the person to whom
you are sending the parcel on the parcel itself. Very often people
write this only on labels which they tie on, and then if this label
gets torn off at all, away goes the parcel to the dead letter office or
gets quite lost.


Hemming a Handkerchief

Double the edges twice, so that the rough edge of the square of linen
or muslin are well inside the turning. Then baste all around so as to
hold the turned edges in place, and so that they are the same width all
round.

Then hem it with neat, small stitches.


Darning Stockings

You can do many a good turn by darning.

Mind you get wool or thread the same color, and if possible of the same
thickness as the threads of the stockings you are going to darn.

You should put in your needle about an inch from the actual hole, and
push it up and down in straight lines, taking a thread and missing a
thread.

Then repeat this again criss-cross, leaving loops of the wool where you
turn, so that the new wool can shrink without tearing the stocking when
washed.


Setting a Table

Spread the table-cloth smoothly and evenly.

Put the knives, spoons, forks, and other things also exactly in place,
but before putting them there see that there is not a speck of dirt on
them, no finger marks or dust.

Although there is a regular way of setting a table, and all tables
look much alike when set, there is a great difference between one by
a Scout and set by any other girl. The Scout thinks for herself what
things will be needed for the meal, how many courses there will be, and
therefore how many knives, forks, and spoons, whether pepper will be
wanted or sugar, and puts them on the table accordingly. She uses her
wits as well as her hands.


Binding up a Finger or Knee

_A cut on the hand._ If anybody cuts his hand, and it is your job to
render first aid, the first thing to think about is how to stop the
bleeding. Remember, that just as important as stopping the bleeding is
the keeping of any sort of dirt from getting near the wound. Now dirt
here does not mean what you generally call dirt—mud and dust: it means
anything containing germs. Germs are tiny little insects, so small
that your eye can’t see them; if they get into a cut they may poison
it so that it festers and becomes really dangerous, ending, possibly,
in the loss of a finger or hand. The worst kind of germs are those
that come out of earth—such as garden mold, or mud from the road. They
cause a terrible disease known as lock-jaw, so great care should be
taken if any one gets a deep cut while gardening, for instance. But
any dust, or any soiled object may, and does, contain germs. So if
you are about to bandage a cut, find the very cleanest thing you can
think of to put next to the wound. The inside part of a clean, folded
handkerchief would probably be the best you could do, or failing this
the inside of a clean sheet of notepaper, or the inside of an envelope.
Having put something clean over the wound, you must add padding of some
sort—several handkerchiefs or pieces of rag. Then bind up very firmly
with tight, even pressure so as to stop the bleeding.

You can do this with strips of rag or a large, folded handkerchief.
Make the patient keep his hand raised, or put it in a sling, which you
can make from a scarf if you have one. Remember that your help is only
first aid: so take the patient to a grown-up person who will attend to
the wound more thoroughly, or take him to a doctor to be stitched up.

_A graze._ A graze is a bad scrape which has taken the skin off, and is
usually covered with dirt—grit off the road, and so on. It will not be
bleeding much, as a rule. The treatment should be to wash it well with
clean warm water, soaking it till the dirt comes away, and clean it
with little swabs of wool or cloth. When all the grit is removed cover
the graze with a clean piece of rag. Bandage firmly, but not tight
enough to be uncomfortable.


Nails

In the Japanese army, where soldiers keep themselves very clean, they
have the order that before eating a meal they must always wash their
hands, and they must at no time allow their nails to be dirty. It is
believed that it is this rule which has prevented a great deal of
illness among the soldiers.

[Illustration: Toe-nail cutting. Right. Wrong.]

The reason for it is that these poisonous little germs, which float
about in the air, live on dirt and are very liable to get on to your
hands and to hide under your fingernails, therefore you should always
be careful to keep these clean, especially before handling your food.
Nails, both on fingers and toes, should be kept properly trimmed with
scissors.

Soldiers as well as other people, very often suffer lameness and great
pain from the nail of their big toe growing down into the toe at one
side.


Toe-nail Cutting

This is often caused by letting the nail grow too long until by the
pressure of the shoe, it is driven to grow sideways into the toe. So
you should be careful to cut your toe-nails frequently every week or
ten days, and they should be cut square across the top, not rounded,
and with sharp scissors.

Finger nails should also be cut about once a week to keep them in good
order. They can be rounded to the shape of the finger to prevent the
corners catching and getting torn.

Biting the nails is very bad for them.


Teeth

There is no part of you that poisonous germs attack more readily than
your teeth. They get in between them and burrow inside them, and bring
about that awful pain known as toothache, and the teeth decay and have
to be pulled out; and consequently your food after that does not get
properly chewed.

But you can prevent this for yourself if you take the trouble to clean
your teeth properly, and to brush and wash away these germs out of your
mouth.

The first thing is to have a toothbrush. This you can buy for a few
cents at any drugstore. If you cannot afford to buy one you can at any
rate make one for yourself. There are no drug stores in the wilds of
Africa, and yet the natives there have splendid teeth, and they keep
them clean by continually brushing them after every meal with little
brushes made out of bits of stick.

They take a short stick and hammer the end of it until it is all frayed
out like a paint brush. It is a brush that any Brownie can make for
herself in a few minutes. The thing is not to forget to use it every
morning and every evening, when you get up and before going to bed, and
also if possible after your midday meal.

[Illustration]

Attack those germs with a brush and get them out from their hiding
places between and behind the teeth, and wash them out with mouthfuls
of water, so that they don’t get a chance of burrowing and destroying
your grinders.

In pioneer days when the Indians scalped people they seized them by
the hair growing on the crown of the head, which they called the scalp
lock. A very good way to stand tall and sit tall is to imagine a string
tied to your scalp lock, drawing you up to the ceiling or the sky, and
all the rest of you, both inside and out, will fall into good position.
It is quite painless, so try it.


Games and Practices


A strict obedience to the rules of a game, good temper, pluck and
honest, unselfish play count as much as skill in playing.

A Scout always shakes hands when she loses a game and congratulates the
winner.


Day and Night

The players divide into two parties and form in two lines, back to
back, about three paces apart. One of the lines is named the “Day
Party,” the other the “Night Party.” The leader has a disk painted
black on one side and a white on the other. (A coin may be used instead
of the disk.) In front of each party is a goal. The leader throws the
disk into the air. If the disk alights with the white side up the
leader calls “Day.” The “Day Party” then rushes toward its goal and the
“Night Party” pursues, tagging as many players of the “Day Party” as
possible. These they take back to their own line. The disk is thrown
again, and the party whose side turns up starts for their goal as
before. The game continues in this way until all the players on one of
the sides are lost.


Dodge Ball

Of any even number of players, half form a circle, while the other half
stand inside the ring, facing outward. The players in the center dodge
the ball, which, while in play, is thrown by any of those forming the
circle. Those who are hit with the ball take their places among those
around the circle, and have an equal chance at those remaining in the
center. One is put out at a time. This is kept up until no one is left
in the circle, after which the players exchange places, that is, those
who were in the circle now form around the circle, and vice versa.


Cross Tag

Any player who is chased may be relieved by any other player running
between her and the one trying to tag her. The latter must then run
after the player who ran between, till she in turn is relieved.


Sculptor

One of the players is chosen as the “Sculptor” and she arranges the
other players in different positions and attitudes as statues. No
player dares move or speak, for as soon as she does the sculptor
punishes her by beating her with a knotted handkerchief or towel,
called the “sack-beetle.” After having arranged the players to suit her
fancy the sculptor leaves the playground, saying: “The sculptor is not
at home.” No sooner is she gone than the statues come to life, sing,
dance, jump and play havoc in general. On the return of the sculptor
she counts, “One, two, three,” and any player who is not in her former
posture at “three” receives a beating with the knotted handkerchief
from the sculptor. Should the sculptor punish the wrong statue all the
players rush at her with knotted handkerchiefs and drive her to a goal
previously decided upon, and the game is resumed with some other player
as sculptor.


Inventory Game

Let each girl go into a room for half a minute and when she comes out
let her make a list of what she has seen. Then compare lists to find
who has seen the most.


Testing Noses

This is easiest with the competitors blindfolded. Let them smell
different things and tell what they are. Also the objects may be placed
in bags but this means much more work.


Three Deep

Twenty-four or more players form a circle of pairs with space enough
between the players (who stand closely one behind the other, facing
the center of the circle) to allow the runners to turn and run in all
directions. Two players on the outside of the circle and at a distance
from each other begin the game. One of these is called the “tagger,”
the other is “It.” She tries to tag “It” before she can secure a place
in front of any of the pairs forming the circle. If she succeeds, the
player who has been tagged then becomes the “tagger” and the former
“tagger” tries to secure a place in front of some pair. But whenever
the runner (the player pursued) has succeeded in getting in front of
a pair before being tagged, then the hindmost (the last or third in
the respective rank) must take to her heels and seek to evade the
unsuccessful “tagger,” who now turns her attention to the runner.
In trying to evade a tagger the successive player may run in any
direction, either left or right, outside the circle, but not pass in
front of any one rank to another rank in such a manner as to induce
wrong starts. A hindmost player may also form in front of his own rank,
making the second player in such rank hindmost or “third.” The play is
always directed against the third or last of a rank, two players being
the number limited to each place.

(When numbers of players in the beginning are too large the circle may
be formed by rows or ranks of threes, instead of twos or pairs.)

Expert players may form several circles and run from circle to circle,
two pairs playing simultaneously. The above play may be varied in a
number of ways.


Chasing an Owl

Another good stalking game is chasing the owl. This is done in thick
woods where one Scout represents the owl hooting at intervals and then
moving to one side for a distance. Each pursuer when seen is called out
of the game, and the owl, if a real good one, may get safely back to
her stump.


Turkey and Wildcat

This is played by the turkey blindfolded “going to roost” in some place
where there are plenty of twigs or dry leaves to crack and rustle.
At the first sound the turkey jumps. If not then within reach of
one wildcat, she is safe and another wildcat has a chance. This is
sometimes very laughable for the turkey being blindfolded may jump
right on the wildcat.


Walking the Plank

Lay on the ground a couple of boards edgewise with an apple or small
prize on the ground at the end of the board for the Brownie who can
walk the plank, squat or stoop and pick up the prize, turn round and
bring it safely back again.

(This practice is most valuable in producing concentration of mind and
action—the effort of body-balance develops mental balance.)


Stepping-Stones

Put down small bits of board, or cardboard (nailed to the ground) or
mark on the ground a twisty line of stepping stones as if for crossing
a brook—some close together, others far apart. Each Brownie to try the
course in turn, two tries. In the second try she carries in her hand
a board about eight inches square on which is a small ball which, of
course, must not be dropped.

(Object similar to that of “Walking the Plank.”)


First Class Brownie

These are what you have to do to become a First Class Brownie.

    I. Intelligence.    Know the semaphore alphabet and know how to
                               send and read 3 letters out of 4
                               correctly.
                        Know how to count change of a dollar.
                        Know first and last stanzas of Star-Spangled
                               Banner.
                        Know how to tell time by watch.

   II. Handcraft.       Know eight points of compass.
                        Knit scarf or make sewing bag, or make and
                               dress a paper doll.
                        Clean knives, forks and spoons.

  III. Service.         Carry a message and remember it for five
                               minutes and deliver it correctly.
                        Fold clothes neatly.

   IV. Health.          Apply triangular bandage.
                        Perform five physical exercises.


THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

  Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
    What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
  Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
    O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
  And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
    Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

  CHORUS:

  ’Tis the star-spangled banner, Oh! long may it wave
  O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

  On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
    Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
  What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep
    As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
  Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
    In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream.

  Oh! thus be it e’er when freemen shall stand
    Between their loved homes and war’s desolation;
  Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heaven rescued land
    Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation,
  Then, conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
    And this be our motto, “In God is our trust.”


MY COUNTRY, ’TIS OF THEE

    My country! ’tis of thee,
      Sweet land of liberty,
    Of thee I sing:
      Land where my fathers died!
    Land of the Pilgrim’s pride!
      From every mountain side
    Let freedom ring.

    My native country, thee,
      Land of the noble free,
    Thy name I love;
      I love Thy rocks and rills,
    Thy woods and templed hills;
      My heart with rapture thrills,
    Like that above.

    Let music swell the breeze,
      And ring from all the trees
    Sweet freedom’s song;
      Let mortal tongues awake,
    Let all that breathe partake,
      Let Rocks their silence break,
    The sound prolong.

    Our Father’s God, to Thee,
      Author of Liberty,
    To Thee we sing;
      Long may our land be bright
    With freedom’s holy light;
      Protect us by Thy might,
    Great God, our King!



How to Change a Dollar

American money is divided into

      Cents, which are made of copper.
    5 cent pieces, commonly called nickels (made of base metal).
   10 cents, commonly called a dime (made of silver).
   25 cents, commonly called a quarter (silver).
   50 cents, or half a dollar (silver).
  100 cents make a dollar, which is sometimes made of paper and
            sometimes made of silver.

After you learn to count money up to one hundred cents or one dollar,
it is easy to handle larger sums, such as five dollars, ten dollars.

The abbreviation for cents is cts. or ¢.

The abbreviation for dollar is this sign: $.

The monogram of the United States, “U. S.,” makes the dollar sign if
you leave off the bottom of the U.



Reading the Compass

Some time ago some wild Australian natives were taken for a voyage on
a ship. They had always been accustomed to finding their way by tracks
on the ground, so when they got to sea they wondered how the Captain
of the ship found his way across the trackless ocean and they kept a
look-out in the bow looking over in the water to see if they could
discover the footmarks or signs by which the Captain was finding his
way, till at last they went to him and said, “How do you manage it?”
So the Captain showed them the compass which told him which way was
north, which south, east and west, and that by reading the compass,
and reading his map with it, he was able to go into strange parts of
the world without ever having been there before, but always able to
find his way because he knew which way was north by the compass. He
marked the points of the compass on his map and by comparing the map
and the compass it led him north, south, east, or west. And so it is
also necessary for a Girl Scout or a Brownie to know the points of the
compass, because at any time you may be told to go off to the north or
to the south with a message, or you want to know which way the wind is
blowing, whether it is a north wind which is going to bring cold or
an east wind, rain, and so on. But how can you do this if you do not
know which is the south or which is the north? When you have not got a
compass it is quite easy to judge this by the sun. The sun gets up in
the east and sets in the west and in the middle of the day it is due
south of you if you are in the northern part of the world. A Brownie
must understand this and the different points of the compass before she
can be considered a good useful messenger.



Clean Knives, Forks and Spoons

Use very hot water for first cleaning them to get off the grease. That
is the secret of success. Rinse them and use dry clean towels. But mind
you do not put the white handles of knives in the water, because they
are apt to crack if you do so.



Make Doll’s Clothes or Brownie’s Overall

In Australia there is a school where the boys were taught farming, but
the first thing that a boy had to do when he got there was to make
his own saddle and bridle for riding a horse. He was only allowed to
use that same saddle during the rest of his time at the school, some
three or four years, so if he did not make it neatly and well, he was
the laughing-stock of the other boys for the rest of his time. And it
is much the same with the Brownies. They are given directions how to
make their clothes but if they make them badly, well then they will be
ashamed of them for the rest of their time as Brownies. So be careful
to listen to all that is told you as to how you should make the things
and then make them as well as you possibly can.



Knitting

Of course you can do knitting either with a machine or with knitting
needles by hand, but I strongly advise doing it by hand for though
it is a little bit more difficult to learn at first it is much more
pleasing afterwards. By being able to knit you can do good turns to
other people very often indeed. All people, men and women, are glad to
have warm things made for them in winter time, and by being able to
knit a Brownie can lend a hand and give great happiness to other people.



Fold Clothes Neatly

A soldier or sailor on going to bed always puts his clothes neatly in
some spot where he can find them readily in the dark and slip into them
quickly in the case of alarm. And so also Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
do the same, because you never know when an accident may happen; the
house may be on fire, or a thief may break in, and you may want your
clothes suddenly in the dark. If you have them already folded in their
place, you can readily find them and be quickly dressed. But if your
clothes are lying all over the place it is impossible to find them in
the dark. But there is another reason also for keeping your clothes
neatly folded. And that is that they last much longer when properly
taken care of, and always look neat, instead of getting baggy, worn and
thread-bare. No true Brownie ever leaves her clothes lying about in an
untidy way.



To Carry a Message in Your Head

Scouts and Brownies are very often employed as messengers and have done
very good work. That is why so many of them have won War Service badges
in the Great War. And the reason they are used is because they remember
what is told them, carry it in their heads and deliver it properly. A
Brownie learns her message by heart as soon as it is given to her, and
repeats it to the person who gives it; then she keeps on repeating it
while she goes along, and remembers that all the time she is going she
is on duty, and therefore it is her business not to stop and loiter
and look at other things, but to get her duty done. In this way her
attention fixed on her work she can always deliver her message at the
end of the journey quite correctly as she got it in the first instance.



Applying a Triangular Bandage

This is a thing that every Brownie ought to know how to do. It looks
quite easy when you see other people do it, but it is most important
that you should know how to do it yourself, and to do it correctly,
because when people are injured it is necessary for a Brownie to keep
her head and to be able to put on the bandage so that it will do real
good, and not merely look like a good bandage.

There are a great many ways of applying the triangular bandage. When
you become a Scout you will learn these. At present the three most
useful ways are given you, and as you only have three to learn you will
be expected to apply these really well. The large arm-sling is used to
support the forearm and hand. This is how you put it on. Open out the
triangular bandage, lay it across the patient’s chest so that the point
comes under the elbow of the injured arm. One of the ends will then be
over the good shoulder. Take hold of the other end and bring it up over
the bad shoulder, round the neck, and tie it in a square or reef knot.
Then fold the point over the elbow and pin it neatly.

To apply a triangular bandage to a sprained ankle, fold it into what is
called a “wide bandage.” This means bring the point down to the base,
then fold it once again.

[Illustration: Wide Bandage]

Apply the middle of this to the sole of the patient’s foot, bring
the two ends up and cross the bandage firmly over the instep (or top
of foot). Bring the ends round the ankle tightly, cross at the back,
bring up round again and tie in a square or reef knot. This bandage is
useless unless applied very firmly. A good way of insuring its getting
tighter instead of looser, after it is applied is to wet the bandage:
it will then shrink in drying and tighten the pressure evenly all over.



Proficiency Badges for Brownies

Now having won your First Class as a Brownie, you can go on and do
great things. You can earn badges to wear on your arms. Look at these
and see which you would like, and go in and win.

These are the Proficiency Badges for which First Class Brownies may
qualify. They are in four groups.

    Group   I.  INTELLIGENCE.
    Group  II.  HANDCRAFT.
    Group III.  SERVICE TO OTHERS.
    Group  IV.  PHYSICAL HEALTH.


Group I. Intelligence

_Collector._—For collecting stamps, medal ribbons, specimens, crests,
etc., or keeping a scrap-book. (Neatness of arrangement to count.)

[Illustration]

_Observer._—Study of animals, birds, plants, etc. Tracking and Kim’s
Game.

[Illustration]

_Signaler._—Elementary signaling with flags, etc., and scout signs.

[Illustration]


Group II. Handcraft

_Artist._—Drawing or painting or modeling. (Self-expression rather than
artistic merit to count.)

[Illustration]

_Weaver._—Knitting, netting, patch-work, basket-making.

[Illustration]

_Wood-Worker._—Chip carving, fretwork, or carpentry.

[Illustration]

Group III. Service for Others

_First Aider._—Know how to treat minor injuries and accidents.

[Illustration]

_Guide._—Must know how to show the way to strangers, and know where to
find Police Station, Fire Station, Doctor, etc., and know the history
of the place.

[Illustration]

_House Worker._—Make tea, peel potatoes, prepare vegetables, clean up,
make bed.

[Illustration]


Group IV. Physical Health

_Athlete._—Able to run, jump, climb, throw, and catch.

[Illustration]

_Swimmer._—Able to swim twenty-five yards, and float and dive in the
water.

[Illustration]

_Team Player._—For hockey, basket ball and other team games.

[Illustration]

Note:—The full details for these will be found in the Leaders’ Manual.



PART II

GIRL SCOUTS

(11 TO 18)



CHAPTER I

HOW TO BECOME A TENDERFOOT



THE SCOUT PROMISE

ON my honour I will try—

    TO DO MY DUTY TO GOD AND TO MY COUNTRY.
    TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE AT ALL TIMES.
    TO OBEY THE SCOUT LAW.



THE SCOUT LAW

     1. A Scout’s honor is to be trusted.
     2. A Scout is loyal.
     3. A Scout’s duty is to be useful and to help others.
     4. A Scout is a friend to all, and a sister to every other
            Girl Scout.
     5. A Scout is courteous.
     6. A Scout Keeps herself pure.
     7. A Scout is a friend to animals.
     8. A Scout obeys order.
     9. A Girl Scout is cheerful.
    10. A Scout is thrifty.


WHAT IS A GIRL SCOUT?

This is a Girl Scout.

She is in her uniform, wearing her badges of rank and awards for
proficiency.

[Illustration: A Girl Scout.]

The stripes on her left breast and the badge in her hat show that she
is a Patrol Leader—that is, she commands a group of seven other Scouts
who form the “Patrol.” She carries in her hand the flag of the Patrol.
The badge on her right breast is that for “War Service”—meaning that
she has done public service during the war.


What Do Girl Scouts Do?

Look on the cover and you will see that they are jolly people who enjoy
themselves, they are a happy sisterhood who do good turns to other
people.

[Illustration: As a Munition Worker.]

In Europe Girl Scouts are called Girl Guides and this is what they have
done abroad during the Great War.

In the towns they have helped at the Military Hospitals as assistants
to the ward-maids, cooks, and laundry women. In the Government offices,
such as the War Office, the Admiralty, and other great departments of
the State, they have acted as orderlies and messengers. They have taken
up work in factories, or as motor-drivers, or on farms, in order to
release men to go to the front.

At home and in their club-rooms they have made bandages for the
wounded, and warm clothing for the men at the Front and in the Fleet.

    (S.T. stands for “Stand tall and Sit tall”)

In the country they have collected eggs for the sick, and on the moors
have gathered sphagnum moss for the hospitals.

Over in France a great Recreation and Rest Hut for the soldiers has
been supplied by the Guides with funds earned through their work. It
is managed by Guide officers, or ex-Guides. Among the older Guides
there are many who have done noble work with the Hospitals at home and
overseas; there was one in particular who went through great adventures
in Serbia during the invasion of that country.

[Illustration: A Hostel Scout.]

At home in many of the great cities the Scouts have turned their
Headquarters’ Club-Rooms into “Hostels.” That is, they have made them
into small hospitals ready for taking in people injured in air-raids by
the enemy.

So altogether the Scouts have shown themselves to be a pretty useful
lot in many different kinds of works during the war, and, mind you,
they are only girls between the ages of 11 and 18. But they have done
their bit in the Great War as far as they were able, and have done it
well.

There are 64,000 of them, and they are very smart, and ready for any
job that may be demanded of them.

They were not raised for this special work during the war, for they
began some years before it, but their motto is “Be Prepared,” and it
was their business to train themselves to be ready for anything that
might happen, even the most unlikely thing.

[Illustration: Scout Orderly.]

So even when war came they were “all there” and ready for it.

It is not only in Great Britain that they have been doing this, but—in
Canada and Australia, West, East, and South Africa, New Zealand,
the Falkland Islands, West Indies, and India. The Scouts are a vast
sisterhood of girls, ready to do anything they can for their country
and Empire.

In this book I will show you as briefly as possible how you become a
Scout, and what you have to do to make yourself fit for service. And I
can tell you right off now that one thing you’ve got to do is to laugh
and enjoy it all; you can’t help doing so when you get into it.


What the Guides Do

As a Guide your first duty is to be helpful to other people, both in
small everyday matters and also under the worst of circumstances. You
have to imagine to yourself what sort of things might possibly happen,
and how you should deal with them when they occur. Then you will know
what to do.

[Illustration: Finding the Wounded.]

I was present when a German aeroplane dropped a bomb on to a railway
station in London. There was the usual busy scene of people seeing to
their luggage, saying good-bye and going off by train, when with a
sudden bang a whole car was blown to bits, and the adjoining ones were
in a blaze; seven or eight of those active in getting into the train
were flung down—mangled and dead; while some thirty more were smashed,
broken, and bleeding, but still alive. The suddenness of it made it all
the more horrifying. But one of the first people I noticed as keeping
their heads was a smartly dressed young lady kneeling by an injured
working-man; his thigh was smashed and bleeding terribly; she had
ripped up his trouser with her knife, and with strips of it had bound
a pad to the wound; she found a cup somehow and filled it with water
for him from the overhead hose for filling engines. Instead of being
hysterical and useless, she was as cool and ready to do the right thing
as if she had been in bomb-raids every day of her life. Well, that is
what any girl can do if she only prepares herself for it.

[Illustration: Binding up Injuries.]

Long before there was any idea of the war the Scouts had been taught to
think out and to practise what they should do supposing such a thing as
war happened in their own country, or that people should get injured
by bombs or by accidents in their neighbourhood.

In order to be able to deal with such cases the first thing that you
have to know is how to go out in the country and find the wounded
by following their tracks to where they have crawled away to hide
themselves or get water; you must know how to bind up their wounds
temporarily; how to light a fire and boil up some hot soup, or
fomentations for their injuries; you must be able to signal to other
Scouts in the distance in order to call up help; you must be able
to make a shelter out of the brush-wood around you, or to rig up a
stretcher or means of carrying the injured on carts or barrows and so
to get them in to hospital.

Then you have to know how to turn a room or a cellar into a ward, how
to make up beds and apparatus for the use of the sick and wounded; how
to nurse them; how to change their bandages; how to cook their food;
what sort of ventilation is necessary; how to wash the linen and so on.


Convalescent Nursing

Finally there comes the convalescent stage when your patients are
getting better, and you have to give them more nourishing food, cooked
in a tempting manner, and you have to keep their minds active and
cheerful by being able to read or sing to them, and so to cheer them
back to life.

These are things which have to be learnt in peace-time, and because
they were learnt by the Scouts beforehand, these girls were able to do
their bit so well when war came.

[Illustration: Cheering them back to life.]



Frontier Life

But they have to Be Prepared for many other things besides sickness. It
falls to the lot of very many girls to take up life Overseas, and very
often it is a rough life, and one full of adventures and romance.

But although this sounds nice in books and stories it is no fun for
a girl who has had everything done for her at home, to find herself
stranded in an outlandish place with no one available to help her, no
water or gas laid on, no shops, or bakers, no cooks, no doctors.

[Illustration]

She has to do everything for herself. This is where so many women, who
had charge of ambulances in Serbia and other countries during the war,
came out so splendidly, doing everything for themselves, and showing
the greatest possible courage and handiness in the difficulties and
dangers of active service.

    (S.T.)

A story which should appeal with special force to Girl Scouts is that
of Emilienne Moreau.

She is a French girl, and was living at Loos where the heavy fighting
took place in October, 1915.

When the Germans took the place and held it, after their retreat from
the Marne a year before, she, with her family, remained there and made
the best of things under the German occupation.

She lived with her aged father and invalid mother, a sister, and a
small brother of ten.

The father, broken in health and spirits by the presence of the hated
Germans, died. Loos was practically empty of inhabitants, business was
at a standstill—it was impossible to get a coffin even in which to bury
the poor man.

So this girl, with the help of her young brother, got hold of some
planks and themselves made one for their father’s body.

[Illustration]

In September she noticed that the German garrison of the place were
getting disturbed. More men were put into the town, and more defensive
works were made. Shells began to fall, and the firing to become more
intense day by day.

Instead of hiding in the cellar she climbed into the roof, where
through a hole in the tiles, she was able to see the fighting that
went on between the German defenders and the Highlanders who were
attacking.

For several days it continued, but the Scotsmen finally got into the
town and drove the Germans out from street to street with hand-to-hand
fightings.

In a hidden corner five Germans kept fighting our troops unseen until
this girl discovered their position.

She got hold of some hand-grenades and threw them in among them,
killing three of them. The two survivors attacked her with bayonets,
but she had armed herself with the revolver belonging to a dead British
officer, and as they came at her she turned it on them with quick and
steady aim and shot them both.

Then she went to work, regardless of the danger of rifle fire and
shrapnel, tending the wounded, rendering first-aid, bringing water and
blankets to them, thereby saving their lives and easing the pain of a
number of British soldiers.

[Illustration]

Our officers found her doing these things. She was personally thanked
and congratulated by the British general for her valuable assistance
to the medical staff, and for her courage and gallant help against
the enemy, and she was later on awarded the French Military Cross
“for valour on the field of battle.” Later we heard that Emilienne
Moreau was a French Girl Scout, and what this gallant French girl did,
her sister Girl Scouts in Britain would, I hope, also do in similar
circumstances.

But it could only be done when a girl has trained herself as the Scouts
do to be plucky, to be handy, to keep cool, to know what is the right
thing to do—and to do it at no matter what risk to herself.


Frontierswomen

I have met many fine frontierswomen in my time. In Matabeleland,
when the natives rose against us, Mrs. Selous, the wife of the great
elephant hunter, was alone in her home, thirty miles away from the
nearest town. Some natives living close by came and asked her for
the loan of as many axes as she could spare, as they wanted to chop
firewood. Shortly afterwards her husband, who had been away shooting,
came galloping in, and told her to saddle and mount her horse at once
and to get away as the natives were “up” and murdering the white
inhabitants.

[Illustration: A Frontier-woman’s Ride for Life.]

[Illustration]

Being a frontierswoman it did not take her long to catch and saddle
up her horse, and in a few minutes she and her husband had left their
home, and were riding for their lives towards Bulawayo. Before they
were out of sight of their house they could see smoke and flames
already issuing from it. The natives who had borrowed the axes had
done so with the object of murdering them, and finding that they had
escaped, were now wreaking their vengeance on their property. It was
just Mrs. Selous’ promptness, cool-headedness, and ability to ride that
saved her life.

[Illustration]

Another woman at that time was similarly out on her farm, while her
husband was away in some other part of the country. The natives
surrounded her house in the night and attacked her faithful native
servants. Knowing her danger, she slept in her clothes, and realising
what was the matter when she heard the noise of the attack, she
seized her revolver and, slipping out of the house through a back
window, she escaped into the garden and hid herself behind a tombstone
there. In the early dawn the marauders departed, and she came out of
her hiding-place to find her home wrecked and her faithful servants
all killed. A relief party of white men soon after arrived from the
nearest township, and found her quite self-possessed and calm. The only
excitement she showed was her intense relief at the fact that one of
the attackers had seized her sewing machine and was making off with it
when he was killed by one of her men, and had dropped the machine at a
spot where it just escaped falling down the well. So she rode back to
Salisbury in triumph with her rescuers, clutching her beloved sewing
machine. She had no sooner reached safety than she discovered that she
had dropped her revolver, and she insisted on going back again to find
it. You might think that she could have got a new revolver in the town,
but that was not the question. The revolver was a favourite of hers,
because, although old and rather out of gear, she had once killed a
lion with it.

She had many other exciting adventures in Rhodesia which I have not
space to tell here, but she was a splendid type of what a London girl
can do when put to it in places of difficulty and danger, if only she
has trained herself.

    (S.T.)

The story of Laura Secord, the heroine of Canada, shows what a
frontierswoman may be called upon to do, and what she can do if only
she has Been Preparing herself in strength of mind and body like a
Scout.

Canada was at war with the United States over a hundred years ago.
Battles between the Americans and the English were being fought on all
sides in that unhappy year 1812. After the engagement on Queenstown
Heights a terror-stricken woman went tramping over the field where the
slain were lying in search of her husband. Laura Secord had heard that
her husband had been wounded and left there for dead; but on finding
him, to her joy she discovered that he was still alive, though badly
injured.

It was during his long illness that a report was brought to Laura
Secord that the Americans were again coming to surprise the English,
unknown to the general.

Owing to her pluck and determination, Laura achieved a famous deed of
heroism and saved her country by taking the information of the advance
of the enemy right away to the commanding officer of the British
troops. Through difficulties and dangers she sped without a fear for
her own safety; she trudged on through forests and bogs, going twenty
miles round out of the beaten track so as to avoid being traced. In the
dusk of the evening her path was checked by a deep stream. Here she
felt almost hopeless, until she found a tree-trunk fallen across the
water, and by this she managed to scramble to the opposite bank. Whilst
dreading what might happen at home to her invalid husband and her
little children left behind, Laura Secord still pressed forward through
the darkness, tired and weak, till she at length reached the British
camp, and was able to unburden her mind and give the news of the danger
to the officer in command. All present were struck with admiration for
her gallant effort, and with the knowledge of the impending danger thus
gained, the British were able to BE PREPARED.

Now, did not this Laura Secord, though quite untrained, do every part
of the duty of a Girl Scout? She showed SENSE OF DUTY in leaving all
that was dearest to her to go off to the commander.

She showed cleverness and RESOURCE in getting through the American
outposts by driving her cow in front of her, pretending that she was
merely taking her out to graze.

She showed ENDURANCE going such a long journey rapidly and well, being
healthy and fit for hard work.

Also CAMPAIGNING in being able to find her way by a circuitous route
through forests and by night, and yet not seen by the enemy—SAVING
LIFE, too, not only of the soldiers in the force, but eventually of
all her nation, by freeing her country of the enemy.

She showed PATRIOTISM by sacrificing her own wishes for the good of her
country, and risking her life for the good of her nation.



Why “Scouts”?

On the North-West Frontier of India there is a famous Corps of soldiers
known as the Scouts, and their duty is to be always ready to turn out
at any moment to repel raids by the hostile tribes across the Border,
and to prevent them from coming down into the peaceful plains of India.
This body of men must be prepared for every kind of fighting. Sometimes
on foot, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in the mountains, often with
pioneer work, wading through rivers and making bridges, and so on. But
they have to be a skilful lot of men, brave and enduring, ready to
turn out at any time, winter or summer, or to sacrifice themselves if
necessary in order that peace may reign throughout India while they
keep down any hostile raids against it. So they are true handymen in
every sense of the word, and true patriots.

[Illustration: Facing a Difficulty.]

When people speak of Scouts in Europe one naturally thinks of those men
who are mountaineers in Switzerland and other mountainous place, who
can guide people over the most difficult parts by their own bravery and
skill in tackling obstacles, by helpfulness to those with them, and
by their bodily strength of wind and limb. They are splendid fellows
those guides, and yet if they were told to go across the same amount
of miles on an open flat plain it would be nothing to them, it would
not be interesting, and they would not be able to display those grand
qualities which they show directly the country is a bit broken up
into mountains. It is no fun to them to walk by easy paths, the whole
excitement of life is facing difficulties and dangers and apparent
impossibilities, and in the end getting a chance of attaining the
summit of the mountain they have wanted to reach.

[Illustration: Why “Scout”?]

Well, I think it is the case with most girls nowadays. They do not
want to sit down and lead an idle life, not to have everything done
for them, nor to have a very easy time. They don’t want merely to walk
across the plain, they would much rather show themselves handy people,
able to help others and ready, if necessary, to sacrifice themselves
for others just like the Scouts on the North-west Frontier. And they
also want to tackle difficult jobs themselves in their life, to face
mountains and difficulties and dangers, and to go at them having
prepared themselves to be skilful and brave; and also they would like
to help other people to get over their difficulties also. When they
attain success after facing difficulties, then they feel really happy
and triumphant. It is a big satisfaction to them to have succeeded and
to have made other people succeed also. That is what the Girl Scouts
want to do, just like the mountaineer guides do among the mountains.

Then, too, a woman who can do things is looked up to by others, both
men and women, and they are always ready to follow her advice and
example, so there she becomes a Scout too. And later on if she has
children of her own, or if she becomes a teacher of children, she can
be a really good Scout to them.

In fact, if one caricatured a Scout one would draw her thus:—“Turn to
the right and keep straight on.” And for these reasons the name Scout
was given to them originally.

[Illustration]

By means of games and activities which the Scouts practise they are
able to learn the different things which will help them to get on in
life, and show the way to others to get on also. Thus camping and
signalling, first aid work, camp cooking, and all these things that
the Scouts practise are all going to be helpful to them afterwards in
making them strong, resourceful women, skilful and helpful to others,
and strong in body as well as in mind, and what is more it makes them a
jolly cheery lot of comrades also.



“Be Prepared!”

The motto of the Scouts on which they work is “Be Prepared,” that is,
be ready for any kind of duty that may be thrust upon them, and what
is more, to know what to do by having practised it beforehand in the
case of any kind of accident or any kind of work that they may be
asked to take up. Thousands of women have done splendid work in this
war, but thousands more would have been able to do good work also had
they only Been Prepared for it beforehand by learning a few things that
are useful to them outside their mere school work or work in their own
home. And that is what the Scouts are learning in all their games and
camp work; they mean to be useful in other ways besides what they are
taught in school.



How to Join

You join a Troop in your neighborhood and become a member of one of the
Patrols in it. A Patrol is a group of eight girls, under the command of
a Patrol Leader. Each Patrol is called after a bird or a flower, and
has that flower or bird embroidered on its flag. The Patrol is the team
for play or for work, and each Patrol endeavors—or at least considers
itself—to be the best in the Troop.

If there is no Troop in your neighborhood you can become a “_Lone
Scout_.” That is, you can make the promise, carry out the Scout Law and
all the practices by yourself, and you can wear the uniform and win the
badges.

[Illustration]

For this you must report and be registered. That is, if you cannot hear
of a Scout officer near you, write to the Secretary at Headquarters,
tell her where you live and she will put you in touch with the nearest
officer who will register you and help you.


Scout Ranks

At first you rank as a Candidate until you pass your Tenderfoot tests.
Then you can go on and rise to the following ranks:—

    Candidate.
    Tenderfoot.
    Second-Class Scout.
    First-Class Scout.
    Corporal.
    Patrol Leader.
    Senior Scout or Citizen Scout.



HOW TO BECOME A TENDERFOOT

    (S.T.)

    A. You must learn the _Scout Law_.

    B. You must make the _Scout’s Promise_.

    C. You must learn the _Salute and the Woodcraft Signs_
    of the Scouts.

    D. You must understand how the _Flag_ is made up, and
    how it should be flown.

    E. You must be able to tie _knots_ and know what they
    are used for; any four of the following:—

    Reef-knot, Sheet bend, Clove-hitch, Bowline,
    Fisherman’s knot, Sheepshank.

F. Elementary Scout’s Drill.

This may seem to be rather a lot of things to learn, but they are
really very easy, and I will show you in the next few pages how to do
it without much trouble.

When you can do these you will no longer be a Candidate, you will be
admitted into the Scouts as a “Tenderfoot,” and can then go on and win
badges.


The Tenderfoot Badge

The Badge of the Girl Scouts is the “Trefoil” (three leaves), which
represent the three promises made on joining, as the three fingers held
up in the salute also do.

[Illustration]

The proper place for the Tenderfoot Badge is in the centre of the loose
ends of the tie.



A. THE GIRL SCOUT’S LAW

    1. A GIRL SCOUT’S HONOR IS TO BE TRUSTED.

    If a Scout says “On my honour it is so,” that means
    that it _is_ so just as if she had taken a most solemn
    oath.

    Similarly, if a captain says to a Scout, “I trust you
    on your honor to do this,” the Scout is bound to carry
    out the order to the very best of her ability, and to
    let nothing interfere with her doing so.

    If a Scout were to break her honor by telling a lie, or
    by not carrying out an order exactly when trusted on
    her honor to do so, she would cease to be a Scout, for
    the time being, and she may be required to hand over
    her Scout badge.

    2. A SCOUT IS LOYAL

    to the President and to her officers, to her mother and
    father, to her employers, to those who may be under
    her, and to her friends. She must stick to them through
    thick and thin against any one who is their enemy, or
    who even talks badly of them. A Scout will not talk ill
    of them herself.

    3. A SCOUT’S DUTY IS TO BE USEFUL AND TO HELP OTHERS.

    She is to do her duty before anything else, even though
    she gives up her own pleasure, or comfort, or safety to
    do it. When in difficulty to know which of two things
    to do, she must ask herself, “Which is my duty?”—that
    is, “Which is best for other people?”—and do that one.
    She must Be Prepared at any time to save life and to
    help injured persons. And _she should do at least one
    good turn_ to somebody every day.

    4. A SCOUT IS A FRIEND TO ALL, AND A SISTER TO EVERY
    OTHER SCOUT.

    Thus, if a Scout meets another Scout, even though a
    stranger to her, she may speak to her, and help her in
    any way that she can, either to carry out the duty she
    is then doing, or by giving her food, or, as far as
    possible, anything that she may be in want of. A Scout
    must never be a SNOB. A snob is one who looks down
    upon another because she is poorer, or who is poor and
    resents another because she is rich. A Scout is like
    Kim—“Little friend to all the world.”

    5. A SCOUT IS COURTEOUS—

    that is, she is polite to all—but especially to old
    people and invalids, cripples, etc. And she must not
    take any reward for being helpful or courteous.

    6. A GIRL SCOUT KEEPS HERSELF PURE. SHE IS CLEAN IN
    WORD, IN THOUGHT, IN DEED.

    She is strong enough in her mind to be above talking or
    listening to dirty subjects. She keeps herself pure,
    clean-minded, and womanly.

    7. A SCOUT IS A FRIEND TO ANIMALS.

    She should save them as far as possible from pain, and
    should not kill any animal unnecessarily, not even the
    smallest of God’s creatures.

    8. A SCOUT OBEYS ORDERS

    of her parents, patrol leader, or Captain without
    question. Even if she gets an order she does not like
    she must do as soldiers and sailors do—she must carry
    it out all the same _because it is her duty_. After she
    has done it she can come and state any reasons against
    it; but she must carry out the order at once. That is
    discipline.

    9. A GIRL SCOUT IS CHEERFUL

    under all difficulties. When she gets an order she
    should obey it cheerily and readily, not in a slow,
    hang-dog sort of way, and should sing even if she
    dislikes it.

    When she is in trouble or in pain it will at once
    relieve her if she forces herself to smile—to “grin and
    bear it.”

    Scouts never grumble at hardships, nor whine at each
    other, nor frown when put out.

    A Scout goes about with a smile and singing. It cheers
    her and cheers other people, especially in time of
    danger, for she keeps it up then all the same.

    10. A SCOUT IS THRIFTY—

    that is, she saves every penny she can, and puts it
    into the bank, so that she may have money to keep
    herself when out of work, and thus not make herself a
    burden to others; or that she may have money to give
    away to others when they need it.


How Camping Teaches the Scout Law

Last year a man went out into the woods to try and see if he could live
like the prehistoric men used to do; that is to say, he took nothing
with him in the way of food or equipment or even clothing—he went just
as he was, and started out to make his own living as best he could.
Of course the first thing he had to do was to make some sort of tool
or weapon by which he could kill some animals, cut his wood and make
his fire and so on. So he made a stone axe, and with that was able to
cut out branches of trees so that he could make a trap in which he
eventually caught a bear and killed it. He then cut up the bear and
used the skin for blankets and the flesh for food. He also cut sticks
and made a little instrument by which he was able to ignite bits of
wood and so start his fire. He also searched out various roots and
berries and leaves, which he was able to cook and make into good food,
and he even went so far as to make charcoal and to cut slips of bark
from the trees and draw pictures of the scenery and animals around him.
In this way he lived for over a month in the wild, and came out in the
end very much better in health and spirits and with a great experience
of life. For he had learned to shift entirely for himself and to be
independent of the different things we get in civilisation to keep us
going in comfort.

[Illustration: “He went just as he was!”]

That is why we go into camp a good deal in the Boy Scout and in the
Girl Scout movements, because in camp life we learn to do without so
many things which while we are in houses we think are necessary, and
find that we can do for ourselves many things where we used to think
ourselves helpless. And before going into camp it is just as well to
learn some of the things that will be most useful to you when you get
there. And that is what we teach in the Headquarters of the Girl Scout
Troops before they go out and take the field. For instance, you must
know how to light your own fire; how to collect dry enough wood to make
it burn; because you will not find gas stoves out in the wild. Then
you have to learn how to find your own water, and good water that will
not make you ill. You have not a whole cooking range or a kitchen full
of cooking pots, and so you have to learn to cook your food in the
simplest way with the means at your hand, such as a simple cooking pot
or a roasting stick or an oven made with your own hands out of an old
tin box or something of that kind.

[Illustration: “You have not a whole cooking range.”]


Nature Study

It is only while in camp that one can really learn to study Nature in
the proper way and not as you merely do it inside the school; because
here you are face to face with Nature at all hours of the day and
night. For the first time you live under the stars and can watch them
by the hour and see what they really look like, and realise what an
enormous expanse of almost endless space they cover. You know from
your lessons at school that our sun warms and lights up a large number
of different worlds like ours, all circling round it in the Heavens.
And when you hold up a coin at arm’s length and look at the sky, the
coin covers no less than two hundred of those suns, each with their
different little worlds circling round them. And you then begin to
realise what an enormous endless space the Heavens comprise. You
realise perhaps for the first time the enormous work of God.

[Illustration: Green Caterpillar.]

Then also in camp you are living among plants of every kind, and you
can study them in their natural state, how they grow and what they
look like, instead of merely seeing pictures of them in books or dried
specimens of them in collections.

[Illustration: Pupa.]

All round you, too, are the birds and animals and insects, and the
more you know of them the more you begin to like them and to take an
interest in them; and once you take an interest in them you do not want
to hurt them in any way. You would not rob a bird’s nest; you would not
bully an animal; you would not kill an insect—once you have realised
what its life and habits are. In this way, therefore, you fulfil the
Scout Law of becoming a friend to animals.

[Illustration: Cabbage Butterfly.]

By living in camp you begin to find that though there are many
discomforts and difficulties to be got over, they can be got over with
a little trouble and especially if you smile at them and tackle them.

Then living among other comrades in camp you have to be helpful and do
good turns at almost every minute, and you have to exercise a great
deal of give and take and good temper, otherwise the camp would become
unbearable.

    (S.T.)

So you carry out the different laws of courteousness, of helpfulness,
and friendliness to others that come in the Scout Law. Also you pick up
the idea of how necessary it is to keep everything in its place, and
to keep your kit and tent and ground as clean as possible; otherwise
you get into a horrible state of dirt, and dirt brings flies and other
inconveniences.

You save every particle of food and in this way you learn not only
cleanliness, but thrift and economy. And you very soon realise how
cheaply you can live in camp, and how very much enjoyment you can get
for very little money. And as you live in the fresh, pure air of God
you find that your own thoughts are clean and pure as the air around
you. There is hardly one of the Scout Laws that is not better carried
out after you have been living and practising it in camp.



B. THE SCOUT PROMISE

On my honour I will try—

    1. TO DO MY DUTY TO GOD AND TO MY COUNTRY.
    2. TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE AT ALL TIMES.
    3. TO OBEY THE SCOUT LAW.


Duty to God

An old British chieftain, some thirteen hundred years ago, said:

“Our life has always seemed to me like the flight of a sparrow through
the great hall, when one is sitting at meals with the log-fire blazing
on the hearth, while all is storm and darkness outside. He comes in,
no one knows from where, and hovers for a short time in the warmth
and light, and then flies forth again into the darkness. And so it is
with the life of a man; he comes no one knows from where; he is here
in the world for a short time, till he flies forth again, no one knows
whither. But now you show us that if we do our duty during our life we
shall not fly out into darkness again, when life is ended, since Christ
has opened a door, for us to enter a brighter room, a heaven where we
can go and dwell in peace for ever.”


Religion seems a very simple thing:

    1st. To trust in God.
    2nd. To do good to other people.


The Knights

The old knights, who were the scouts of the nation, were very
religious. They were always careful to attend religious service,
especially before going into battle or undertaking any serious
difficulty. They considered it was the right thing always to be
prepared for death. In the great church of Malta you can see to-day
where the old knights used to pray, and they all stood up and drew
their swords during the reading of the Creed, as a sign that they were
prepared to defend the gospel with their swords and lives. Besides
worshipping God in church, the knights always recognised His work in
the things which He made, such as animals, plants, and scenery. And
so it is with the Scouts to-day, that wherever they go they love the
woodlands, the mountains, and the prairies, and they like to watch
and know about the animals that inhabit them, and the wonders of the
flowers and plants. No man is much good, either to himself or to
others, unless he believes in God and obeys His laws. So every Scout
should have a religion.


Regiments in God’s Army

There are many kinds of religion, such as Roman Catholics, Protestants,
Jews, Mohammedans, and so on, but the main point about them is that
they all worship God, although in different ways. They are like an army
which serves one king, though it is divided into different branches,
such as cavalry, artillery, and infantry, and these wear different
uniforms. So, when you meet a girl of a different religion from your
own, you should not be hostile to her, but recognise that she is still
serving the same king as you.

In doing your duty to God always be grateful to Him. Whenever you enjoy
a pleasure or a good game, or succeed in doing a good thing, thank Him
for it, if only with a word or two, just as you say grace after a meal.
And it is a good thing to bless other people. For instance, if you see
a train starting off, just pray for God’s blessing on all that are in
the train.

In doing your duty towards man be helpful and generous, and also always
be grateful for any kindness done to you, and be careful to show that
you are grateful.


How to Become a Star

Remember that a present given to you is not yours until you have
thanked the giver for it. While you are the sparrow flying through the
hall, that is to say, while you are living your life on this earth, try
and do something good which may remain after you. One writer says:

“I often think that when the sun goes down the world is hidden by a
big blanket from the light of heaven, but the stars are little holes
pierced in that blanket by those who have done good deeds in this
world. The stars are not all the same size; some are big, some little,
and some men have done great deeds and others have done small deeds,
but they have made their hole in the blanket by doing good before they
went to heaven.”

Try and make your hole in the blanket by good work while you are on the
earth.

IT IS SOMETHING TO BE GOOD, BUT IT IS FAR BETTER TO DO GOOD.


Duty to God and Country

Have you ever thought what a lot we owe to the Kaiser William of
Germany. If he had not tried for world power, we should never have come
together so closely as we have done with all our brothers and sisters
overseas.



C. SIGNS AND SIGNALS


The Scout’s Salute

The right hand raised level with shoulder, palm to the front, thumb
resting on the nail of the little finger, and the other three fingers
upright pointing upward.

That is the Scout Salute.

[Illustration: Not the best way to salute.]

The three fingers held up (like the three points of a Scout Badge)
remind her of her three promises in the Scout Promise.

    1. To do her duty to God and Country.
    2. To help others.
    3. To obey the Scout Law.

When a Scout meets another for the first time in the day, whether she
is a comrade or a stranger, she salutes.

She always salutes an officer—that is a Patrol Leader or a Captain.

Also the hoisting of the Flag, the colors of a regiment, the playing of
Star Spangled Banner.

When the National Anthem is played the Scouts do not salute, but merely
stand at attention.

When marching in Troop or Patrol formation do not salute with the hand.
When passing other Troops or a superior officer, the officer or Patrol
Leader in charge alone will salute with the hand, at the same time
giving the command, “Eyes right,” or “Eyes left,” as the case may be,
on which every Scout will turn her head sharply in that direction till
the officer gives the word “Eyes front.”

It is more than ever necessary to hold yourself smartly when giving the
salute, otherwise you would make a very slovenly show of it.


Woodcraft Signs

Scout signs on the ground or wall, etc., close to the right-hand side
of the road.

Road to be followed.

[Illustration: Turn to the right.]

[Illustration: Trees blazed with axe, paper or chalk.]

[Illustration: Scratch or chalk on ground.]

[Illustration: Grass or twigs.]

[Illustration: Stones.]

Letter hidden five paces from here in the direction of the arrow.

[Illustration]

This path not to be followed.

[Illustration: Stop.]

[Illustration]

“I have gone home.”

[Illustration: “I’ve gone home!”]

    (Signed) Patrol Leader.

At night sticks with a wisp of grass round them or stones should be
laid on the road in similar forms so that they can be felt with the
hand.

[_Practise this._]


Signals and Signs

When a Captain wants to call her Scouts together she sounds her
whistle. Then they _double_ to the Captain.

    _Whistle signals_ are there:—

One long blast means “Halt,” “Silence,” “Alert,” “Look out for my
next signal,” or “Cease.” (Stop what you’re doing, look out for next
command.)

A succession of long, slow blasts means “Go out,” “Get farther away,”
or “Advance,” “Extend,” “Scatter.”

A succession of short, sharp blasts means “Rally,” “Close in,” “Come
together,” “Fall in.”

A succession of short and long blasts alternately means “Alarm,” “Look
out,” “Be ready,” “Man your alarm posts.”

Three short blasts followed by one long one from Scout Captain calls up
the patrol leaders—that is, “Leaders come here!”

Any whistle signal must be instantly obeyed at the double as fast as
ever you can run, no matter what other job you may be doing at the time.

_Hand signals_ (which can also be made by patrol leaders with their
patrol flags when necessary):—


Hand Signals

“_Advance_,” “Forward.”—Swing the arm from rear to front, below the
shoulder.

“_Retire._”—Circle the arm above the head.

“_Halt._”—Raise the arm to full extension above the head, etc.

“_Double._”—The closed fist moved up and down between your shoulder and
thigh.

“_Quick Time._”—To change from the “Double” to the Quick Time, raise
the hand to the shoulder.

“_Reinforce._”—Swing the arm from the rear to the front above the
shoulder.

“_Lie down._”—With the open hand make two or three slight movements
towards the ground.

“_Wheel._”—Extend your arm in line with your shoulder and make a
circular movement in the direction required.

“_Incline._”—Extend your arm in line with your shoulder and make a turn
with your body in the direction required.


Observation

_Stalking._—A Scout has to be sharp at seeing things if she is going
to be any good as a Scout. She has to notice every little track and
every little sign, and it is this studying of tracks and following them
out and finding out their meaning which we include under the name of
stalking. For instance, if you want to find a bird’s-nest you have to
stalk. That is to say, you watch a bird flying into a bush and guess
where its nest is, and follow it up and find the nest. With some birds
it is a most difficult thing to find their nests; take, for instance,
the skylark or the snipe. But those who know the birds, especially the
snipe, will recognise their call. The snipe when she is alarmed gives
quite a different call from when she is happy and flying about. She has
a particular call when she has young ones about. So that those who have
watched and listened and know her call when they hear it know pretty
well where the young ones are or where the nest is and so on.

[Illustration: A few tracks which you may see some day.]

_Tracking._—The native hunters in most wild countries follow their
game by watching for tracks on the ground, and they become so expert
at seeing the slightest sign of a footmark on the ground that they can
follow up their prey when an ordinary civilized man can see no sign
whatever. But the great reason for looking for signs and tracks is
that from these you can read a meaning. It is exactly like reading a
book. You will see the different letters, each letter combining to make
a word, and the words then make sense; and there are also commas and
full-stops and colons; all of these alter the meaning of the sense.
They are all little signs which one who is practised and has learnt
reading makes into sense at once, whereas a savage who has never
learned could make no sense of it at all. And so it is with tracking.

_Reading Signs._—As you know a soldier Scout in war can only get his
information about the enemy by watching for the smallest signs both on
the ground and in the far distance. In the war of Texas against Mexico
in the last century, it was very important that the general commanding
the Mexican Army should be captured when the defeat of that army was
accomplished by the Texans. He had disappeared; but some of the Scouts
of the Texan force were out scouting for the enemy when they saw in the
distance some deer were suddenly startled by something they could not
see and ran away. The Texan Scouts were at once suspicious, and went
to the spot as fast as they could. There they found a soldier of the
Mexicans evidently trying to escape. When they caught him and opened
his tunic they found underneath he was wearing a silk shirt, which was
not usual with a private in the Army. They took him to Headquarters,
and there found that he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Mexican Army,
trying to escape disguised as a soldier. And had it not been that they
had noticed the deer being startled, it is probable that they would
not have caught him.

_Sherlock Holmesing._—In just the same way detectives, when they are
following up a crime, have to act on the very smallest clues, and
if they did not use their wits and notice these the criminal would
probably escape.

Well, I want Girl Scouts to learn to be almost like detectives in their
sharpness in noticing small signs and reading the meaning of them, not
merely for the purpose of studying animals and birds, but also for
studying their human fellow creatures.

It is by noticing small signs of distress or poverty in people that you
can often help them in the best way. Generally those people who most
need help are the ones who hide their distress; and if you are clever
and notice little signs such as unhappiness, you can then give them or
offer them help in some way or other. In this way you learn sympathy
for fellow-creatures—not merely to be a friend of animals, but also
to be a friend of your fellow-men in this world; and that again is
carrying out the Girl Scout Law of helping others and being friendly to
all.

_Nature in the City._—This noticing of small things, especially in
animal life, not only gives you great interest, but it also gives you
great fun and enjoyment in life. Even if you live in a city you can do
a certain amount of observation of birds and animals. You would think
there is not much fun to be got out of it in a city, and yet if you
begin to notice and know all about the sparrows you begin to find there
is a great deal of character and amusement to be got out of them,
by watching their ways and habits, their nesting, and their way of
teaching their young ones to fly.

_Dissecting._—If you go to the butcher’s and get him to give you a
sheep’s foot and you carefully open it up with a sharp penknife you
will see how wonderfully every bone and joint and sinew is made and
fitted into the machine which enables the foot to move and the sheep
to get along. Then, if you think it out, you know that if you go away
across the sea to the other end of the world, to Australia or New
Zealand, and take a sheep’s foot there and dissect it in the same way
you find it exactly and identically the same over there as it is here.
God’s work is the same all over the world. People don’t notice these
things and don’t think about them as a rule, and when you begin to
think it out you begin to see what a wonderful work it is of God’s,
who made all these different animals in their own form, all alike, and
yet so different from the other kind of animals, fishes, or birds. You
begin to realise then what a wonderful Creator has made the world and
all that is in it.



D. OUR FLAG

Scouts in uniform will always salute the colors (or standard of a
regiment) when they pass. There are generally two such standards, one
the “Stars and Stripes,” and the other the “Regimental Colors.”

The Army and Government buildings fly the stars and stripes.


Description of the American Flag

The flag to-day has thirteen alternate stripes of red and white, with
a blue field in the corner bearing forty-eight stars. The thirteen
stripes symbolize the thirteen original states, and the stars stand for
the states now in the Union. The five pointed star is used, it is said
at Betsey Ross’s suggestion. This five pointed star is the seal of King
Solomon, and the sign of infinity. Even the colors of the flag mean
something: red stands for valor, blue for justice, and white for purity.


Pledge of Allegiance

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG, AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT
STANDS, ONE NATION INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.

When you pledge your allegiance make the full salute, keeping the hand
at the brow until you say “flag,” when you extend the hand, still in
the salute position, palm up, pointing toward the flag. Hold the hand
out thus until the end of the pledge.


How to Fly the Flag and Show Respect to It

    1. The flag should not be hoisted before sunrise nor
    allowed to remain up after sunset.

    2. At retreat, sunset, civilian spectators should stand
    at attention, Scouts may give their salute.

    3. When the national colors are passing on parade or
    review the spectators should if walking, halt, and if
    sitting, rise and stand at attention and uncover.

    4. When the flag is flown at half-mast as a sign of
    mourning it should be hoisted to full staff at the
    conclusion of the funeral. In placing the flag at
    half-mast, it should first be hoisted to the top of the
    staff and then be lowered to position. Preliminary to
    lowering from half-mast it should first be raised to
    top.

    5. On Memorial Day, May 30th, the flag should fly at
    half-mast from sunrise till noon, and at full mast from
    noon to sunset.

    6. The flag at half-mast is a sign of mourning.

    7. The flag flown upside down is a signal of distress.

    8. No national flag is ever hung above the flag of
    another nation. When the flags of two or more nations
    are displayed they should be on separate staffs or on
    separate halyards, and on the same level. In America
    the Stars and Stripes are always given the place of
    honor on the right.

    9. An old torn or soiled flag should be destroyed
    privately and respectfully, preferably by burning.



E. KNOTS AND HOW TO TIE THEM

[Illustration: 1. THE REEF KNOT, for tying two ropes together. Being a
flat knot, it is much used in ambulance work. The best simple knot, as
it will not slip and is easy to untie.]

[Illustration: 2. SHEET BEND, for tying two rope-ends together. Make
loop A B with one rope and pass rope-end C through and round whole loop
and bend it under its own standing part.]

[Illustration: 3. HALF HITCH, made by passing rope-end round standing
part and behind itself. If free end is turned back and forms a loop,
the hitch can be easily loosened. A double half hitch is required to
make a secure knot.]

[Illustration: 4. THE SHEEP SHANK, for shortening ropes. Gather up the
amount to be shortened as in first illustration. Then with parts A and
B make a half hitch round each of the bends, as in finished drawing.]

[Illustration: 5. THE BOWLINE, a loop that will not slip, to tie round
a person being lowered from a building, etc. Form a loop, then in the
standing part form a second and smaller loop. Through this pass the end
of the large loop and behind the standing part and down through the
small loop.]

[Illustration: 6. CLOVE HITCH, for fastening a rope to a pole. Either
end will stand a strain without slipping, either lengthways or
downwards.]

[Illustration: 7. FISHERMAN’S KNOT, used to tie two lines or ropes of
different sizes together. A knot quickly made, and is easy to undo, the
ends being simply pulled apart.]

[Illustration: 8. MIDDLEMAN’S KNOT. Made in similar fashion to
fisherman’s knot. This loop will not slip when knots are drawn
together, and can safely be used as a halter.]

While making your knots S.T.


Knots

Strings or ropes are used almost daily by every one in some form or
other, and yet people often break their nails and teeth gnawing at
their own knots to untie them. Time spent in learning a few simple
reliable knots is not time wasted, but quite the contrary.

To tie a knot seems a very simple thing and yet there are right and
wrong ways of doing it, and Scouts ought to know the right way. For
sometimes even lives depend on a knot being properly tied, as with
sailors or men in building trades, and in case of fire-rescue.

The right kind of a knot is one which you can tie easily and be certain
it will hold under any normal strain, and which you can easily undo.

A bad knot called a “granny” is one which slips when you pull hard, or
which gets jammed so tight that you cannot untie it.

Of course there are several ways of tying the same knot, and so if your
sailor uncle can show you a good way to make a bowline don’t tell him
the one in this book is the only way.


The Parts of a Rope

The End.

The Bight or Loop, formed by turning the rope back on itself.

The Standing Part, or long portion of the rope.


Whipping

Rope ends that ravel are annoying and before working your scout rope
too hard in practicing all these knots it is a good plan to whip the
ends.

This is how you do it. Hold the rope end in your right hand. Take about
10 inches of twine, make a loop and lay it parallel on the rope so that
the end of the twine extends about two inches beyond the end of the
rope. Hold it firmly and with your left hand wind the standing part of
your twine around your rope neatly up toward your right thumb. When you
have bound the twine loop on to the rope for say an inch, then tuck
your winding end through the loop, pull both ends of the twine, and cut
them off close to the rope.

Now you are ready to work. There are two simple devices which will help
you to learn the knots in the Tenderfoot test more easily, so it is
well to master them first.

One is the


Overhand Knot

which is the very easiest of all to make. It is the first half of the
square knot, and is a part of many other knots.

Back the end around the standing part and through the bight and draw
tight.

The other is the


Running Noose

If you hang out some clothes on the line when there is a thunderstorm
in the air, it will be well to tie up your clothes line with a slip
knot at each end, as clothes and all can be taken down in a hurry. A
slip knot made in one end of your cord, can be useful when you want to
tie up a big parcel, for you can get a good “purchase” on the cord; it
is also good in hitching a horse to a post.

Make a bight. Put your thumb and finger through it and pull up a loop
of the free end of the rope.


Reef or Square Knot

The square knot (or reef knot) is the best simple all round knot, as
it will not slip or jam and is easily untied. It is the safest knot
to tie your parcels with when mailing them. It is also used to join
two ropes, mend the clothes line, and for a hundred other uses. It is
called a reef knot because it is used to reduce the size of a sail on a
boat. As it is flat it is much used in First Aid, for tying a sling or
triangular bandage.

Take an end of rope in each hand. Cross right end over the left and
twist; then the same end (which is now in your left hand) over the
other end, and twist again. Then pull the standing parts.

If you are left-handed, of course you would naturally first put your
left end over your right. The thing to remember in tying a square knot
is that the ends must alternate; otherwise you get a “granny,” or
“lubber’s” knot.


Sheet Bend

The Sheet Bend (or Weaver’s knot) is good to use when you want to join
a thick line to a thin one, or attach a rope to a loop or ring. They
use this knot on steamboats when the big hawser can’t be thrown on
shore, but a light line can be attached and easily thrown to the dock.
It is a good knot for Scouts to use when making a guard line to keep
back crowds, at a rally for instance. With this knot you can join your
wool when knitting, and it is an excellent way to attach a fly to a
fishing line.


Make a loop AB with one rope; pass the end, C, of your other rope
through this loop, round both sides of the loop and down under its own
standing part. Pull firmly.


Clove Hitch (or Builder’s Knot)

The clove hitch is used when fastening two poles together as in
scaffolding, as either end will stand a strain without slipping either
lengthwise or downwards. It is also used to tie a boat to a stake, or
in First Aid to tie on a splint.

Pass the end around the post, below the standing part; around the post
again, over the standing part, and tuck it down between the standing
part and the turn.


Half Hitch

The half hitch is a very useful thing to know. It is not really a knot,
but a loop used in tying many of the harder knots. A double half hitch
is needed to make a secure knot and is used for fastening awning ropes,
flag rope, etc. The more it is strained the faster it holds. It is a
simple way of making a rope fast in a hurry, where a long continued
strain is not expected, thus it is used in tying a boat’s painter,
which is not a man but a rope fastened to the bow of a small boat.


Bowline

A Bowline makes a noose that is permanent, neither jamming nor
slipping. It is useful in hoisting and lowering, as in case of fire,
rescuing from drowning, a painter’s chair, etc. It is also used in a
guard line, as a halter for animals, or wherever a safe loop is needed.

Take end in right hand: measure with your left sufficient rope for the
loop you want; make a bight in your left hand and hold it. Now take the
end of the rope in your right hand, put it up through the bight, round
the standing part, and down through the bight again: pulling the end
and both sides of your permanent loop with the right hand against the
standing part in your left hand; (three against one).


Sheepshank

A scout would not waste a rope by cutting it but would shorten it by
making a sheepshank. This will stand a great strain without slipping,
but will loosen when held slack.

Lay the rope out straight. Cross your hands and take hold of the rope.
Take up the slack by drawing your hands past each other. Hold the three
parts of the rope between the loop and the end, and put it over the
loop, leaving sufficient loop sticking out so the half hitch won’t
slip off it; then pull. Do the same at the other end, and put it over
the loop, leaving sufficient loop sticking out so the half hitch won’t
slip off it; then pull. It can be untied by a quick jerk of the outside
ropes forming the bights. To shorten a rope permanently this way, pass
the ends through the loops, and the knot will hold for any length of
time.


Fisherman’s Knot

This knot is used to tie two unequal thicknesses of rope. It gets its
name from the fact that it is always employed in joining silkworm gut
for fishing purposes.

Lay the two ropes parallel, the ends pointing different ways. Tie
an overhand knot on rope one with the end of rope two, and then tie
an overhand knot on rope two with the end of rope one. Now pull the
standing parts and the knots will jam against each other and remain
firm. To untie, pull the short ends apart, and then loosen.

When a girl has passed her Tenderfoot test, she is ready to become
a full-fledged Scout. She pays to Headquarters her registration
fee, 25 cents, and receives the registration card which is a sort
of certificate of membership and shows that her name is registered
at Headquarters. Now she is entitled to wear the uniform. And more
than all, she makes her Scout promise solemnly before the troop, and
thus becomes one of the Scout sisterhood. This is not an appropriate
occasion on which to admit the public, or to make any great show or
fuss.



F. DRILL AND EXERCISE

Scouts learn drill to enable them to be moved quickly from one point to
another in good order. Drill also sets them up, and makes them smart
and quick.

It strengthens the muscles which support the body, and by keeping the
body upright the lungs and heart get plenty of room to work, and the
inside organs are kept in the proper position for good digestion of
food, and so on. A slouching position, on the other hand, depresses
all the organs, and prevents them doing their work properly, so that a
stooping person is generally weak and often ill. Growing girls are very
apt to slouch, and should therefore do all they can to get out of the
habit by plenty of physical exercises and drill.

Stand upright when you are standing, and when you are sitting down sit
upright, with your back well into the back part of the chair.

On the word “Alert,” the Scout stands upright with both feet together,
hands hanging naturally at the sides, fingers straight, and looking
straight to her front.

A Scout will never build up a healthy, sound body if she is not prudent
about her health. Elder girls can easily help the younger ones by
leading them to tell of their state, and should urge them not to go
long marches if they are not fit, or allow their feet to remain damp
or cold at such times, as it is very bad for them. They may not feel
it at the time, but it may lead to illnesses years afterwards. It is
their duty to promote their health and to nurse it into a good sound
condition, which will make them hardy in after life.

[Illustration: “Growing girls are very apt to slouch.”]


Scout Setting Up Exercises

I. Positions

1. _Standing:_ Feet parallel, few inches apart. Stand erect, top of
head high (note: top of head is above ears. Forehead is not the top),
chin parallel with floor, arms easy at side. The ears, shoulders, hips
and ankles should be in a straight line, weight over ankles.

2. _Sitting:_ Keep back straight in sitting, lower back against the
back of the chair, and feet on the floor. Note: Arm stretch positions
named in exercises

    —downward   straight at sides.
    —upward     close to ears.
    —sideward   on shoulder level.
    —forward    at shoulder level.

When doing exercises, remember always to keep good standing position.
Execute the exercises in brisk rhythm, without jerks. Repeat each
several times, but not so much that it tires you.

II. Breathing

1. Arms from downward through forward, to upward stretch counting
“one.” Arms down counting “two.” Take deep breath as arms go up, and
breathe out as arms come down.

2. Arms from downward through forward, to upward, counting “one,” to
side stretch, counting “two,” taking full breath, accenting “two” with
side stretch. Down to side counting “three.”

Count while doing these exercises, accent on “_one_.”

III. Arms

1. From downward to side stretch counting “one,” return to downward
counting “two.”

2. From side to upward stretch counting “one” (look up), return to
side, counting “two.”

3. From downward to forward stretch, counting “one” (don’t slump),
return to down, counting “two.”

4. From arms easy, at side, to down stretch, counting “one” (don’t
hump), return to arms easy, counting “two.”

5. Arms easy, turn palms out, expanding chest and flattening shoulder
blades, stretching down, counting “one,” return to arms easy, counting
“two.”

6. Elbows, on shoulder line, and bent, palms horizontal, tips of middle
fingers together, thumb touching chest. Move elbows back, flattening
shoulder blades, finger tips separating (thumbs make a line outward on
chest), counting “one,” return, counting “two.”

7. From last position, elbows bent, stretch arms, sideways, backwards,
counting “one,” return, counting “two.”

8. Arms upward stretch, close to ear, body bent continuously side to
side. (Do not twist.)

IV. Legs

(These exercises cannot be done in stiff shoes.)

1. From good standing position, roll feet outward, weight on outside of
feet, toes curled in, counting “one,” return counting “two.”

2. Alternate foot stretch. Foot stretch is done by raising the heel,
bending the knee, the toes and ball of foot remaining on floor. Count
“one,” “two,” one count for each foot.

3. Alternate foot stretch, at same time bending the knee, of weight
bearing leg, count as in ex. 2. Keep body straight, hips steady.

4. Double knee bend (bend both knees, raising heels, keeping back
straight). The knees should bend straight forward over the feet. Count
“one” on bend, “two” on return.

5. Alternate backward kick, bending at knee only, counting as in ex. 2.

6. Same as exercise 5 in double quick time. (This is running in place.)

7. Alternate front high knee bend, raising foot from floor. Count as in
ex. 2. Keep body straight.

8. Same as exercise 7, in double quick time.

9. Deep double knee bend, raising heels from floor, bringing arms from
downward to side stretch with the bend. (This helps to keep balance.)

10. Arms upward stretch, body bent front, hands touching floor.

V. From Lying Position

1. Legs alternately upward stretch, making right angle with the body.

2. Same exercise both legs together.

3. Same as exercise 2, letting feet go back over head.

    NOTE: The best time to take these exercises is before
    dressing in the morning or the last thing at night
    before going to bed. Corsets should never be worn
    during exercises where the arms are raised above the
    height of the shoulders. No matter how loose they may
    be, it causes actual injury. Keep watch and see that
    the feet remain parallel. The tendency with most people
    is for them to turn out.

A New England farmer’s wife was baking several kinds of pies for
Thanksgiving. To distinguish them she marked some T. M. for “’tis
mince” and the rest she marked T. M. for “’tain’t mince.” When you are
reading this book you will now and then see two mysterious letters
which you will promptly obey whether you are sitting or standing. They
are the letters S. T. and they mean Sit Tall and Stand Tall.

[Illustration: Horseshoe Formation]


Tenderfoot Investiture

The Captain calls “Fall in.” The troop is formed in a horse shoe, with
the Captain and the Lieutenant in the gap. When ordered to come forward
by the Captain the Patrol Leader brings the Tenderfoot to be invested
to the center, where they stand facing the Captain.

The Captain then asks: “Do you know what your honor means?” The
Tenderfoot replies: “Yes, it means that I can be trusted to be truthful
and honest” (or words to that effect).

Captain: “Can I trust you on your honor to do your duty to God and to
your country, to help other people at all times, and to obey the Scout
Law.”

Tenderfoot: “On my honor I will try to do my duty to God and to my
country, to help other people at all times, and to obey the Scout Law.”

The Captain then says: “I trust you, on your honor, to keep this
promise.”

While the recruit is making her promises aloud, all the Scouts remember
their own promises, and vow anew to keep them.

The Captain orders: “Invest,”—and pins on her trefoil badge, explaining
that it is her Scout’s life. If, for misbehavior her trefoil or life
has to be taken from her, she becomes a dead Scout for the time the
Captain orders—a day or a week—and is in disgrace. The badge may be
worn at all times, but the uniform is worn only when the patrol meets.

The new Scout is then initiated into the mysteries of the secret
passwords, “Be Prepared” (said backwards), or “Little Friend of all the
World.”

The Scout should salute the Captain, when she gives her her badge.

The lieutenant hands the new Tenderfoot her registration card, and her
hat. (This part of the ceremony may be omitted if desired.)

Captain orders: “About Face”—“Salute”—

Tenderfoot faces the troop, who give her the full salute to welcome her
into the troop, and then she and her Patrol Leader march back to their
places.

Now the Scout is a regular member of one of the Patrols in the troop. A
Patrol is a group of six or eight Scouts who work together as comrades
under a girl who is the Patrol Leader. The Leader has an assistant
called a Corporal. All Scouts must obey the Leader and Corporal.

Each troop is called after a bird or flower. When the Scouts first
started troops they were only called after flowers but there were many
girls who felt that though a flower is very pretty and gives out a
sweet influence round it, it doesn’t last long, nor does it “hustle
around and do things”; they wanted something more active as their
emblem. So now a troop can choose which it likes, a bird, or a flower,
or tree or shrub.

The troop may have a flag, which has the number of the troop on it,
and besides this each Patrol Leader may have a small flag, ten inches
deep, on a staff, with the crest of her troop in cloth stitched on to
it on both sides.

[Illustration]

Each member of the troop wears an emblem badge sewn over her left
pocket flap, and a shoulder knot of the colors chosen by her troop.

Every Scout is expected to know all about the life history of the
emblem of her troop. If it is a flower, she should know what it looks
like, when and where it blooms, and she should if possible grow it
herself. If the emblem is a bird the Scout should know what it looks
like, its call or song, its food, where to look for its nest, the color
of its eggs and time of migration.

    BIRD.           ATTRIBUTE.              COLOR.

    Robin.          Brave and friendly.     Brown and red.

    Swallow.        A quick home worker.    Dark blue and white.

    Wren.           Modest and plucky.      Brown.

    Sparrow.        Busy and home-loving.   Black and brown.

    Bantam.         Plucky and strong.      Red and yellow.

    Canary.         Makes sunshine in the   Yellow and white.
                      house.

    Thrush.         Gives joy to all.       Brown and yellow.

    Blackbird.      Happy and helpful.      Black and yellow.

    Cardinal Bird.  Beautiful and lively.   Rosy red.

    Mocking Bird.   Courageous and singing  Greyish brown and
                      while he works.         white.

List of Troop Crests Always Kept in Stock

    Sunflower.
    Red Rose.
    White Rose (Cherokee).
    Oak.
    Pansy.
    Fuchsia.
    Poppy.
    Narcissus.
    Jonquil.
    Holly Leaf and Berries.
    Red Clover.
    Lily-of-the-Valley.
    Daisy.
    Goldenrod.
    Forget-me-not.
    Lilac.
    Violet.
    Iris.
    Pink Carnation.
    Morning Glory.
    Pink Wild Rose.
    Thistle.
    Nasturtium.
    Daffodil.
    Dogwood.
    Holly.


A Cuckoo Patrol

A jay is a showy, gaudy kind of bird and, like her bigger friend the
peacock, has a rasping, raucous voice, and she eats other birds’ eggs,
and generally does more harm than good in the world. There are human
jays and peacocks, but you won’t find them among the Scouts. The
English cuckoo is a curious bird of another kind. She makes herself
out to look somewhat like a hawk, and somewhat like a dove, you don’t
know whether she is very bold or very peaceful; at any rate she lets
you know that she’s there. She uses her voice freely. But she’s a lazy
creature, does not bother to make a nest of her own, but goes and puts
her eggs in other birds’ nests—rather deceitful, because she often
makes her eggs match those in the nest she is using—gives them all the
trouble of bringing up her young ones. She leaves them and goes off
South in July, before her offspring can fly with her. In fact, she is a
fraud, she imitates others and blusters about a lot for a short time,
but she does not do any real work.

Sometimes there have been imitation Girl Scouts, who dressed themselves
up in our uniform, gave themselves similar badges, made themselves
unpleasantly conspicuous, but never really grasped the Scout spirit nor
did the Scout work, and so they won for themselves the name of cuckoo.
So don’t belong to a cuckoo patrol.

If you are the Scout you ought to be, you will start to work to make
your own patrol the best in the troop and to make yourself the best
Scout in the patrol—for smartness, for efficiency, and for happiness.



CHAPTER II


The Second Class badge is a green trefoil embroidered on a tan
background, and is worn on the left sleeve above the elbow.

The occasion of awarding Second Class badges gives Scouts an
opportunity to arrange a ceremony for themselves following more or less
the lines of the Tenderfoot investiture.



SIGNALLING


General Service Code

The General Service Code, also called the Continental and the
International Morse Code, is the code used by the Army and Navy,
cables, wireless telegraphy, and all commercial communications except
short distance telegraphing, within the United States. Avoid the term
International Morse as both these names apply to other codes. The
International code is made up of flags each one of which stands for a
letter or other signal, and the Morse is used of the American Morse or
telegraph alphabet. There is Visual signalling by hand flag torches,
lanterns, etc.; and Sound signalling with buzzer, whistle, drum, etc.


Signalling by Single Flag, or Wig-wagging

The flag used is square with a smaller square of another color in the
center. It may be either white with the smaller square red, or red with
white. A good size for Girl Scouts to use is 24 inches square with the
center 8 inches square, and the pole 42 inches long.

There are but three motions to make with the flag, and all start from
POSITION, which means that the signaller stands erect facing the person
with whom she is communicating holding the flag perpendicularly in
front of her.

DOT.—To make a dot, swing the flag down to the right and bring it back
to Position.

DASH.—To make a dash, swing the flag down to the left, and bring it
back again to Position.

FRONT.—The third motion is front, made by swinging the flag down
directly in front and returning to Position.

In order to keep the flag from “fouling” when making the motions, make,
by a turn of the wrist, a sort of figure 8 with the end of the staff,
as shown in the picture.

In learning signalling try to master these motions first; then it is
easy to put them together in letters. Make no pause between dots or
dashes in a single letter, but have a continuous motion.

Indicate the end of a Letter by a distinct pause at Position.

Indicate the end of a Word by one Front.

Indicate the end of a Sentence by two Fronts.

Indicate the end of a Message by three Fronts.

Many Scouts have found it easier to learn the motions required in flag
signalling with a light stick about 18 or 24 inches long; you will be
surprised to see how simple it is to handle a flag, when the motions
have been mastered with a stick.

Don’t try for speed. Accuracy is the most important thing, for unless
the letters are accurately made they may be confused and your message
will be read as something quite different from what you intended.
Fall into a regular easy rhythm. Speed will come with practice. When
signalling a message go slowly enough for the receiver to read it.


Semaphore

The “Semaphore” is really a machine, with two arms which may be moved
into various positions to indicate letters. It is especially used on
railroads. The semaphore code may also be employed by a person using
two flags. It is the quickest method of flag signalling but is only
available for comparatively short distances, seldom over a mile, unless
extra large flags are used, or there are some extraordinary conditions
of backgrounds, atmosphere, etcetera.

The semaphore code is not adapted to all sorts of uses as is the
general service code, but for very quick communications over short
distances it is most useful.

The regulation Semaphore flag is 18 inches square, divided diagonally
into two triangles, a red and a white, with the red one fastened to a
staff which is 24 inches long. The staff must be carefully held, to
move in one piece with the arm, as a “break” at the wrist would make
an entirely different angle.

Pass the arms smoothly from one letter to another. Don’t let them
“flop” about between letters. Hold each letter long enough so that
it is distinct. At the end of a word make “Interval” hands crossed
downward in front of body, right over left. Indicate the end of the
sentence by one “chop-chop”—made by placing both arms at the right,
horizontal, and moving them up and down in cutting motion. Indicate end
of the message by three “chop-chops.” While signalling maintain fixed
position, head upright.

Be accurate in making the letters. It is the angle between your arms
that counts. Speed will soon come with practice. Don’t look in a
mirror, or you will get it all backwards.


Signalling with a Lantern

The motions used in signalling with a lantern are very like those with
the single flag. For Position, hold a lantern directly in front of you;
for a dot swing it to the right and back; for a dash swing it to the
left and back; and for Front move it up and down in a vertical line,
directly in front of you. You should have a stationary light, in front
of your feet, as a point of reference for the various motions.


Signalling with a Flash Light

Use a short flash for a dot, and a long steady flash for dash. Pause
between letters, longer pause between words, still longer at end of
sentence.


Signalling by Sound

Whistle:—Use a short blast for a dot, and a long steady blast for a
dash. Indicate the end of a letter by a short pause, end of word by a
longer pause, and the end of a sentence by a still longer pause.

On the telegraph instrument the dot makes one distinct click. The dash
a double click. Try and you will see. Practice tapping with a pencil,
a stick or even your fingers, to make the ear familiar with the sound;
single tap for a dot, double for a dash.

The code must be absolutely mastered so that you know a letter the
minute you see it. Counting off dots and dashes, is a sign of a
beginner who doesn’t yet know her code. It is a bad plan to try to
learn code by writing it out. You never use it written, and you should
learn it as you are going to use it with flags, lights or sounds.

From the very first, practice reading as well as sending. It is harder
to do, and requires more practice.

If another Scout facing you will signal the same letter at the same
time you are signalling to her, then you read and send that letter
simultaneously and thus recognize the letter when receiving a message.

You will find it a curious fact that it is easier to learn the letters
by signalling them in words and messages, than by trying to master them
singly, in their order in the alphabet.

A good way to learn the general service code is this. Learn first the
four letters made all of dots, and then the three made all of dashes.

    E .
    I ..
    S ...
    H ....
    T -
    M --
    O ---

Fix these in your mind by using them in words like—to, she, some, time,
etc. Then take the words “Girl Scouts” and learn them. With the new
letters in these added to the dot and dash letters you can make any
number of words,—stone, lost, curl, etc. To these add “Be Prepared,”
“Come quickly,” “Joyful Scouts never are lazy” and now you can signal
all the Scout laws, and you know all the letters of the alphabet except
w, x and z. You may learn these separately or in “Buzzing bees make
wax.”

The semaphore code may be learned in the same way, and Scouts can
easily make up other sentences on the same principle, to suit the
semaphore code.

_Games._—There are a great many games which will give practice in the
signalling tests and the signs. Perhaps a simple one to start with is
“_Follow the Trail_.”

A party of cowboys are to start off for a long journey across the
prairie. They are expecting a party of their mates to follow them in a
week’s time. So they agree to make scout signs and leave messages all
the way. The Scouts, having divided into two parties, one starts away
across the fields and woods—preferably along a path or track. They make
arrows pointing in the direction they are following, either on the
ground or on fences or stones. They hide messages, written on paper or
on white stones or pieces of wood, saying how they are getting on;
where water may be found; or warning their pals of various dangers.
“Don’t follow this road,” (X) is also made when necessary. Meanwhile
the second party of Scouts start (having given the cowboys ten minutes’
start) _not_ as the expected friends, but as a party of Indians, who
have picked up the trail and are hot on the track of the “palefaces.”
They follow, destroying all the cowboys’ tracks and signs, and reading
their messages. Indian scouts may be sent on, singly (fast runners) to
reconnoitre, and report on the number and deportment of the cowboys.
But the Indian scout does this at her own peril. If she is _seen_ by
the palefaces she becomes their prisoner, and must go on with them.
(Any cowboy seeing an enemy scout calls out her name, whereupon the
Indian _must_ play fair and surrender.) The palefaces eventually run
short of provisions, at the end of a half a mile (or more) and are
obliged to halt. Believing Indians to be following them, they take
cover. The Indians, finding that the trail has come to an end, search
for the cowboys (_seeing_ and calling out the name being equal to
killing), but any paleface who manages to creep out of her cover and
_touch_ an Indian before she is seen herself kills her (puts her out
of action). The game is won by the party having the largest number of
survivors when the Captain blows her whistle.

A game by which reading Morse may be practised is as follows:

About twelve Scouts can play at it. The Scouts each choose a letter
of the alphabet. This (printed large in ink on a card) is pinned on
her chest. Each then is allotted a place to stand, in a field or open
space (her distance away can be arranged by the Captain to suit the
capability of the Scout). The Captain stands so that the Scouts are
before her in a large semicircle, and all can see her. Her object is to
signal in Morse and move the Scouts—two changing places (as in the game
of “General Post”). If she sends A, P,—A and P each start forward, and
run across the field, taking up each other’s positions. This means that
every Scout must have her eyes fixed very attentively on the Captain.
Each Scout has five “_lives_.” If she starts forward when her letter
has not been sent she loses one “life”: if she fails to start before
the Captain has counted six from signalling the second letter, she
loses a life. At the end of a given time, Scouts who have lost least
lives are considered the winners. Of course all _speaking_ must be
strictly forbidden during this game. The Captain must arrange to give
each Scout an equal number of chances to move. It should not be played
too long at a time. More than twelve should not play, or the letters
cannot each be sent often enough to keep up the interest. This game
teaches the Scouts to _read_ Semaphore, and also absolute concentration
and alertness. (Notice that this concentration is not an undue strain,
as it is relaxed while the two Scouts are running across to change
places.) If the Leaders are sufficiently good signallers they may be
allowed to do the sending, the Captain acting as umpire and scorer.

It is difficult to describe any actual games which will incorporate
signals by smoke, sound, movement, etc. But picnics and outings in the
country may be treated as one great “make believe.” The party becomes
a band of marooned sailors, an exploring expedition, survivors from a
torpedoed ship, or nurses on the battlefield, and the picnic turns into
a bivouac, the fire being used to send smoke signals (either to another
pack or to a party sent out for this purpose). All communications with
this party should be carried on by signal—flag, whistle, etc.

[Illustration: Survivors from a torpedoed ship.]

For simple practice of the sound and movement signals the Scouts should
be scattered over a field, while the Captain gives the signal, which
is to be obeyed promptly. She should watch carefully, and might call
out the name (or number) of the Scout last in obeying the order. This
will make for alertness. It would be a good plan to arrange some “as
you were” signal, to give after each command has been obeyed (say, two
sharp notes).


WOODCRAFT: OR, KNOWLEDGE OF ANIMALS AND NATURE

_Habits of Animals._—If you live in the country it is, of course quite
easy to observe and watch the habits of all sorts of animals great and
small. But if you are in a town there are many difficulties to be met
with. But at the same time if you can keep pets of any kind, rabbits,
rats, mice, dogs or ponies you can observe and watch their habits and
learn to understand them well; but generally for Scouts it is more easy
to watch birds, because you see them both in town and country; and
especially when you go into camp or on walking tours you can observe
and watch their habits, especially in the spring-time.

[Illustration: Training young ones to fly.]

Then it is that you see the old birds making their nests, hatching out
their eggs and bringing up their young; and that is of course the most
interesting time for watching them. A good observant scout will get to
know the different kinds of birds by their cry, by their appearance,
and by their way of flying. She will also get to know where their nests
are to be found, what sort of nests they are, what are the colors of
the eggs and so on. And also how the young appear. Some of them come
out fluffy, others covered with feathers, others with very little on at
all. The young pigeon, for instance, has not feathers at all, whereas
a young moorhen can swim about as soon as it comes out of the egg;
while chickens run about and hunt flies within a few minutes; and yet a
sparrow is quite useless for some days and is blind, and has to be fed
and coddled by his parents.

Then it is an interesting sight to see the old birds training their
young ones to fly by getting up above them and flapping their wings a
few times until all the young ones imitate them. Then they hop from one
twig to another, still flapping their wings, and the young ones follow
suit and begin to find that their wings help them to balance; and
finally they jump from one branch to another for some distance so that
the wings support them in their effort. The young ones very soon find
that they are able to use their wings for flying, but it is all done by
degrees and by careful instruction.

If you think there is no natural history or observation of bird life
possible in the city, get hold of that delightful book “Lives of the
Hunted,” by Ernest Seton Thompson. There you will find a ripping story
of Randy and Biddy, the two sparrows, who built a nest between them
after wonderful differences of opinion. Randy started to make it of
sticks, and Biddy almost declined to live with him in consequence, so
he carefully pulled every stick out and dropped them on the pavement
and gave in to her preferring for hay and straw. Then they used string.
But when she brought feathers he drew the line and argued the point.
However, the story should be read to be enjoyed as it stands in that
book.

Then a large number of our birds do not live all the year round in
England, but they go off to Southern climes such as Africa when
the winter comes on. In September you will see the migrating birds
collecting to go away, the starlings in their crowds and the swallows
for the South, and the warblers, the flycatchers, and the swifts. And
yet about the same time the large are arriving, so there is a good deal
of travelling to and from among the birds in the air at all times of
the year.

_How to draw._—By the way, talking of birds, every Scout ought to be
able to draw one.

First, of course, you lay the egg. Then put a watch on it, with the
second dial to show the time. But before you put in the hands it
becomes a bird. Then you add the outline, thus:—

[Illustration]

Try it yourself. It is quite easy.

_Reptiles._—There is a lot of interest to be got out of watching
reptiles, such as frogs, which begin as tadpoles, eating weeds, and
gradually lose their tails and gills, which they begin with, and end up
as frogs, eating worms and slugs as food.

_Insects._—Insects, too, are very interesting little people when you
get to know their ways and habits. Among them you can generally find
moths, ants, gnats, butterflies, bees, beetles, ladybirds, and all
such. Though most girls do not care very much about them, Scouts who
have studied them get to like them, even spiders and daddy-longlegs,
and to take a close interest in them.

Caddis worms, for instance, build the most beautiful houses of mosaic
work, all formed of tiny stones and bits of shell glued on to a silken
lining which the caddis worms make themselves.

The caddis worm has extraordinary jaws which he can fold up when they
are in the way, and he can also push himself along in the water by
squirting out a strong jet of water all round him. A caddis worm is
really only the larva of a large sort of dragon fly; so when he wants
to change into a winged insect, he cleverly spins a silken door across
each end of his tubular house, and fixes it on to the stalk of a plant
near the water. Then he waits till his wings have grown, and at last he
crawls out and runs up the plant out of the water, and flies away into
the sunshine.

Butterfly-hunting is a most exciting pastime. You go out with your net
and your box, and chase the pretty creatures over field and swamp, and
hedge and ditch. If possible, try not to spoil the wings, and then keep
them alive in a cage or a greenhouse. You can keep the eggs they lay,
and bring up a large family for next year. You can make your own net
if you buy a yard of stout wire, and bend it round, and bind the ends
tightly and neatly to a cane or stick.

Make your net long enough to hang across the wire, when your butterfly
is caught, thus:—

[Illustration]

Examine the wings carefully with a magnifying glass, as the tiny
scarlet and yellow feathers are easily rubbed off and spoilt,
especially if the creature flutter about.

Personally I don’t use a net; I catch them by drawing their portraits
in my sketch-book. It saves a lot of trouble to them and to me.

_Trees._—Then Scouts should know all about the different trees in their
country and know their names by their appearance in summer and also
in winter; and what they are good for, and what their leaves are like
and their flower or their fruit as the case may be. It helps you very
much in camp to know what kind of wood burns well, such as pine wood or
sugar bush or gum tree. Also which kinds of wood are best for carving,
for making walking sticks, for painting on.

The common trees which a Scout should know by sight are:

    Oak
    Elm
    Plane
    Cedar
    Fir
    Poplar
    Pine
    Sycamore
    Larch
    Willow
    Holly
    Horse Chestnut
    Ash
    Lime
    Beech
    Birch
    Spanish Chestnut
    Walnut

_Flowers._—Flowers, of course, interest girls as much as any kind of
plant, because they are easily cultivated, and every Scout ought to
know the names of most of the common flowers and to understand how they
live and how they ought to be treated; when to plant them and when to
expect them coming up; and how they produce their seed and how they
send it about and re-plant themselves in different parts near them.

For instance, if you have a magnifying glass you can examine a
dandelion seed with it. Few things are more beautiful. It is much the
same as a thistle seed, tucked away cleverly till it is ripe, and it
all opens into a delicate feathery kind of parachute each carrying a
seed. This blows about with the wind many miles before it actually
falls to the ground and there sows itself.

[Illustration: Poplar.]

[Illustration: Elm.]

[Illustration: Plane.]

[Illustration: Sycamore.]

[Illustration: Ash.]

[Illustration: Spanish Chestnut.]

Most flowers seem to have the wish to scatter their seed far away from
them. Even the modest little violet sows its seed out of a little
boat-shaped pod with great force and a loud report to a distance of
some three feet; and so does the iris, the pansy, the wall-flower, and
many others. Many flowers and plants produce berries and fruits which
are good to eat, others produce those that are poisonous; and a Scout
should know which are which, since when you are in camp some of them
may come in very useful, whereas others which look tempting to eat may
cause you a great deal of trouble and illness.


Eatable Plants

But especially you ought to know what kind of plants are useful to you
in providing you with food. Supposing you were out in a jungle without
any food, as very often happens; if you knew nothing about plants you
would probably die of starvation, or of poisoning, from not knowing
which fruit or roots were wholesome and which dangerous to eat.

There are numbers of berries, nuts, roots, barks, and leaves that are
good to eat.

The same with crops of different kinds of corn and seed, vegetable
roots, and even grasses and vetches. Seaweed is much eaten in Ireland
and Scotland. Such as laver, sloke, dulse, ulva, etc.

No less than fifteen kinds of fungi (that’s the plural of fungus!), or
mushrooms, are good to eat if you can only tell them from the poisonous
kinds.

Dandelions, nettles, rose berries, bracken roots, lime buds, and many
other common plants make useful foods.

But you have to know which is which when you see them, and then know
how to cook or prepare them.

Woodland cooking is great fun when you care to do it.


Nature Study in Towns

Many people seem to think that you cannot get Nature study unless you
are out in the fields or woods studying the animals or noticing the
plants, but you can do a great deal in town and even in your own room
with others, or even by yourself.

For one thing, just think of the wonder of your own eye if you study
it in the glass, and the delicacy of its construction; how it is like
a bubble which a very slight blow would destroy altogether. Then from
the eye go the nerves carrying back what it has seen of visible things
to the brain, where the thoughts which are invisible take it over, the
thought then gives the desire or the power to move. That is to say,
your eyes show you something on the table and the invisible thought
comes in your mind that you would like to catch hold of it, and the
thought then makes the material sinews of your arm get to work and
grasp it.

You cannot see your thought, but you know it is there, and you see the
result of your thought when you grasp the thing. In the same way God
is not visible, but all the same he is there, and you see the result
when you do a good act. Sometimes you don’t do that good act, or you
may do one that is not suggested by God. You may well feel ashamed when
this happens and refuse to let yourself do it again. Therefore, try and
think before doing a thing and ask yourself the question “Does God want
me to do this?” If the reply in your mind says “Yes,” then do it; and
if it says “No,” then don’t do it. It is not a difficult thing to live
a straight and clean life if you only REMEMBER to _think_ first and do
after.


Stalking

_How to Hide Yourself._—When you want to observe wild animals you
have to stalk them, that is, creep up to them without their seeing or
smelling you.

A hunter when he is stalking wild animals keeps himself entirely
hidden, so does the war scout when watching or looking for the enemy;
a policeman does not catch pickpockets by standing about in uniform
watching for them; he dresses like one of the crowd, and as often as
not gazes into a shop window and sees all that goes on behind him
reflected as if in a looking-glass.

If a guilty person finds himself being watched, it puts him on his
guard, while an innocent person becomes annoyed. So, when you are
observing people, don’t do so by openly staring at them, but notice the
details you want to at one glance or two, and if you want to study them
more, walk behind them; you can learn just as much from a back view, in
fact more than you can from a front view, and, unless they are scouts
and look round frequently, they do not know that you are observing them.

War scouts and hunters stalking game always carry out two important
things when they don’t want to be seen.

_Background._—One is—they _take care that the ground behind them, or
trees, or buildings, etc., are of the same color as their clothes_.

And the other is—if an enemy or a deer is seen looking for them, _they
remain perfectly still without moving so long as he is there_.

“_Freezing._”—In that way a scout, even though he is out in the open,
will often escape being noticed. This is called by scouts “Freezing.”


Tracking

“Sign” is the word used by Scouts to mean any little details, such as
footprints, broken twigs, trampled grass, scraps of food, old matches,
etc.

Any one of you might win the reward of $100 for tracing the writer of
a typewritten paper which nearly caused the ruin of a large bank. It
was noticed by signs that the writer must have used a Remington machine
No. 7, because of the shape of the letters. The type was much worn,
therefore it is supposed the machine was four or five years old. Now,
who bought one at that time? Then you could see that the letter “o”
had a bent bar, the letter “r” had a faulty spring, and the top of
the capital letter “C” was worn away. So you see that if you found a
machine with all these faults you could trace the person who used it,
from even such very small signs.

Some native Indian trackers were following up the footprints of a
panther that had killed and carried off a young kid. He had crossed
a wide bare slab of rock, which, of course, gave no mark of his soft
feet. The tracker went at once to the far side of the rock where it
came to a sharp edge; he wetted his finger, and just passed it along
the edge till he found a few kid’s hairs sticking to it. This showed
him where the panther had passed down off the rock, dragging the kid
with him. Those few hairs were what Scouts call “sign.”

This tracker also found bears by noticing small “sign.” On one
occasion he noticed a fresh scratch in the bark of a tree, evidently
made by a bear’s claw, and on the other he found a single black hair
sticking to the bark of a tree, which told him that a bear had rubbed
against it.

[Illustration: A Scout should have her head screwed on the right way,
not as in this picture.]

One of the most important things that a Scout has to learn is _to let
nothing escape her attention_; she must notice small points and signs,
and then make out the meaning of them; but it takes a good deal of
practice before a tenderfoot can get into the habit of really noting
everything and letting nothing escape her eye. It can be learnt just as
well in a town as in the country, provided that your head is screwed on
the right way.

And in the same way you should notice any strange sound or any peculiar
smell, and think for yourself what it may mean. Unless you learn to
notice “sign” you will have very little of “this and that” to put
together, and so you will be of no use as a Girl Scout. It comes by
practice. Remember a Scout always considers it a great disgrace if an
outsider discovers a thing before she herself does, whether that thing
is far away or close by.

Don’t only look at the path before you, but frequently turn and look
back. Notice the features of the country behind you, to see what your
road will look like in coming back again.

In the streets of a strange town a Girl Scout will mark her way by the
principal buildings and side-streets, and in any case she will notice
what shops she passes and what is in their windows; also what vehicles
pass her, and such details as whether the horses’ harness and shoes are
all right; and most especially what people she passes, what their faces
are like, their dress, their boots, and their way of walking, so that
if, for instance, she should be asked by a policeman, “Have you seen a
man with dark overhanging eyebrows, dressed in a blue suit, going down
this street?” she should be able to give some such answer as “Yes; he
was walking a little lame with the right foot, wore foreign-looking
boots, was carrying a parcel in his hand; he turned down Gold Street,
the second turning on the left from here, about three minutes ago.”

Information of that kind has often been of the greatest value in
tracing out a criminal, but so many people go along with their eyes
shut and never notice things.


Horses’ Tracks

[Illustration: Walking.]

[Illustration: Trotting.]

[Illustration: Canter.]

[Illustration: Galloping.]

[Illustration: Lame Horse Walking: Which leg is he lame in?

_N.B.—The long feet are the hind feet._]

[Illustration: These are the tracks of two birds on the ground. One
lives generally on the ground, the other in bushes and trees.

Which track belongs to which bird?]

Wheel tracks should also be studied till you can tell the difference
between the track of a gun, a carriage, a country car, motor-car or a
bicycle, _and the direction they were going in_.

In the story of _Kim_, by Rudyard Kipling, there is an account of two
boys being taught “observation,” in order to become detectives by means
of a game in which a trayful of small objects was shown to them for
a minute and was then covered over, and they had to describe all the
things on it from memory.

We will have that game, as it is excellent practice for Scouts.

_Details of People._—It is of interest when you are travelling by train
or tram to notice little things about your fellow-travellers—their
faces, dress, way of talking, and so on—so that you could describe them
each pretty accurately afterwards; and also try and make out from their
appearance and behavior whether they are rich or poor (which you can
generally tell from their boots), and what is their probable business,
whether they are happy, or ill, or in want of help.

But in doing this you must not let them see you are watching them, else
it puts them on their guard.

_Reading a Meaning in Sign._—It is said that you can tell a man’s
character from the way he wears his hat. If it is slightly on one side,
the wearer is good-natured; if it is worn very much on one side, he is
a swaggerer; if on the back of his head, he is bad at paying his debts;
if worn straight on the top, he is probably honest but very dull.

The way a man (or a woman) walks is often a good guide to his
character—witness the fussy, swaggering little man paddling along with
short steps and much arm-action; the nervous man’s hurried, jerky
stride; the slow slouch of the loafer; the smooth, quick, and silent
step of the Scout, and so on.

[Illustration: Judging character by the gait of a man.]

With a little practice in observation you can tell pretty accurately a
man’s character from his dress.

How would you recognize that a gentleman was fond of fishing? If you
see his left cuff with little tufts of cloth sticking up, you may be
sure he fishes. When he takes his flies off the line he will either
stick them into his cap to dry, or hook them into his sleeve. When dry
he pulls them out, which often tears a thread or two of the cloth.

It is surprising how much of the sole of the shoes you can see when
behind a person walking—and it is equally surprising how much meaning
you can read from that shoe. It is said that to wear out soles and
heels equally is to give evidence of business capacity and honesty;
to wear your heels down on the outside means that you are a person of
imagination and love of adventure; but heels worn down on the inside
signify weakness and indecision of character, and this last sign is
more infallible in the case of man than in that of woman.

Remember how “Sherlock Holmes” met a stranger and noticed that he was
looking fairly well-to-do, in new clothes with a mourning band on
his sleeve, with a soldierly bearing and a sailor’s way of walking,
sunburns, with tattoo marks on his hands, and he was carrying some
children’s toys in his hand. What would you have supposed that man to
be? Well, Sherlock Holmes guessed correctly that he had lately retired
from the Marines as a sergeant, that his wife had died, and that he had
some small children at home.

_Details in the Country._—If you are in the country, you should notice
landmarks—that is, objects which help you to find your way or prevent
you getting lost—such as distant hills and church towers; and nearer
objects, such as peculiar buildings, trees, gates, rocks, etc.

And remember in noticing such landmarks that you may want to use your
knowledge of them some day for telling some one else how to find
his way, so you must notice them pretty closely so as to be able to
describe them unmistakably and in their proper order. You must notice
and _remember_ every by-road and footpath.

Remembrance of these things will help you to find your way by night or
in fog when other people are losing themselves.

_Using your Eyes._—Let nothing be too small for your notice—a button,
a match, a hair, a cigar ash, a feather, or a leaf might be of great
importance, even a fingerprint which is almost invisible to the naked
eye has often been the means of detecting a crime.

Not long ago a lady reported to the police that she was sitting in her
room reading quietly in the corner when a ragged-looking man crept in
at the open window, seized hold of a silver vase, and was in the act of
making off with it when a sound outside disturbed him.

He put down the vase again, ran away across the lawn, jumped a low
hedge, and got away.

Detectives came and examined the ground, but could find no footmarks
even at the spot where the man had landed from his jump. Then they
inspected the vase very carefully, and examined the fingers of the
different people in the house.

They then reported that nobody except the maid had handled the vase and
that nobody had gone across the lawn or jumped the hedge.

It was afterwards found that the lady was subject to delusions, and had
imagined the whole thing, but the detectives had arrived at the same
conclusion through examining the fingermarks and signs.

When out in the country you must keep your eyes about you and not
merely notice small signs close to you, but other signs far away as
well—such as dust flying, birds startled, unnatural movements of bush
or grass, and also keep your ears open for sounds such as cracking of
a twig, dogs suddenly barking and so on.

The battle of Boomplatz, fought by the British against the Boers,
was successful for us partly because Sir Harry Smith, the Commander,
noticed some buck in the distance suddenly startled and running for no
apparent reason, but his suspicions being aroused he sent scouts to
investigate, and they found a Boer force trying to form an ambush for
him, and he was able to defeat their aims in consequence.

By night of course you must use your ears instead of your eyes and
practice at this helps to make perfect.

A trained Scout will see little signs and tracks, she puts them
together in her mind, and quickly reads a meaning from them such as an
untrained woman would never arrive at.

And from frequent practice she gets to read the meaning at a glance,
just as you do a book, without the delay of spelling out each word,
letter by letter.

I was one day, during the Matabele War [_show on map_] with a native
out scouting near to the Matopo Hills over a wide grassy plain.
Suddenly we crossed a track freshly made in grass, where the blades
of grass were still green and damp, though pressed down; all were
bending one way, which showed the direction in which the people had
been travelling. Following up the track for a bit it got on to a patch
of sand, and we then saw that it was the spoor of several women (small
feet with straight edge, and short steps) and boys (small feet, curved
edge, and longer strides), walking, not running, towards the hills,
about five miles away, where we believed the enemy to be hiding.

Then we saw a leaf lying about ten yards off the track. There were
no trees for miles, but we knew that trees having this kind of leaf
grew at a village fifteen miles away, in the direction from which the
footmarks were coming. It seemed likely therefore that the women had
come from that village, bringing the leaf with them, and had gone to
the hills.

On picking up the leaf we found it was damp, and smelled of native
beer. The short steps showed that the women were carrying loads. So
we guessed that according to the custom they had been carrying pots
of native beer on their heads, the mouths of the pots being stopped
up with bunches of leaves. One of these leaves had fallen out; but we
found it ten yards off the track, which showed that at the time it fell
a wind was blowing. There was no wind now, i. e., seven o’clock, but
there had been some about five o’clock.

So we guessed from all these little signs that a party of women and
boys had brought beer during the night from the village 15 miles away,
and had taken it to the enemy on the hills, arriving there soon after
six o’clock.

The men would probably start to drink the beer at once (as it goes sour
in a few hours), and would, by the time we could get there, be getting
sleepy and keeping a bad look-out, so we should have a favourable
chance of looking at their position.

We accordingly followed the women’s track, found the enemy, made our
observations, and got away with our information without any difficulty.

And it was chiefly done on the evidence of that one leaf. So you see
the importance of noticing even a little thing like that.


Games in Stalking

_Girl Scout Hunting._—One Scout is given time to go out and hide
herself, the remainder then start to find her; she wins if she is not
found, or if she can get back to the starting-point within a given time
without being touched.

_Dispatch Running._—A Scout is told to bring a note to a certain spot
or house from a distance within a given time: other hostile Scouts
are told to prevent any message getting to this place, and to hide
themselves at different points to stop the dispatch carrier getting in
with it.

To count as a capture, two Scouts must touch the dispatch runner before
she reaches the spot for delivering the message.

_Relay Race._—One patrol pitted against another to see who can get
a message sent a long distance in shortest time by means of relays
of runners or cyclists. The patrol is ordered out to send in three
successive notes or tokens (such as sprigs of certain plants), from a
point, say, two miles distant or more. The leader in taking her patrol
out to the spot, drops Scouts at convenient distances, who will then
act as runners from one post to the next and back. If relays are posted
in pairs, messages can be passed both ways.

_Stalking._—Captain acts as a deer—not hiding, but standing, moving a
little now and then if she likes.

Scouts go out to find, and each in her own way tries to get up to her
unseen.

Directly the Captain sees a Scout she directs her to stand up as having
failed. After a certain time the Captain calls “Time,” all stand up at
the spot which they have reached, and the nearest wins.

The same game may be played to test the Scouts in stepping lightly—the
umpire being blindfolded. The practice should preferably be carried out
where there are dry twigs lying about, and gravel, etc. The Scout may
start to stalk the blind enemy at 100 yards’ distance, and she must do
it fairly fast—say, in one minute and a half—to touch the blind man
before she hears her.

_Stalking and Reporting._—The umpire places herself out in the open and
sends each Scout or pair of Scouts away in different directions about
half a mile off. When she waves a flag, which is the signal to begin,
they all hide, and then proceed to stalk her, creeping up and watching
all she does. When she waves the flag again, they rise, come in, and
report each in turn all that she did, either by handing in a written
report or verbally, as may be ordered. The umpire meantime has kept a
look-out in each direction, and, every time she sees a Scout, she takes
two points off that Scout’s score. She, on her part, performs small
actions, such as sitting down, kneeling up, looking through glasses,
using handkerchief, taking hat off for a bit, walking round in a circle
a few times, to give Scouts something to note and report about her.
Scouts are given three points for each act reported correctly. It saves
time if the umpire makes out a scoring card beforehand, giving the name
of each Scout, and a number of columns showing each act of her, and
what mark that Scout wins, also a column of deducted marks for exposing
themselves.

The “Spider and Fly” game as described in the English book “Scouting
for Boys” is also a proper one and useful for training in observation.

_Plant Race._—The Scouts start off either cycling or on foot, to go
in any direction they like to get a specimen of any ordered plants, a
horseshoe mark from a chestnut tree, a briar rose or something of the
kind, whichever the Captain may order, such as will tax their knowledge
of plants and will test their memory as to where they noticed one of
the kind required, and will also make them quick in getting there and
back.

_Leaf Trail._—It is supposed that a crime has been done, and in the
search for the culprits who have hidden themselves, the police were
helped in tracing the track by articles left behind them. The fugitives
leave behind a dozen of certain leaves, such as oak, or chestnut or
fir, laid in the order in which those trees come on the track. The
trackers take note of these during the fifteen minutes start. The
trackers must then follow wherever these trees are to be found, in the
right order, until they can find the fugitives. Should they not be
successful another day may be spent over it.


House Hunting

It is an interesting thing to take as the object of a walk the
selection of a house where you would like to live. Notice the position,
estimate the cost of rent, rates, taxes, etc., notice its garden and
how you would utilise it, and, inside, what kind of wall-paper, etc.,
you would select so it would be homely and not merely for show, in
good taste and not tawdry, airy and not stuffy with too many hangings,
which will clean, and so on. Proximity to the necessary supply shops,
doctor, telephone, post office, and so on should all be taken into
consideration, and it is rather amusing to compare notes with the rest
of your Patrol at the end of your expedition, and see how many got on
the same house.


Hints to Instructors

PRACTICES IN OBSERVATION.—_Instructor can take the finger-marks of each
girl. Lightly rub the thumb on blacklead or on paper that is blackened
with pencil, then press the thumb on paper and examine with magnifying
glass. Show that no two people’s prints are alike._

IN TOWNS.—_Practice your girls first in walking down a street to notice
the different kinds of shops as they pass, and to remember them in
their proper sequence at the end._

_Then to notice and remember the names of the shops._

_Then to notice and remember the contents of a shop window after two
minutes’ gaze. Finally, to notice the contents of several shop windows
in succession with half a minute at each. Give marks for the fullest
list._

_The Scouts must also notice prominent buildings as landmarks, and the
number of turnings off the street they are using._

IN THE COUNTRY.—_Take the patrol out for a walk and teach the girls
to notice distant prominent features such as hills, church steeples,
and so on; and as nearer landmarks such things as peculiar buildings,
trees, rocks, gates, by-roads or paths, nature of fences, crops,
different kinds of trees, birds, animals, tracks, people, vehicles,
etc. Also any peculiar smells of plants, animals, manure, etc.; whether
gates or doors were open or shut, whether any smoke from chimney, etc._

_Send Scouts out in pairs._

_It adds to the value of the practice if the instructor makes a certain
number of small marks in the ground beforehand, or leaves buttons or
matches, etc., for the girls to notice or to pick up and bring in (as
a means of making them examine the ground close to them as well as
distant objects.)_

PRACTICES IN NATURAL HISTORY.—_Take out Scouts to get specimens of
leaves, fruits, or blossoms of various trees, shrubs, etc., and observe
the shape and nature of the tree both in summer and in winter._

_Collect leaves of different trees; let Scouts make tracings of them
and write the name of the tree on each._

_In the country make Scouts examine crops in all stages of their
growth, so that they know pretty well by sight what kind of crop is
coming up._

_Start gardens if possible; either a patrol garden or individual Scout
gardens. Let them grow flowers and vegetables for profit to pay for
their equipment, etc. Show all the wild plants which may be made use of
for food. Find yew trees; report if any good branches to make archers’
bows of._

_Encourage the keeping of live pets, whether birds, animals, reptiles,
insects. Show how to keep illustrated diary-records of plants, insects,
birds, etc., giving dates when seen for comparison following year and
showing their peculiar markings, form, etc._

_If in a town take your Scouts to the Zoological Gardens, menagerie, or
Natural History Museum, and show them particular animals on which you
are prepared to lecture. Not more than half a dozen for one visit._

_If in the country get farmer or shepherd to help with information on
the habits of farm animals, e.g., how a cow lies down and when. How to
milk, stalk rabbits, water voles, trout, birds, etc., and watch their
habits._

_The aim in your Nature study is to develop a realisation of God the
Creator, and to infuse a sense of the beauty of Nature._



CAMPCRAFT

_How to make a Fire._—You should learn how to lay and light a fire out
of doors.

Remember the usual fault of a “tender-pad” or beginner, is to try to
make too big a fire. You will never see a backwoodsman do that—he uses
the smallest possible amount of wood for his fire.

First collect your firewood. Green, fresh-cut wood is no good, nor is
dead wood that has lain long on the ground. Get permission to break
off dead branches for it.

To make your fire you put a few sticks flat on the ground, especially
if the ground be damp. On this flooring lay your “punk”—that is, paper,
shavings, inner skin of the bark of the tree, splinters, or any other
material that will easily catch fire from your match.

[Illustration:

    Firewood
    Kindling
    Punk
    Foundation]

On this you pile, in pyramid fashion, thin twigs, splinters, and
slithers of dry wood, leaning on the “punk” and against each other.
These are called kindling. A few stouter sticks are added over them to
make the fire.

A good kind of kindling can easily be made by slitting a stick into
several slices or shavings, as shown. This is called a firestick.

If stood up, with the shavings downwards towards the ground, it quickly
catches light and flares up.

[Illustration: Log fire]

Set light to this, putting your match under the bottom of the “punk.”
When the wood has really got on fire, add more and larger sticks, and
finally logs, which should be placed star-shape, like spokes of a wheel.

For a cooking fire you want to make lots of red-hot embers, so use
sticks about half or three-quarters of an inch thick.

[Illustration: Fire stick]

For a signalling fire to make a flare at night use dry gorse, straw, or
dry twigs in large quantities.

For a smoke signalling fire use plenty of thin dry sticks and twigs to
give burning flame, and add leaves and grass to make the smoke.


Camping

One of the ripping things about Girl Scout work is the camp life. You
go out either to live in farm buildings, or in an empty house, or in
tents.

People talk of “roughing it” in tents, but those people are generally
Tenderfoots. A wise Scout does not “rough it”; she knows how to look
after herself and how to make herself comfortable by a hundred little
dodges.

For instance, if the tents have not turned up she doesn’t sit down to
shiver and grumble, but at once sets to work to rig up a shelter or hut
for herself. She chooses a good spot for it where she is not likely to
be flooded out if a rainstorm comes.

Then she lights up a camp fire, cooks her food, and makes herself
comfortable on her mattress of ferns or straw.

But to do this she must, of course, have first learnt how to light
a fire, how to prepare and cook her food, and how to weave a camp
mattress, and so on, all of which she learns in her ordinary training
as a Girl Scout.

[Illustration: Camp cooking.]

In camp you learn to make all the different things you want, because
there is not always a shop round the corner where you can go and buy
them.

The following are a few out of the many things that Scouts learn to do
for themselves.

_In the Tent._—Scouts are always tidy, whether in camp or not, as a
matter of habit. If you are not tidy at home, you won’t be tidy in
camp; and if you’re not tidy in camp, you will never be a thorough
Scout.

A Scout is tidy alike in her tent, bunk, or room, because she may be
suddenly called upon to go off on an alarm, or something unexpected;
and if she does not know exactly where to lay her hand on her things,
she will be a long time in turning out, especially if called up in the
middle of the night. So on going to bed, even when at home, practise
the habit of folding up your clothes and putting them where you can at
once find them in the dark, and get into them quickly.

_Cleaning Camp Ground._—Never forget also that the state of an old camp
ground after the camp has finished, tells exactly whether the patrol
or troop which has used it was a smart one or not. No Scouts who are
any good ever leave a camp ground dirty; they sweep up and bury or burn
every scrap of rubbish.

[Illustration: Woodpecker cleaning up debris]

It is important to get into this habit of cleaning up your camp ground
before leaving it, as then farmers don’t have the trouble of having to
clean their ground after you leave, and they are, therefore, all the
more willing to let you use it.

_The Woodpecker._—When you find that the ground round a tree is strewn
with tiny chips of wood you may know at a glance that a woodpecker is
making her nest there. The woodpecker chips away the bark and makes a
deep hollow in the trunk. But she has sense enough to know that the
chips which fall are telltales, so you may see her making efforts to
tidy up the place, and in the end she will go to the trouble of flying
away with every little chip and scrap in her beak to a distance, so
that no enemy can see that she has been cutting a hole in that tree.

[Illustration: “No more of their camping on my ground!”]

_Bathing._—When in camp, bathing will be one of your joys and one of
your duties, a joy because it is such fun, a duty because no Scout can
consider herself a full-blown Scout until she is able to swim and to
save life in the water.

But there are dangers about bathing for which every sensible Scout will
be prepared.

First, there is the danger of cramp. This comes very often from staying
in the water too long. Ten minutes is ample time as a rule for a girl
to be in the water, five minutes is safer.

If you bathe within an hour and a half of taking a meal, that is before
your food is digested, you are very likely to get cramp. Cramp doubles
you up in extreme pain so that you cannot move your arms or legs, and
down you go and drown.

When bathing is going on there should always be one or two good
swimmers on duty as “life savers.” They should not bathe themselves
till the others are out of the water, but should be in bathing-dress,
ready to jump in at any moment to help any one that they see in
difficulties.

This plan is always strictly carried out by Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts
in camp, and has already been the means of saving many lives and from
changing a joy-camp into a camp of mourning.

_Water Supply._—A Tenderfoot drinks any kind of water that she finds
handy, and consequently gets ill after the first day camping out, and
has to go home again.

The old campaigner is very careful indeed about getting clean drinking
water, and if she is not certain that it is wholesome she will take
care to boil it well before drinking it, as this kills all the little
germs of disease which exist more or less in all water, however clear
it may be.

_Cleanliness._—Take special care to keep your kitchen clean, and
it will make you more comfortable and more healthy in camp. More
comfortable because flies will not infest the place unless they find
dirt and scraps to feed upon.

More healthy because if there are flies they always bring poison on to
your food. So keep the camp kitchen and ground round it very clean at
all times. Dig a small pit a couple of feet deep near the kitchen and
throw all refuse that won’t burn into this, and fill in the pit with
earth every night.

Tidy up as neatly as the woodpecker does.

_Drains._—Also do not neglect to dig a long trench to serve as a
latrine. Every camp, even if only for one night, should have a sewer
trench two or three feet deep, quite narrow, not more than one foot
wide, with screens of canvas or branches on all sides.

Earth should always be thrown in after use, and the trench must be
filled up before leaving the place. Even away from camp a small pit
should always be dug and filled in with earth after use. It is a
cleanly habit for the sake of other people, and also makes the camp
healthier.

Neglect of this not only makes a place unhealthy, but it also makes
farmers and landowners disinclined to give the use of their ground for
Scouts to camp on or to work over. So don’t forget it.

_Tidiness._—Tidiness in camp means tidiness in the home and also
tidiness in the streets or parks or when out picnicing. Scouts have
got a splendid name for cleaning up their camp ground when they leave,
although it is not a pleasant duty. They do it because a dirty littered
bit of ground is not pleasant for other people to look on or use.
Therefore out in the streets or parks or country don’t throw away
the bit of paper that held your candy or cake. It not only makes the
place look untidy, but it means work for someone else to clear it up.
Therefore, carry your paper to the waste-paper bin, or burn or bury it.

_How to make a Bed._—To manufacture a bed in camp is a different thing
from “making your bed” in a house. To make a bed for camp use the
following is the dodge:—

[Illustration: Using a camp loom.]

_To make a Camp Loom._—Plant a row (1) of five stakes, 2 ft. 6 in.
long, firmly in the ground; opposite to them at a distance of 6 ft.
to 7 ft., drive in a row of two and a crossbar (2). Fasten a cord or
gardener’s twine to the head of each stake in No. 1 row and stretch
it to the crossbar in No. 2 and make it fast there, then carry the
continuation of it back over No. 1 row for some 5 ft. extra, and fasten
it to a loose crossbar or “beam” at exactly the same distance apart
from the next cord as it stands at the stakes. This beam is then
moved up and down at slow intervals by one Scout, while the others lay
bundles of fern, straw, or heather, etc., alternately under and over
the stretched strings, which are thus bound in by the rising or falling
on to them.

_Bleeding._—When a man is bleeding badly from a wound, press the
wound or the flesh just above it—that is between the wound and the
heart—press it hard with your thumb to try and stop the blood running
in the artery. Then make a pad with something like a flat rounded
pebble, and bind it over the wound. If bleeding violently, tie a
handkerchief loosely round the limb above the wound, and twist it
tight with a stick. [_Demonstrate this._] Keep the wounded part raised
above the rest of the body if possible. Apply cold water, or ice, if
possible, wet rags, etc.

Bleeding from the ears and insensibility after a fall mean injury to
the skull. The patient should not be moved at all if possible. It is
best even to keep him lying on the spot, and put cold water or ice to
his head and keep him quiet till a doctor comes.

Spitting or throwing up blood means internal injury or bursting of
a small blood-vessel inside the patient. The case often looks more
serious than it really is. If the blood is light red in colour and
mixed with froth it means injury to the lungs. In either case keep the
patient quiet and give ice to suck or cold water to sip.

Don’t be alarmed at the amount of blood that flows from a patient. It
used to be a common thing for the barber to bleed a man to the extent
of five or six cupfuls of blood, and the patient feels all the better
for it.

    (S.T.)



HOW TO BE HEALTHY—AND WISE

In addition to the exercises for your body which are given earlier in
this book you should understand what they do for you and why you are
advised to practise them. It is not for MY amusement! It is for your
own health and happiness. And here are a few more tips that will help
you to be healthy, and possible wealthy, and certainly wise—if you
carry them out.


Exercises and Their Object

To make yourself strong and healthy it is necessary to begin with your
inside and to get the blood into good order and the heart to work well;
that is the secret of the whole thing, physical exercises should be
taken with that intention. This is the way to do it:—

(_a_) _Make the heart strong_ in order to pump the blood properly to
every part of the body, and so to build up flesh, bone, and muscle.
_Exercise:_ “Swimming” and “Wrist Pushing.”

(_b_) _Make the lungs strong_ in order to provide the blood with fresh
air. _Exercise:_ “Deep breathing.”

(_c_) _Make the skin perspire_ to get rid of the dirt from the blood.
_Exercise:_ Bath, or rub with a damp towel every day.

(_d_) _Make the stomach work_ to feed the blood. _Exercise:_ “Body
bending.”

(_e_) _Make the bowels active_ to remove the remains of food and dirt
from the body. _Exercise:_ “Body bending” and “Kneading the abdomen.”
Drink plenty of good water. Punctual daily move of bowels.

(_f_) _Work muscles in each part of the body_ to make the blood
circulate to that part, and so increase your strength. _Exercise:_
Walking and special exercises of special muscles.

The blood thrives on simple good food, plenty of exercise, plenty of
fresh air, cleanliness of the body both _inside_ and out, and proper
rest of body and mind at intervals.

The Japs are particularly strong and healthy. They eat very plain
food, chiefly rice and fruit, and not much of it. They drink plenty of
water, but no spirits. They take lots of exercise. They make themselves
good-tempered. They live in fresh air as much as possible day and
night. Their particular exercise is “_Ju-Jitsu_,” which is more of a
game than drill, and is generally played in pairs. By Ju-Jitsu, the
muscles and body are developed in a natural way, in the open air as a
rule. It requires no apparatus.


The Nose

Always breathe through the nose. _Shut your Mouth and Save your Life._
Indians for a long time adopted that method with their children to the
extent of tying up their jaws at night, to ensure their breathing only
through their nose.

Breathing through the nose prevents germs of disease getting from the
air into the throat and stomach; it also prevents a growth in the back
of the throat called “adenoids,” which are apt to stop the breathing
power of the nostrils, and also to cause deafness.

For a Scout nose-breathing is also specially useful.

[Illustration: Indian cradle: the mouth bandage to induce nose
breathing]

By keeping the mouth shut you prevent yourself from getting thirsty
when you are doing hard work. And also at night, if you are in the
habit of breathing through the nose, it prevents snoring. Therefore
practise keeping your mouth shut and breathing through your nose.


Ears

A Scout must be able to hear well. Generally the ears are very
delicate, and once damaged are apt to become incurably deaf. People
are too apt to fiddle about with their ears in cleaning them by using
things which are dangerous with such a sensitive organ as the ear, the
drum of the ear being a very delicate, tightly-stretched skin which is
easily damaged. Very many children have had the drums of their ears
permanently injured by getting a box on the ear, or cleaning them out
roughly with the hard corner of a towel.


Eyes

A Scout, of course, must have particularly good eye-sight; she must be
able to see anything very quickly, and to see at a long way off. By
practising your eyes in looking at things at a great distance they will
grow stronger. While you are young you should save your eyes as much
as possible, or they will not be strong when you get older; therefore
avoid reading by lamp-light or in the dusk, and also sit with your back
or side to the light when doing any work during the day; if you sit
facing the light it strains your eyes.

The strain of the eyes is a very common failure with growing girls,
although very often they do not know it, and headaches come most
frequently from the eyes being strained; frowning on the part of a girl
is very generally a sign that her eyes are being strained. Reading in
bed brings headaches.


Teeth

Bad teeth are troublesome, and are often the cause of neuralgia,
indigestion, abscesses, and sleepless nights. During the Boer war over
three thousand of our soldiers had to be sent away, unfit to fight,
because their teeth were so bad that they could not eat the food out
there. Good teeth depend greatly on how you look after them when you
are young. Attention to the first set of teeth keeps the mouth healthy
for the second teeth, which begin to come when a child is seven, and
these are meant to last you to the end of your life if you keep them in
order.

If one tooth is allowed to decay, it will spread decay in all the
others, and this arises from scraps of feed remaining between the teeth
and decaying there.

A thorough Scout always brushes her teeth inside and outside and
between all, just the last thing at night as well as other times, so
that no food remains about them to rot. Scouts in camps or in the wilds
of the jungle cannot always buy tooth-brushes, but should a tiger or a
crocodile have borrowed yours, you can make your teeth just as bright
and white as his are by means of a frayed-out, dry, clean, stick.



CEREMONY FOR INVESTING SECOND CLASS GIRL SCOUTS

The troop forms in horseshoe formation, as in the case of Tenderfoot
ceremony, the Captain and Lieutenant standing facing the troop.

Captain: “The Scouts (calling the list of names) have satisfactorily
passed all the tests required for a Second Class badge, and are duly
qualified to receive that badge.”

The Captain then calls forward, one by one, the girls who are to
receive the badge. If there is more than one in a patrol, call all
those in the same patrol together with their patrol leader, but go
through the form with each individual girl.

Captain: “—— (name of girl), do you now pledge yourself to renew your
Scout promise, and to fulfill the Scout Law?”

Scout: “On my honor, I now pledge myself to renew the Scout promise and
to fulfill the Scout law.”

Captain: “Invest.”

The Scout comes forward and stands at salute while the Captain pins on
her sleeve (where it is afterwards to be sewed) the Second Class badge.

Then the Scout salutes and is saluted by the rest of the troop, and
returns to her place.


Measurement of the Girl

_It is of paramount importance to teach the young citizen to assume
responsibility for her own development and health._

_Physical drill is all very well as a disciplinary means of
development, but it does not give the girl any responsibility in the
matter._

_It is therefore deemed preferable to tell each girl, according to her
age, what ought to be her height, weight, and various measurements
(such as chest, waist, arm, leg, etc.). She is then measured and learns
in which points she fails to come up to the standard. She can then
be shown which exercises to practise for herself in order to develop
those particular points. Encouragement must afterwards be given by
periodical measurements, say, every three months or so._

_Cards can be obtained from the “Girl Scouts” Headquarters, which,
besides giving the standard measurements for the various ages, give
columns to be filled in periodically, showing the girl’s remeasurements
and progress in development. If each girl has her card it is a great
incentive to her to develop herself at odd times when she has a few
minutes to spare._


Games to Develop Strength

Skipping, rowing, fencing, swimming, tennis, and hand-ball are all
valuable aids to developing strength.

Remember that sitting still is one form of exercise. How can that be?
Well, if you remember how you ought to sit and keep yourself up to it
you will gradually strengthen the muscles of your back so that in a few
weeks you will sit upright naturally without any effort or thought.

You may ask why shouldn’t I sit like that if it is more comfortable.
Well, do it if you like, but remember that a large part of your time is
spent sitting, sitting at lessons, at meals, when reading or talking,
and so on. Nearly one-third of each day you are sitting, and therefore
forming yourself into one shape or the other. The thing is to form
yourself into the right one.

The wrong one makes you look pretty dowdy and sloppy when you are
going about, but worse than that it lets your lungs slack down and
the muscles of the stomach relax, so that instead of drawing the full
breath of air into your chest for renewing your blood you are only
breathing in a little driblet almost down in your stomach.

So buck up: correct your position while your muscles are still young
and forming themselves; later on, when they are “set” you won’t be able
to alter them. So it just depends on you yourself whether you are going
to be a fine upstanding healthy woman or a sloppy old thing.



CHAPTER III

HOW TO BECOME A FIRST CLASS SCOUT


WHY is a Second-Class Scout like an advertisement of Pears’ Soap?
Because she sees the First Class Badge within her reach if she only
tries for it and “she won’t be happy till she get it.”

At any rate I _hope_ she won’t, because a Scout who is content to sit
down and be a Second Class Scout is only a third class girl.

[Illustration: She won’t be happy till she gets it.]

It is true that when she has got her Second Class, she can go in for
Proficiency Badges and cover her arm with them, but I would much rather
see a Scout with the one Badge of First Class on her left arm than one
with a dozen on her right.

After all the First Class tests are not so very hard. They look a lot,
but like many other difficulties in this world they are not so bad as
they look when you smile at them and tackle them.

Here are the tests that you have to go through for becoming First Class
Scouts:—


First Class Girl Scout

To become a First Class Girl Scout, she must have been a Second Class
Scout.

I. INTELLIGENCE.

    BE ABLE to draw a rough sketch of the district around
    the troop meeting place, locating the important
    landmarks, and be able to direct a stranger to the
    nearest doctor, fire station, telephone, postoffice,
    etc., from any point within that district, and to judge
    distances.

    BE ABLE to send and receive messages, in the general
    service code at the rate of thirty letters a minute.

    HAVE FIFTY cents in the savings banks earned by herself.

    PRESENT a girl trained by herself in the test for
    Tenderfoot.

    KNOW HOW to distinguish and name ten animals, ten wild
    birds, ten wild flowers and ten trees.

[Illustration: 1st Class Scout]

II. HANDICRAFT AND SKILL.

    BE ABLE to prepare, cook and serve one simple meal, of
    three courses.

    MUST BRING a shirt waist or skirt made by herself or
    the equivalent in needlework and be able to put in
    patches.

III. SERVICE.

    BE ABLE to dress and bathe a child two years old or
    younger. Know the proper food to give a child before it
    is a year old, and up to the age of two years. Know how
    to clothe the child in winter and summer.

    MUST KNOW how to behave in case of accidents; and what
    methods of rescue and restoration to use in two cases
    such as drowning, ice accident, gas poisoning and
    electric shock.

IV. HEALTH.

    MUST KNOW the simple laws of sanitation, health and
    ventilation; and be able to walk a mile in 20 minutes.

    MUST SWIM 25 yds. in her clothes, and undress in the
    water.

    or

    WHERE SWIMMING is impossible because of weak heart
    or lack of swimming facilities; must win the other
    proficiency badges not already held.


How to Draw a Map

Once I paid a Boer five pounds for a map which he drew for me with a
stub of a pencil on a bit of brown paper. He had never learnt drawing
or mapping, but he was able to jot down a map that was of great value
to me in a campaign against the Zulus.

Almost any savage can draw you a map in the sand with the point of
his stick: so I am sure that any Scout could do it on paper with a
pencil—especially after a little practice.

You know how useful it is to be able to read a map. Well, it is still
more useful to be able to draw one for helping other people to find
their way. You would not be a real Scout unless you could do this.

[Illustration: A sketch map.]

[Illustration: How to indicate roads.]

[Illustration: More ways to show roads.]

[Illustration: Paths and boundaries.]

[Illustration: On highroads between large towns you can show the
mileage like this.]

[Illustration: Bridges are indicated this way.]

[Illustration: Trains and trams.]

[Illustration: This is the way to show buildings, etc.]

[Illustration: Rivers, etc,]

[Illustration: Woods, etc.]

[Illustration: Signs for north on map.]

[Illustration: Contour mapping.]

The above signs are the conventional signs used in map-making.
Contouring is most easily explained by cutting an apple in half and
placing the halves face downwards, to represent a hill. You can then
slice the pieces horizontally at regular distances to illustrate
heights, as shown on a map.


Judging Heights and Distances

Every Scout must be able to judge distance from an inch up to a mile
and more. You ought, first of all, to know exactly what is the span of
your hand and the breadth of your thumb, and the length from your elbow
to your wrist, and the length from one hand to the other with your arms
stretched out to either side, and also the length of your feet and of
your stride; if you remember these accurately, they are a great help to
you in measuring things.

Judging the distance of objects from you is only gained by practice,
and judging the distance of a journey is generally estimated by seeing
how long you have been travelling, and at what rate; that is to say,
supposing you walk at the rate of four miles an hour, if you have been
walking for an hour and a half you know that you have done about six
miles.

[Illustration: A Scout must be able to estimate heights.]

Distance can also be judged by sound; that is to say, if you see a gun
fired in the distance, and you count the number of seconds between the
flash and the sound of the explosion reaching you, you will be able to
tell how far off you are from the gun.

[Illustration]

Sound travels at the rate of 365 yards in a second; that is, as many
yards as there are days in the year.

A Scout must also be able to estimate heights, from a few inches up to
three thousand feet or more.

[Illustration]

The way to estimate the distance across a river is to take an object X,
such as a tree or rock on the opposite bank; start off at right angles
to it from A, and pace, say, ninety yards along your bank; on arriving
at sixty yards, plant a stick or stone, B; on arriving at C, thirty
yards beyond that, that is ninety from the start, turn at right angles
and walk inland, counting your paces until you bring the stick and the
distant tree in line; the number of paces that you have taken from the
bank C D will then give you the half distance across A X.

To find the height of an object such as a tree (A X), or a house, pace
a distance of, say, eight yards away from it, and there at B plant a
stick, say, six feet high; then pass on until you arrive at a point
where the top of the stick comes in line C with the top of the tree;
then the whole distance A C from the foot is to A X, the height of the
tree, the same as the distance B C, from the stick, is to the height
of the stick; that is, if the whole distance A C is thirty-three feet,
and the distance B C from the stick is nine (the stick being six feet
high), the tree is twenty-two feet high.

    (S.T.)


Games in Pathfinding

Learn how to recognize the Great Bear and the Pole Star and Orion;
to judge time by the sun; find the south by the watch. Practise map
reading and finding the way by the map; and mark off roads by blazing,
broken branches, and signs drawn on the ground.

Captain takes a patrol in patrolling formation into a strange town or
into an intricate piece of strange country, with a cycling map. She
then gives instructions as to where she wants to go to, makes each
Scout in turn lead the patrol, say, for seven minutes if cycling,
fifteen minutes if walking. This Scout is to find the way entirely by
the map, and points are given for ability in reading.


How to Bank Your Money

To be a first-class Scout you have to have at least a shilling (or a
dollar or a rupee) in the Savings Bank. To do this you apply at your
post office to start a deposit. The postmaster will take your money and
keep it for you, and whenever you can get a few more pennies or dimes
go and hand them in to be added to your account. As these sums mount up
you will begin to be paid back a little “interest” by the postmaster.
This you can spend on candy—if you are foolish; but being a Scout you
will add it to the money already in the bank and so increase your pile.


How to Train a Tenderfoot

You know the things that you had to do as a Tenderfoot. It is now your
business to do a good turn to another girl by showing her how to become
a Scout. Mind you, it is all done by kindness and example. Perhaps you
will find your pupil very shy or slow or stupid. Well, Be Prepared, for
that and—smile. Be jolly with her. Don’t try and teach her everything
all at once. Show her generally all that she has to do and then begin
with one thing and do it for her—then repeat it with her—and finally
let her do it for herself. Let her make her mistakes at first and show
her _afterwards_ where she went wrong. She will soon get the hang of it
all.

Then your own example is what will influence her a lot. If you get
impatient and short-tempered so will she. If you laugh and enjoy the
lesson so will she, and between you, you will get along like a house on
fire.


COOKING

Cooking is great fun—sometimes quite exciting, when you try inventing
new dishes.

You can only become a cook by practice under the help of an experienced
cook. But here are a few practical hints that will be helpful.

_Eggs._—Is an egg lighter or heavier when cooked? An experienced cook
is experienced in eggs. There are “new laid” eggs which are fresh and
“fresh” eggs which are not; there are “cooking” eggs which are liable
to squeak. Eggs are safe in their shells, and think you don’t know
whether they are fresh or not, or whether they are raw. Any egg can be
thrown out of a first-floor window on to the lawn without the shell
breaking, it falls like a cat, right end upwards, and this is not a
boiled egg, either! You can tell that because it will not spin on the
table, so it must have been a raw egg. A cooked egg would spin.

To tell a stale egg, you will see it is more transparent at the _thick_
end when you hold it up to the light.

Fresh eggs are more transparent in the _middle_. Very bad eggs will
_float_ in a pan of water.

_Poached Eggs._—Break each egg separately into a cup. When your water
is boiling fast, drop in an egg sharply. Use a large deep pan, with
salt and vinegar in the water. Lift the egg very carefully in a ladle
before it is set too hard. Place the eggs all round a soup plate, pour
over them a nice sauce, made with flour and butter, a little milk, and
some grated cheese and salt.

_Meat._—Examine the meat before you accept it. If you do not know the
looks of good meat, you should go to a butcher’s shop and ask him to
show you how to know it. Much gristle is a sign of old age. You can
easily tell if meat smells disagreeable. Beef should be of a bright
red color, and juicy and elastic. The fat should be firm and of a pale
straw color. Mutton should feel dryish and the fat look white. All
papers must be taken off at once. The feet of fowls should be soft and
flexible, not dry, and the skin of the back should not be discolored.

Beef and mutton, when underdone, are more easily digested than when
cooked through.

Roasting and grilling of meat is done to so heat the outside that the
juices are kept in. The meat has to be frequently turned to prevent
it burning, but allow plenty of salt to melt into the meat with the
dripping, or it will taste just as good as a sole of a boot.

As Mr. Holding said: “The only method I know of for properly making
your meat thoroughly indigestible” is to hurry a stew.

To stew or braise any meat or fowl you must leave it long and keep it
slow. The flavor is improved if the meat be fried first. Then put in
flavoring vegetables, bacon, herbs, and a little stock, and by the time
you have done a day’s work you will find a dish fit for a king. Even
tough meat can be made delicious in this way, so long as it never gets
near boiling and is closely covered. This is a case of “Sow hurry, and
you reap indigestion.”

_Fish._—A most unwholesome food is stale fish. The gills, if fresh,
should be bright red. Canned fish is often poisonous. Fish is a food
which you can get more good from, considering the price, than if you
bought meat, and the most nourishing fish and the cheapest are the
herring mackerel. Pieces of fish, buttered, can be deliciously steamed
or baked if laid between two plates over a saucepan of water.

_Oatmeal._—Oats, too, are full of value; a pound and a half a day
will keep a hard-working man, for oatmeal increases the power of the
muscles, and is rich in bone and flesh-forming materials. What you can
get out of oats for 5 cents would cost you 75 cents in lean beef. Oats
give increased mental vigour and vitality, as they have so much nerve
and brain nourishment in them.

Oatmeal should be kept _fresh_ in a shut case or package.

If you think your brain requires a fillip, eat plenty of beans, but
they must be very much cooked, and should be well buttered.

_Vegetables._—Of vegetables I should like to say they can scarcely be
too much cooked. Wash well in salted water; let leafy ones have a swim
to get rid of grasshoppers and caterpillars and sand, then put them
into boiling salted water and take off the lid. Roots may be allowed
covers.

Peel and slice your onions under water or at a tap.

I once watched a grand _chef_ cooking potatoes, and he told me that
the best of the potato lies next the skin, so he never cuts it, but he
peels his potatoes on a fork after boiling. The cunning cook boils a
bunch of mint with the potatoes.

Excellent food for workers are parsnips, beetroots, or onions.

_Boiling Meat._—If you want the meat and not the juice, you should have
your pot boiling fast when the meat is put in. But if you want gravy or
beef-tea (not meat), put your meat into cold water and bring it slowly
to the boil.

_Stock Pot._—Keep a pot going all day, into which you can put any
broken-up bones or scraps left over, to make nourishing broth. Clean
turnips, carrots, and onions improve it. Before using let it get cold,
so as to skim off the fat.

Barley, rice, or tapioca may be added, and for flavoring add salt,
pepper, chopped parsley, celery, a clove, or mace.

_Milk._—Milk will take the flavor of any strong smell near it. Stale
milk added to fresh will turn the whole of it sour. Sour milk need not
be wasted. You can use it for baking or cooking, by adding bicarbonate
of soda. Sour milk will clean ink or fruit stains, and in washing it
bleaches linen. Yellowed linen should soak in it, so should spoons and
forks. Sour milk cleanses oil-cloth as well as women’s faces and hands.
Chickens and turkeys get fat and lay better for being fed on it.

[Illustration]

To _weigh_ roughly, tie a loop of string to your package of tea, sugar,
etc., and pass it on to your first finger. I find three pounds is as
much as I can hold on my nail. If the loop is shifted to the root of
the nail, four pounds is all one can hold. If the string is placed on
the first joint, I find the parcel weighs seven pounds. Each person
will be different, but you can find out your own power of lifting, and
then you will know exactly for the future.



FIRELESS COOKER

A jolly useful thing for saving coal, saving time, and saving money is
a Fireless Cooker.

The Fireless Cooker is a very valuable help to you in your enjoyment of
camp, because once you have started the food cooking you shove it in
the Fireless Cooker, you press the lid, and the Fireless Cooker does
the rest!

And you can leave the dinner to cook itself while you go out and play
camp games.

And so, too, in your own home, once you have started the food cooking
you can put out the fire, and thus save fuel or gas, and let the
Fireless Cooker finish the job for you.


Construction of Box

Obtain a large wooden box, such as a soap box. Line with double
newspaper. Fill the box to within two or three inches of the top with
very tightly packed hay, scoop out of the centre of the hay a cavity
large enough to hold the cooking utensil. Make a cushion of house
flannel to fit the top of the box exactly and stuff it tightly with hay.


Rules for Use of Fireless Cooker

Use saucepans with tightly fitting lids and short handles. Those made
of aluminum or earthenware are preferable. Jam jars or large tins
tightly covered may be used.

Bring the food to boiling point on the gas cooker or kitchen range
and while boiling place it _at once_ in the box. Some foods require
a certain amount of cooking previous to being placed in the Fireless
Cooker. (See table below.)

Wrap the cooking utensil in newspaper, and place in the prepared nest
in the Fireless Cooker.

Over this place the hay cushion and close the lid firmly. There must be
no space between the cushion and the lid.

NOTE.—To obtain satisfactory results, pack the stew-pan as quickly and
firmly as possible; this is to prevent loss of heat.


Average Time for Various Foods

_Meat._—Cook for about half the usual time on the gas or kitchen range,
and about four to six hours in the Fireless Cooker.

_Dried Beans._—Soak overnight. Boil for 30 minutes. Allow three to four
hours in the cooker.

_Fresh Fruit._—Bring to boiling point and place in the cooker at once.
Allow one or two hours, according to the firmness of the fruit.

_Dried Fruit._—Soak overnight, bring to boiling point and put in the
cooker for three to five hours.

_Oatmeal._—Boil for five minutes and leave in the cooker all night.

_Quaker Oats._—Bring to boiling point and leave in the cooker two
hours.

Other foods, such as vegetables, bacon, etc., can be cooked by this
method.


Small Economics

In the preparation and cooking of food there should be very little for
the garbage can, and only cabbage or egg water for the drain.

  Rinds and bones of bacon.
  Outside stalks of celery.             }
  The young green parts of vegetables.  }  Flavor soup or stock.
  Pieces of gristle, skin and bone.     }
  Pea pods.                             }

Thick stems of cabbage or cauliflower leaves may be served with the
vegetables or separately, if given sufficient time to cook.

Water from boiled cauliflower makes a good soup.

Apple skins—stones from jam—the surplus water from bottled fruit—boiled
with a little sugar and water make a very good fruit syrup to serve
with milk or suet puddings.

The sugar from candied peel will sweeten and flavor a rice pudding.

Water from boiled rice makes a thin stock for soups, or can be used to
stiffen articles of clothing in place of starch.

The grease-proof paper from margarine, etc., will cover steamed
puddings.

Salt removes stains from enamel.

Tissue paper cut into rounds and dipped in warm milk will make
air-tight covers for jam-pots, or can be used for polishing glass or
metal.

Newspapers can be used for lining the fireless cooker, wiping greasy
saucepans or knives before washing, making fire lighters, rubbing over
the stoves—the dirty pieces can be soaked in water, made into balls and
put on the fire to keep it at a steady heat.

Dried orange skins, nutshells, used matches, matchboxes, empty reels,
fruit stones, are useful for fire lighting.

Vegetable parings not fit for food should be dried and used as fuel
unless animals are kept.


Gas Stove

The stove and utensils should be kept clean.

Shallow flat-bottomed vessels should be used.

A compartment steamer cooks three or four different foods on one burner.

A pudding in a basin can be raised out of water by a meat stand placed
at the bottom of an ordinary saucepan—and vegetables cooked in a
perforated steam pan above.

Where possible arrange a meal to be cooked all on the top of the stove,
or all in the oven.

Avoid heating the oven to cook a single dish.

Utilise all space when the oven is heated—food may be partly or wholly
cooked for following day.

In a gas oven three or four small tins are better than one large tin
which fills the shelf. By the former method free circulation of heat is
not prevented, and cooking is more efficient. If a large tin is used,
have holes drilled in it to allow passage of heat.

Fill the kettle before lighting the gas, and turn out the gas before
emptying the kettle.

Don’t _fill_ the kettle if only a pint of water is wanted.

_Tips for Cleaning._—Directly your cooking pot is empty pour cold water
into it and put it on the fire to prevent the leavings getting hard, it
will then be quite easy to clean later on.

Personally I like washing up, though some people _don’t_, but the main
thing is to keep the greasy things to the last. Wash the cleaner things
first in hot water with a clean dishcloth, then add hotter water and
deal with the greasy things.

Dry the utensils with a dry towel, then dry further in warm air, and
finally polish with a soft cloth.



NEEDLEWOMAN

_Needlework._—“A stitch in time saves nine.” I cannot agree with this
favorite saying, because I feel sure it saves so many more than nine,
besides saving time and preventing looking untidy.

I will tell you another thing I don’t believe in. Tailors, who are
such neat workers, will say that they never pin their work first. If
you are not a tailor, it is much better to place your work before you
begin, with plenty of pins. You will never get straight lines or smooth
corners if you do not plan and place it all first, just as it has got
to be, and tack it there.

Have you noticed that thread is very fond of tying itself into a bow;
but this can be prevented by threading the needle before you cut the
thread off the spool, making your knot at the end you cut.

Rough measures may be said to be one inch across a 25 cent piece, and
a yard from nose to thumb as far as you can reach. Needle-work is good
for all of us; it rests and calms the mind. You can think peacefully
over all the worries of Europe whilst you are stitching. Sewing
generally solves all the toughest problems, chiefly other people’s.

_The Scouts’ Patch._—I don’t know whether you ever did such a thing as
burn a hole in your dress, but I have, and if it is in the front, oh,
dear! what will mother say? Now, there is a very good way that Scouts
have of making it all right and serviceable; they put in a piece and
darn it in all round. If possible, get a piece of the same stuff, then
it will not fade a different tint, and will wear the same as the rest.
You may undo the hem and cut out a bit, or perhaps you may have some
scraps over from cutting out your dress.

The piece must be cut three or four inches larger than the hole and
frayed out on all four sides. Trim the hole with your scissors neatly
all round quite square with the thread. Then lay your piece over the
hole—of course, on the back or “wrong side”—and tack it there with
cotton. Now take a darning needle, and thread each thread in turn and
darn each one into the stuff. If the ends of stuff are very short, it
is best to run your needle in and out where you are going to darn,
and then, before pulling it through, thread it with the wool. This
patching is excellent for table-linen.

I once had an aunt who was a thorough old Scout, and was rather proud
of her mending, and she always said that she didn’t mind what colored
cotton you gave her to sew with, because her stitches hardly ever
showed, they were so small, and also she put them inside the stuff.
If she was putting on a patch to blue stuff, she could do it with red
cotton, and you would never have noticed it on the right side; her
stitches were all under the edge. Or else she sewed it at the back, on
the “wrong” side, so that it looked perfectly neat.

If you are not able to match the wool for a darn, it is a good plan to
use the ravellings of the stuff itself. Sometimes, away in the country,
you can’t go to shop and you have nothing like the piece you want to
mend. A Scout would turn it inside out and undo a little of the hem and
ravel out the edge. Suppose you were to cut a hole in the front of your
blue serge skirt; if you darn it with the ravellings of the turnings of
the seam or the hem, that will be exactly the same color and the same
thickness as your dress. No wool you could buy would match as well. Or
if you want to mend a jersey or knitted gloves, you never could buy
such a good match—the same sized wools and the tints.



HOW TO DEAL WITH FIRES AND ACCIDENTS

_Fire._—If you discover a house on fire you should—

1st—Alarm the people inside.

2nd—Warn the nearest policeman or fire-brigade station.

3rd—Rouse neighbours to bring ladders, mattresses, carpets, to catch
people jumping.

After arrival of fire engines the best thing girls can do is to help
the police in keeping back the crowd out of the way of the firemen,
hose, etc.

If it is necessary to go into a house to search for feeble insensible
people, the thing is to place a wet handkerchief or worsted stocking
over your nose and mouth and walk in a stooping position, or crawl
along on your hands and knees quite near the floor, as it is here that
there is least smoke or gas. Also, for passing through fire and sparks,
if you can, get hold of a blanket, and wet it, and cut a hole in the
middle through which to put your head; it forms a kind of fireproof
mantle, with which you can push through flames and sparks. [_Practice
this._]

If you find a person with his clothes on fire, you should throw him
flat on the floor, because flames only burn upwards, then roll him up
in the hearthrug or carpet, coat or blanket, and take care in doing so
that you don’t catch fire yourself. The reason for doing this is that
fire cannot continue to burn where it has no air.

When you find an insensible person (and very often in their fright
they will have hidden themselves under beds and tables, etc.), you
should either carry him out on your shoulder, or, what is often more
practicable in the case of heavy smoke, gas fumes, or in battle when
under heavy fire, etc., harness yourself on to him with sheets or
cords and drag him out of the room along the floor, crawling on all
fours yourself.

A soldier was recently awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for thus
getting his wounded officer into safety while being fired at by the
enemy.

To do this you lay the patient on his back, make a bowline at each end
of your rope, one you put over the patient’s chest and under his arms,
and the other over your own neck, then with your back to his head you
start on “all fours” to pull him along, head first. If the bowline
is the right length it will keep his head up off the ground, as the
picture shows.

[Illustration: Moving an insensible girl.]

_Burns._—In treating a man who has been burnt, remove his clothes,
not by peeling them off, but by cutting them with a SHARP knife or
scissors. If any part of the dress sticks to the skin from having been
burnt there do not tear it away, but cut the cloth round it, then as
quickly as possible protect the burnt parts from the air, which causes
intense pain. The best way to protect them is by dusting them with
powdered chalk or flour, or by laying strips of lint well soaked in
sweet oil or linseed oil, and covering the whole with cotton wool, or
by pouring on oil. Keep the patient warm, and give warm drinks, such
as hot tea, hot milk, or salomonia and water.

Major John Garroway, M.D., strongly recommends, instead of flour or oil
to stop the pain of a burn, to put a piece of paper firmly over the
wound, and the pain will be relieved in a few seconds.

Quite a large number of Scouts have saved lives in the water through
knowing how to swim and what to do. Several Scouts have also saved life
in fire, and have received medals for saving life.

[Illustration]

_Saving Life from Drowning._—A moderate swimmer can save a drowning man
if she knows how, and has practised it a few times with her friends.
The popular idea that a drowning person rises three times before he
finally sinks is all nonsense. He often drowns at once, unless someone
is quick to help him. The important point is not to let the drowning
person catch hold of you, or he will probably drown you too. Keep
behind him always. If you find yourself clutched by the wrist, turn
your wrist against his thumb and force yourself free. Your best way in
helping a drowning man is to keep behind and hold him up by the elbows,
or by the back of the neck, or by putting your arms under his armpits
and your hands across his chest, and telling him to keep quiet and not
to struggle. If he obeys, you can easily keep him afloat; but otherwise
be careful that in his terror he does not turn over and catch hold of
you. If he should seize you by the neck, Holbein says, “Scrag him, and
scrag him quickly. Place your arm round his waist, and the other hand,
palm upwards, under his chin, with your fingertips under his nose. Pull
and push with all your might, and he must perforce let go.” But you
will never remember this unless you practise it frequently with other
people first, each taking it in turns to be the drowning man or rescuer.

[_Practice this._]

If you see a person fall into the water and begin to drown, and you
yourself are unable to swim, you must throw a rope, or an oar, or plank
right over him, so that when he comes up again he may clutch at it and
hold it.

_Drowning._—To restore any one who is apparently drowned, it is
necessary at once to clear the water out of his lungs, for which
purpose, therefore, you should incline him face downwards and head
downwards, so that the water may run out of his mouth, and to help it
you should open his mouth and pull forward his tongue. After running
the water out of the patient, place him on his side with his body
slightly hanging down, and keep the tongue hanging out. If he is
breathing, let him rest; if he is not breathing, you must at once
endeavour to restore breathing artificially.

[Illustration: “If I can’t swim I have at least learnt how to fling a
lifebuoy.”]

There are several ways of reviving persons apparently drowned. You may
find one person eager to do exactly the opposite of another, but do
not fight over it; the best thing is to do quickly whatever you can.
Probably “Schäfer’s system” is the simplest. Lay the patient down with
his bent arm to support the forehead.

Place your hands on the small of the patient’s back, one on each side,
with thumbs parallel and nearly touching, and the fingers reaching only
to the lowest ribs.

Bend forward with the arms straight, so as to allow the weight of
your body to fall on your wrists, and then make a firm, steady
downward pressure on the loins of the patient, while you count slowly,
one—two—three, to press the patient’s stomach against the ground and to
force the air from his chest.

Then swing your body backwards so as to relieve the pressure, and
without removing your hands, while you count slowly, one—two.

Continue this backward and forward movement, alternately relieving and
pressing the patient’s stomach against the ground in order to drive
the air out of his chest and mouth, and allowing it to suck itself in
again, until gradually the patient begins to do it for himself.

The proper pace for the movement should be about twelve pressures to
the minute.

As soon as the patient is breathing, you can leave off the pressure;
but watch him, and if he fails you must start again or get some one to
take your place till he can breath for himself.

Then let him lie in a natural position, and set to work to get him warm
by putting hot flannels or bottles of hot water between his thighs, and
under the arms, and against the soles of his feet, but not before he
is breathing. Wet clothing should be taken off and hot blankets rolled
round him. The patient should be disturbed as little as possible, and
encouraged to sleep, while carefully watched for at least an hour
afterwards.

This is called the Schäfer method, and can be used equally well for
drowned people or for those overcome with smoke or gas fumes.

Now just practise this with another Scout a few times, so that you
understand exactly how to do it, and so Be Prepared to do it to some
poor fellow, maybe, really in need of it one day.

Make the Scouts, in pairs, practise above.

Wounded: taking off clothes. Pull off from the well or uninjured side
first, then when all is loose, carefully uncover the injured part. Try
not to move it, cut the sleeve or trouser up the seam with the rounded
end of scissors inside the cloth. If clothes have to be put on again,
sew pairs of tapes to edges.


Accidents

_Electric Shock._—Men frequently get knocked insensible by touching an
electric cable or rail. The patient should be moved from the rail, but
you have to be careful in doing this that you don’t get the electric
shock also. In the first place put glass, if possible, for yourself
to stand upon, or dry wood if glass is not obtainable, or put on
india-rubber boots. Also put on india-rubber gloves before touching the
patient. If you have none, wrap your hands in several thicknesses of
_dry_ cloth, and pull the patient away with a stick.

A boy was hunting butterflies at St. Ouen, in France, the other day,
when he fell on the “live” rail of the electric railway and was
instantly killed by the shock. A passer-by, in trying to lift him off,
fell dead beside him. A brickmaker ran up and tried to rescue them,
and was himself struck dead in the same way. The two would-be rescuers
were killed through not having learned beforehand what was the right
thing to do.

    (S.T.)

_Gas, Smoke, or Fumes._—Accidents are continually occurring from
escapes of gas in mines, sewers, and houses.

In endeavoring to rescue a person, keep your nose and mouth well
covered with a wet handkerchief, and get your head as close to the
floor as possible, and drag the insensible person out as I have
suggested in case of a fire. Drag your patient as quickly as possible
into the fresh air—(I say as quickly as possible, because if you
delay about it you are very apt to be overcome by the noxious gas
yourself)—then loosen all his clothing about the neck and chest, dash
cold water in his face. If you find that he is no longer breathing,
then treat him as you would a drowned person, and try and work back
the breath into his body.

[Illustration: Push a long ladder or pole across the hole.]

_Ice Accidents._—If a person falls through ice, and is unable to get
out again because of the edges breaking, throw him a rope and tell him
not to struggle. This may give him confidence until you can get a long
ladder or pole ACROSS the hole, which will enable him to crawl out, or
will allow you to crawl out to catch hold of him.


First Aid

When you see an accident in the street or people injured, the sight
of the torn limbs, the blood, the broken bones, and the sound of the
groans and sobbing all make you feel sick and horrified and anxious to
get away from it—if you’re not a Girl Scout. But that is cowardice:
your business as a Scout is to steel yourself to face it and to help
the poor victim. As a matter of fact, after a trial or two you really
get to like such jobs, because with coolheadedness and knowledge of
what to do you feel you give the much-needed help.

    (S.T.)

Every Scout should not only _know how_, but should from frequent
practice be _able to do_ the right thing in every kind of accidental
injury.

In an accident when you are alone with the injured person, if he is
unconscious lay him on his back with his head a little raised and on
one side so that he does not choke, and so that any vomit or water,
etc., can run out of his mouth. Loosen the clothing about his neck and
chest. See where he is injured, and treat him according to what you are
taught in learn “First Aid.”

If you have found the man lying insensible you should carefully examine
the ground round him for any “sign,” and take note of it and of his
position, etc., in case it should be afterwards appear that he had been
attacked by others.

[_Practise above, one girl as patient, the other to find her. Make
“sign” round the patient._]

If you are out with a patrol and an accident happens, or you find an
injured man, the patrol leader should direct one scout to go for a
doctor; she herself will attend to the patient with one Scout to help
her. The second will use the other Scouts in assisting by getting
water or blankets, or making a stretcher, or keeping the crowd back by
forming a fence with their ropes.

As a rule it is best to keep the patient quite quiet at first; unless
it is necessary, do not try to move him; and don’t bother him with
questions until he recovers a bit.

_Broken Limbs._—How to tell when a limb is broken.

There is generally a swelling and pain about the place where the bone
has broken, and sometimes the limb is bent in an unnatural way and the
patient cannot use it.

The broken limb should not be moved about at all, but should be
straightened and bound to something stiff that will keep it stiff and
straight while the patient is being moved to hospital or home.

_Splints._—The stiff thing that you tie to the injured limb is called
a splint. This may be anything such as a wooden batten, Scout’s staff,
tightly rolled newspaper, etc.

Splints should be long enough to go beyond the joints above and below
the break. You should put a splint on each side of the limb if possible.

Then bind the splints firmly from end to end with handkerchiefs or
strips of linen or cloths, but not so tightly as to stop the blood
circulating or to press into the swelling.

[_Practise this._]

_Bandage._—For binding a broken limb you want a good large
three-cornered bandage. Its two sides should be each about forty inches
long.

[Illustration: Bandaging.]

To make a sling for broken arm or collarbone, hang the bandage round
the patient’s neck, tying the two ends together in a reef-knot with
the point of the bandage towards the damaged arm. Rest the arm in this
sling and bring the point round the back of the arm and pin it to hold
the elbow in the sling.

_Fishhook in the Skin._—I got a fishhook into my finger the other day.
I got a knife and cut off all the fly which was on the hook, then
pushed the hook farther into my finger till the point began to push
against the skin from inside. With a sharp knife I cut a little slit in
the skin so that the point came easily through, and I was then able to
get hold of it and to pull the whole hook through. Of course you cannot
get a hook out backwards, as the barb holds tight in the flesh all the
time. Such fun!

_Frost-bite._—In Arctic countries or extreme cold men are liable to
get frost-bitten. That is, their ears, or nose, or fingers, or toes
get killed by the cold. The patient does not feel any pain; the part
becomes numb and turns very white and waxy, and afterwards purple.

Directly this is noticed the part should be rubbed with snow or with
the hand until the blood comes back to it. On no account should it be
warmed by putting the patient in a warm room or near a fire; that would
kill the part at once.

_Hysterics._—Nervous people, especially women, get hysterics when
excited, crying, laughing, and screaming. The best treatment is to shut
the patient into a room and leave her entirely alone till she gets over
it. Don’t try and soothe her, it only makes her worse.

_Fainting._—If your patient faints and is pale—fainting comes from too
little blood in the head—make him sit down, and push his head down
between his knees. Pressure on a nerve (for instance, in top of eye
socket) will often revive. If his face is flushed raise the head—there
is too much blood in it, as in apoplexy or sunstroke.

_Toothache._—This is not mentioned in most first aid instructions, and
yet you can earn many blessings by knowing how to relieve it. Here is
a simple way that is generally successful, especially if the offending
tooth is in the upper jaw. Steep a little bit of cotton-wool in spirits
of camphor. Stuff the wool into one nostril—hold the other nostril
tight shut and make the patient draw in the air through the wool. The
spirit is thus sucked in on to the nerve, which lies near the back of
the nose, and it very quickly relieves the pain.

_Fits._—A man cries out and falls, and twitches and jerks his limbs
about, froths at the mouth: he is in a fit. It is no good to do
anything to him before the doctor comes except to put a bit of wood or
cork between his jaws, so that he does not bite his tongue. Let him
sleep well after a fit.

_Poisoning._—If a person suddenly falls very ill after taking food, or
is known to have taken poison, the first thing to do is to make him
swallow some milk or raw eggs. These seem to collect all the poison
that is otherwise spread about inside him. Then, if the mouth is not
stained or burnt by the poison, make him vomit if possible by giving
him salt and warm water, and try tickling the inside of his throat with
a feather. Then more eggs and milk, and weak tea. If the poison is an
acid that burns, the patient should not be made to vomit, but milk or
salad oil should be given. The patient should be kept awake if he gets
drowsy.

_Blood-Poisoning._—This results from dirt being allowed to get into a
wound. Swelling, pain, red veins appear. Fomenting with hot water is
the best relief.

_Choking._—Loosen collar; hold the patient’s nose with one hand and
with the forefinger of the other, or with the handle of a spoon try and
pull out whatever is stuck in his throat. By pressing down the root of
the tongue you may make him vomit and throw out the obstruction. For
slight choking make patient bend head well back and swallow small pills
made of bread, and sip water. Sometimes a good hard smack on the back
will do him good.

Choking sometimes comes from a sudden swelling inside the throat. In
this case put hot steaming flannel fomentations to the neck and give
the patient ice to suck or cold water to sip.

_Quinsy._—When I was in the Andes Mountains in South America recently,
I heard of two Englishmen who had died there not long before from
choking by quinsy, simply because there was no one by who knew what to
do in such a case. Everybody ought to Be Prepared to deal with quinsy
if away from the help of doctors.

Most people suffer from tonsillitis at one time or another in their
lives—that is a swelling of the tonsils—the round lumps of flesh on
each side of the back of the throat. And sometimes, on rare occasions,
the swelling becomes so great that the patient cannot breathe, the
throat becomes completely blocked up. This is quinsy.

Very hot fomentations is the best step towards easing the pain and
reducing the swelling.

The extreme measure is to lance the patient’s tonsils.

_Acid Burning._—A case occurred only the other day of a woman throwing
vitriol over a man’s face. This is an awful acid, which burns and eats
away the flesh wherever it touches. Fortunately a policeman happened
to be on the spot at the time, and knew what to do. He at once applied
half warm water to which some soda had been added to wash off the acid,
and then applied flour or whitening to protect the wound from the air
and ease the pain as you would do for a burn.

_Snake Bite._—Fortunately poisonous snakes are uncommon. If you go
abroad you may come across them, and you ought always to know how to
deal with bites from them. The same treatment does also for wounds from
poisoned arrows, mad dogs, etc. Remember the poison from a bite gets
into your blood, and goes all through your body in a very few beats
of your pulse. Therefore, whatever you do must be done immediately.
The great thing is to stop the poison rushing up the veins into the
body. To do this bind a cord or handkerchief immediately round the limb
_above_ the place where the patient has been bitten, so as to stop the
blood flying back to the heart with the poison. Then try and suck the
poison out of the wound, and, if possible, cut the wound still more, to
make it bleed, and run the poison out. The poison, when sucked into the
mouth, does no harm unless you have a wound in your mouth. The patient
should also be given stimulants, such as coffee or spirits, to a very
big extent, and not allowed to become drowsy, but should be walked
about and pricked and smacked in order to keep his senses alive.

[_Practise this process in make-believe._]

    (S.T.)

_Grit in the Eye._—Do not let your patient rub the eye; it will only
cause inflammation and swelling, and so make the difficulty of removing
the grit all the greater.

If the grit is in the lower eyelid, draw down the lid as far as
you can, and gently brush it out with the corner of a moistened
handkerchief, or with a paint brush, or feather.

If it is under the upper lid, pull the lid away from the eyeball
and push the under lid up underneath the upper one. In this way the
eyelashes of the lower lid will generally clean the inside of the upper
one.

Another way, which every Scout must practise, is to seat your patient
and stand behind him yourself with the back of his head against your
chest. Lay a card, match, or any flat substance under your own thumb on
the upper part of the upper eyelid, and then catch hold of the edge of
the eyelid and draw it upwards over the match so that it turns inside
out; gently remove the grit with a feather or wet handkerchief, and
roll the eyelid down again.

If the eye is much inflamed, bathe it with luke-warm weak tea.

If the grit is firmly imbedded in the eye, drop a little oil (olive or
castor oil) into the lower lid; close the eye, and bandage it with a
soft wet pad and bandage, and get a doctor to see it.

[_Practise above._]

How to make eye-tweezers for removing a piece of grit from eye. Fold a
piece of paper in two. With a sharp knife cut it to a point of an angle
of 30°, and slightly moisten the point. Then bring it straight down
over the eyeball of the patient, so that it can nip the obstruction,
which is generally removed at the first attempt.

STRETCHERS may be arranged in some of the following ways:

(a) A hurdle, shutter, door, gate, covered well with straw, hay,
clothing, sacking.

(b) A piece of carpet, blanket, sacking, tarpaulin or Girl Scout
skirts, spread out, and two stout poles rolled up in the sides. Put
clothes for a pillow.

(c) Two coats, with the sleeves turned inside out; pass two poles
through the sleeves; button the coats over them.

(d) Two poles passed through a couple of sacks, through holes at the
bottom corners of each.

In carrying a patient on a stretcher be careful that he is made quite
comfortable before you start. Let both bearers rise together; they must
walk _out of step_, and take short paces. It should be the duty of the
hinder bearer to keep a careful watch on the patient.

If the poles are short four bearers will be necessary, one at each
corner of the stretcher.

[_Practice these different methods._]


How to Practise

_In practising First Aid it is a great thing to bespatter the patient
with blood and mud to accustom the rescuer to the sight of it,
otherwise it will often unnerve him in a real accident. Sheep’s blood
can be got from the butcher’s shop._

_Prepare a heavy smoke fire in a neighbouring room or building (if
possible on the first floor), while you are lecturing in the club room.
Secretly arrange with two or three Scouts that if an alarm of fire is
given they should run about frightened and try and start a panic._

_Have the alarm given either by getting some one to rush in and tell
you of the fire, or by having some explosive bombs fired. Then let
a patrol, or two patrols, tackle the fire under direction of their
patrol leaders. They should shut windows and doors. Send Scouts into
different parts of the building to see if the fire is spreading, and to
search for people in need of rescue._

_These Scouts should have wet handkerchiefs over their mouths and
noses. “Insensible” people (or sack dummies) should be hidden under
tables, etc._

_Scouts rescue them by shouldering or dragging them out and getting
them down to the ground. Use jumping sheet, chute, etc._

_Other parties lay and connect the hose, or make lines for passing fire
buckets._

_Another party revive the rescued by restoring animation. Another party
form “fence” to help the police and fire brigade by keeping the crowd
back._


Games

“_Dragging Race._”—A line of patients of one patrol are laid out at
fifty yards distance from start. Another patrol, each carrying a rope,
run out, tie ropes to the patients, and drag them in. Time taken of
last in. Patrols change places. The one which completes in shortest
time wins. Knots must be correctly tied.

    (S.T.)


Physical Exercises and Health Rules

The simple physical exercises given in the earlier chapters will give
you all the movements needed to keep you well and to help your growth
IF you only practise them. That is the secret. Set apart certain
minutes in the day, especially in the early morning, and make it your
habit to go through these exercises and you will make for yourself a
wonderful difference in your health.

But alongside this giving health to your body, you must see to it that
your surroundings, your home, the air, your food, and your clothing are
also health-giving, otherwise all the exercise in the world will not
help you.


Health Rules for the Home

Scouts should do everything in their power to make and keep their homes
healthy as well as happy.

Most of you cannot choose your own dwelling, but whether you live in a
house, a cottage, a flat, in rooms, or even in one room of a house, you
can do a very great deal to keep it healthy and pure.

Fresh air is your great friend; it will help you to fight disease
better than anything else. Open all your windows as often as you can,
so that the air may get into every nook and corner. Never keep an
unused room shut up. Disease germs, poisonous gases, mildew, insects,
dust, and dirt have it all their own way in stale, used-up air. Air
does not flow in and flow out of the same opening at the same time any
more than water does, so you want two openings in a room—an open window
to let the good air in, and a fireplace and chimney to let the stale
air out, or whether there is no fireplace, a window open both at top
and bottom. The night air in large towns is purer than the day air, and
both in town and country you should sleep with your window open if you
want to be healthy. Draughts are not good, as they carry away the heat
from your body too fast; so if your bed is too near the window, put up
a shelter between it and the open window and cover yourself more. At
least one window on a staircase or landing should always be kept open,
and also the pantry and the closet windows.

_Tidiness._—Half your time will be saved if little things are kept
tidy. Have a place for everything, and have everything in its place. If
you are not sure which is the right place for a thing, think “_Where,
if I wanted it, should I go to look for it?_” That place is the right
one. Get into the habit of always making a ball of any string you get
and collect them.

War must be waged against rats and mice, or they will invade you and
loot everything. If you have no mouse-traps, put a newspaper over a
pail of water, break a hole slightly in the centre in the form of a
star, and place a bit of cheese on the centre tips of star to entice
the mouse. Let the paper reach to the floor, not too upright, for the
mouse to climb up. Try putting broken camphor into their holes; they
dislike the smell. Fly and wasp traps are made by tying paper over a
tumbler half-filled with water and beer or molasses. Break a hole in
the paper, and fit in a tube of rolled paper about one inch long and
one inch across.

_Damp_ is never healthy, and you can prevent it to a great extent by
letting plenty of fresh air go through your house and rooms which have
been shut up.

When you see signs of damp, try to find out the cause; it may be put
right. A pipe or gutter may have got blocked, or there may be a loose
shingle, or the water pipes may be leaking.

In countries where there are mosquitoes people are very careful not to
allow any water to lie near their houses, for the poisonous mosquito
breeds in stagnant water. Sunflowers planted near a house help to keep
the soil dry; also low bushes and plants. Consumption and other deadly
disease germs flourish in damp, ill-aired houses.

_Sunlight_ is a great health-giver and disinfectant, and the more of
it you have in your house the better. Long ago people used to shut out
the sun and air for fear their curtains and carpets would fade, but
it is far better that the sun should fade your curtains than that the
darkness should fade you. Cases of consumption are rare in dry, sunny
houses.

Nurseries and bedrooms should have plenty of morning and mid-day sun.

Motto: “_Tidy as you go_.”

_Cleanliness_ in every part of the house is most necessary, especially
kitchen and refrigerators. Do not let dust or rubbish collect anywhere,
behind furniture or pictures, under beds, or in cupboards. If we
realised what horrid things we may collect from pavement or street
dust on our skirts and shoes, we should be much more careful about the
dusting of our rooms.

Do not allow dogs, cats, or birds to be where they can touch your food
or your cooking utensils; animals have diseases too. Flies, gnats,
and fleas are most dangerous pests; they feed on decayed and diseased
things, and may carry poison on their feet and leave it on your food.
Keep them out of your house, and especially chase them out of your
kitchen and larder. Any bad smell in a house is a danger signal; find
out its cause, and get rid of it.

    (S.T.)

Be sure your drinking water is pure. If you are at all doubtful about
it, _boil it well_—that is, for not less than fifteen minutes. Water
cisterns should be often cleaned out. See that all drains, sinks, and
closets are in good order. A very poisonous gas called sewer gas comes
from bad drains, and typhoid, diphtheria, etc., are caused by drinking
bad water and bad drainage. The gas does not come up if there is a
“trap” full of water in the pipe; that is a curve in the pipe where
water collects. Let water run down all sinks once or twice a day to
rinse the pipes. To sum up, “Remember that nearly all the _dangers_
to health in a house or room begin with a D, and these dangers or
destroyers are:

    “Darkness.
    “Damp.
    “Dust.
    “Dirt.
    “Doubtful drinking water.
    “Defective drains.”

Against these destroyers, which bring debility, disease and even death,
the Scouts’ defences are:

    “Sunlight.
    “Fresh air.
    “Cleanliness.”

_Housewifery._—Every Scout is as much a “housewife” as she is a girl.
She is sure to have to “keep house” some day, and whatever house she
finds herself in, it is certain that that place is the better for her
being there.

Too many odds and ends and draperies about a room are only dust-traps,
and rugs or carpet squares, which can be taken up easily, are better
than nailed down carpets. Keep all the furniture clean and bright.
Fresh air, soap, and water are the good housewife’s best allies. Bars
of soap should be cut up in squares and kept for six weeks before being
used. This hardens it and makes it last longer.

In scrubbing boarded floors, the secret is not to deluge the floor;
change the water in the pail frequently.

In the work of cleaning think out your plan beforehand, so as not to
dirty what has been cleaned. Plan out certain times for each kind of
work and have your regular days for doing each thing.

_Pasteboards and Deal Tables._—Scrub hard the way of the grain. Hot
water makes boards and tables yellow. Rinse in cold water and dry well.

_Saucepans._—New saucepans must not be used till they have first been
filled with cold water and a little soda, and boiled for an hour or so,
and must be well scoured. After bowls or saucepans have been used, fill
them at once with cold water to the brim; this will prevent anything
hardening on the saucepan and will make cleaning easier.


Swimming

_Swimming._—Every 1st Class Scout ought to be able to swim. It is not
only for her own amusement that she should do so, but so that she will
not cause other people to risk their lives in rescuing her when she
gets into difficulties in the water, and that she may be able to help
those in distress. British girls are behindhand in learning to swim—it
is very different in Norway and Sweden, or in America, where nearly
every girl can swim.

Where a doctor says swimming is bad for her, or there is no possible
means for her learning, such other badges that she does not hold may be
accepted instead towards qualifying the Scout for her 1st Class.

No Scout can be of real use till she can swim, and to learn swimming is
no more difficult than to learn bicycling.

All you have to do is at first to try and swim like a dog, as if trying
to crawl slowly along in the water; don’t try all at once to swim with
the ordinary breast stroke that swimmers use, because this only lets
your mouth go under water every time. When paddling along like a dog
get a friend to support you at first with a pole or his hand under your
belly.

Any of you who cannot swim as yet, and who fall into the water out of
your depth, remember that you need not sink if you take care to do the
following things. First, keep your mouth upwards by throwing the head
well back. Secondly, keep your lungs full of air by taking in long
breaths, but breathe out very little. Thirdly, keep your arms under
water. To do this you should not begin to shout, which will only empty
your lungs, and you should not throw your arms about or beckon for
help, else you will sink. So the main thing of all is to keep cool and
force yourself to remember and to carry out these things.



CHILD WELFARE

There always are and always will be children to be care of. Perhaps
there is no better way for a girl to help her country than to fit
herself to undertake the care of children. She should learn all she can
about them, and take every opportunity of helping to look after these
small Boy and Girl Scouts of the future. Many girls are already doing
this and are realizing that the Child Welfare badge is one of the most
important in the whole list for a Scout to win.


Health Habits

Children are trained to regular habits in three ways; first, by having
meals at fixed hours; second, by having regular times for sleeping and
waking; and third, by being taught when young to be clean and regular
in their daily clear-out. They must have plenty of healthful, peaceful
sleep and the earlier they go to bed the better for their brains and
nerves in after life. The bedroom must be airy and quiet; the windows
kept open.


Bath

Nobody can be healthy unless he is clean, and cleanliness is one of
the first habits you want Baby to form. So he should have a daily
bath. The temperature for his bath should range from 80° to 98° and
you should be able to read the bath thermometer as well as the room
thermometer. Before you undress Baby get together everything that you
will need for the bath and dressing; your hand basin of warm water,
soap, soft wash cloths and towels, comb and brush, etc., and his
clothes laid out in the order in which you will put them on.

It is handier as well as safer to begin baby laid on a table or bed
rather than on your lap. He should of course have under him a soft
towel or canton flannel. First wash his head carefully and rub it dry
gently. Do the outer parts of his ears and let no water get inside
them. The nose may be cleaned with a bit of cotton rolled to a point
and the nails should be carefully cleaned. Then put him gently in the
tub. Some people soap the baby first, and a soapy little baby wiggles,
so hold him very firmly and comfortably, supporting his head all the
time he is kicking and splashing in the tub. After you lift him out
be careful to dry all the creases in his little body. It is perfectly
proper for a baby to cry as much as twenty minutes every day till he
begins to talk, and he may take his bath time for doing it, so don’t
scold him. A baby can be kept sweet and clean by a daily sponge bath.


Food

The baby needs proper food to build up his body. Milk is his only food
for the first months of his life and even up to three years he takes
mostly milk.

For the first eight or nine months of a baby’s life mother’s milk is
the best food for him, and if he is unfortunate enough to have to take
his milk from a bottle you will have to learn the best kind of bottle
to use and how to prepare it. Baby is very particular about his milk
being fresh and good.

Punctual feeding makes good digestion and even if he wants that extra
nap it is better to wake a healthy baby to give him his meal at regular
hours, than to let his digestion get out of order. Some babies are
very punctual and feel it keenly if you do not feed them at the fixed
hour. They will very likely let you know it too, and woe betide you
if they find you have not properly boiled the bottle after each meal
to sterilize it. Between meals a little drink of water which has been
boiled and cooled (sterile water) will wash out his mouth as well as
refresh him. Do not give a baby too much food at a time, and keep
him on plain food. This applies to you as well as to baby. When the
digestion is not right the appetite will not be good. Digestion makes
the food you eat ready to be turned into muscle and bone and brain,
and indigestion means that you have not used up the food you ate and
therefore you have those uncomfortable pains in the middle of the
night. Eat only the foods you know you can digest comfortably.

By the time a child is two years old, he should have a well varied
though simple bill of fare. This may include cereals such as well
cooked oatmeal and cream of wheat, soft boiled eggs, fresh juice,
(beef) milk puddings, milk toast, baked potatoes, apple sauce and
chicken broth.


Clothing

Children’s clothes should be warm but light, and where possible should
hang from the shoulders. The legs, particularly the ankles, should be
kept warm and the feet dry.


Sunshine, Air and Exercise

Give a baby plenty of fresh air, out of doors if you can, avoiding
drafty places. It gives him a better appetite, makes him sleep sounder
and also helps to give him rosy cheeks, a sign of good red blood.

Be careful that sheet and blankets do not get over a baby’s head; as
this weight causes suffocation, so pin the covers to the side of the
bed and let him have fresh air while he sleeps.

No self respecting baby would ever by himself contract the “pacifier”
habit and he should never be given a pacifier. This article thrust
into his mouth makes the upper jaw protrude, carries germs into a
baby’s mouth, sometimes causes adenoids, is ugly to look at and finally
doesn’t really pacify.

It does a baby good to lie down and kick about. Crawling and climbing
exercise his muscles. Don’t let a baby walk too soon. Bow-legs
come from standing and walking while the bones are soft; also from
under-nourishment. But if a child wants to walk, let him make the
effort; he will not pull himself up unless he wants to try his muscles.
Childhood is a time to form the body; it cannot be altered much when
you are grown up. Playtime should not come directly after feeding or
before sleeptime.


Illnesses

What will you do when you suddenly find that baby is ill? To call in
the doctor is the first thing, that is, if there is a doctor. But when
there is no doctor! You will at once think of all the First Aid you
have learned, and what you know of home nursing. Drugs are bad things.
You may lay up trouble for a child by giving it soothing drugs and
advertised medicines which sometimes make the baby stupid and may cause
constipation. Never neglect the bowels if they become stopped up. This
upsets digestion, poisons the baby and may help to bring on convulsions
or other serious illnesses. If a child is suffering from a convulsion,
lay him flat with his head on a pillow. Pat his head with cold water
and put a hot bottle at his feet. If the convulsion continues put him
in a warm bath of about 106° which is as hot as is comfortable for
your bare elbow, but you must not keep cold cloths on his head. Use
very gentle artificial respiration not trying to straighten the arms.
Of course you will keep a baby away from anyone who has a contagious
disease.

You can very easily train a young child to obey, but after three years
old it becomes more difficult unless a good start has been made.
Children expect you to be just. If you are good tempered and patient
a child will stand a good deal of firmness, but slapping and scolding
ruin young tempers. Answer a child’s question without ridicule. He is
feeling his way in this great big world, and you once asked foolish
questions, too.


Proficiency Badges

Whenever I see a Scout coming along I feel at once a friendly interest
in her, but when she comes nearer that interest either increases or
goes off a bit when I look at her right arm and see on it badges—or no
badges.

Every Scout, as soon as she has passed the Second Class tests, can go
in for proficiency badges. These badges are not intended for swagger,
but to show that you can do things. On the left arm you will wear those
badges which mean that you are good at work that is useful to other
people, and these are the important badges; while on the right arm the
badges show the sort of Scout that you are, that is whether you are
efficient or not in different branches of Scout work.

There are a very large number of badges on the list which you can go
in for, but it does not mean that you are to try and get them all, but
rather that you may look through the list and find out which are most
likely to suit you and then to go in for one or two of those. The most
important of all the badges are those for nursing. They are important
to the Scout herself, because through practising this work she can most
easily carry out the Scout law of doing good turns to other people, and
these would be good turns which really are useful. Also by knowing how
to nurse she can do good work for her country.

_The Value of Nursing._—In the great war hundreds and hundreds of
women have gone to act as nurses in the hospitals, for the wounded
and have done splendid work They will no doubt be thankful all their
lives that while they were yet girls they learnt how to nurse and
how to do hospital work, so that they were useful when the call came
for them. But there are thousands and thousands of others who wanted
to do the work when the time came, but they had not like Scouts been
Prepared, and they had never learnt how to nurse, and so they were
perfectly useless and their services were not required in the different
hospitals. So carry out your motto and Be Prepared and learn all you
can about hospital and child nursing, sick nursing, and every kind,
while you are yet a Scout and have people ready to instruct you and to
help you in learning.

Child nursing is also very important, because so many girls are
wanted now to help mothers in looking after their children. Such a
large number of babies die every year from being nursed by girls who
have never taken the trouble to learn what they ought to do with
children. Babies are delicate little things, and a very little act of
carelessness or want of knowledge of what to do often causes the death
of one who might otherwise have grown up to be a valuable citizen for
the country. On becoming a Scout you promise to Be Prepared to do your
duty in every possible way, and one very important way is that of
nursing children as well as grown ups; and therefore I hope that you
will learn as quickly as possible how to carry out this duty and so
to carry out your work as a Scout in the proper spirit. Therefore I
recommend you to take as the most important ones, the Ambulance Badge,
the Child Nurse Badge, and the Home Nursing; after which you can
look through the list and pick out others for which you feel that you
are particularly keen, or for which there are instruction classes for
Scouts that you can attend. Set those badges up before you and do your
best to win some of them.

_Where to wear the Badges._—The First and Second Class Badge is worn
_on the left arm_. It should be placed about half-way between the elbow
and the shoulder strap, so as not to be covered by the shoulder knot.

[Illustration: BE PREPARED]

The Ambulance, Home Nurse, and Child Nurse Badges are also worn on
the left arm, just below the Second and First Class Badges. All the
other Proficiency Badges are worn on the right arm. They are sewn on
as they are won, starting at the bottom of the sleeve, just above the
cuff, and growing upwards in couples as the Scout becomes more and more
proficient.

The War Service Badge is worn above the right-hand breast pocket.

The Attendance Stars are worn in a horizontal row just above the
left-hand breast pocket.

_The War Service Badge._—Is granted to Scouts who have done special
service for their country during the Great War. It is worn above the
right breast pocket.


Golden Eaglet

To secure this honor a Girl Scout must win the following badges:
Ambulance and First Aid, Clerk, Cook, Child Nurse, Dairymaid, Matron,
Musician, Needlewoman, Naturalist, Home Nurse, Pathfinder, Pioneer,
Signaler, Swimmer, Athletics, Health or Civics. (In case a swimming
badge is impossible two badges not already earned may be substituted.)


Life-Saving Medals

These are worn on the right breast and are awarded as follows:—

    _Bronze Cross (Red Ribbon)._—Presented as the highest
    possible award for gallantry. It can only be worn where
    the claimant has shown special heroism or has faced
    extraordinary risk of life in saving life.

    [Illustration: Bronze and Silver Cross for Saving Life.]

    [Illustration: Gilt Medal of Merit.]

    _Silver Cross (Blue Ribbon)._—For gallantry, with
    considerable risk to herself.

    _Badge of Merit (Gilt Wreath—White Ribbon)._—For a
    Scout who does her duty exceptionally well, though
    without grave risks to herself.

    _Thanks Badge._—It is the privilege of any Scout, of
    whatever rank, to present this Badge of Thanks to any
    one who does a Scout a good turn. It entitles the
    wearer to make use of the services of any Scout at any
    time, but does not constitute membership.


Hockey a Fine Game

I should like to see everything that calls itself a girl playing it.
Yet there are thousands and thousands of girls who have never yet even
seen it played—much less played it themselves.

I should like all of them to play it, not only once but regularly, and
this is why.

Because it gives them health and strength through active exertion
in the open air; it gives them a jolly time and lots of excitement,
happiness, and laughter; it makes them quick with eye, hand, and foot;
it makes them all good pals together; it teaches them to take hard
knocks without winking such as at other times would make them faint or
swear.

It teaches them to play unselfishly and to pass the ball on. It gives
them pluck, it gives them hope, for even when things look bad there
is often the possibility of winning by an extra effort. They learn to
stick to rules and to obey orders, to play fair and to stop sneaking,
underhand play.

In a word, they learn to play the game for their side and not for
themselves.

Well, that is just what our soldiers at the front are doing, playing
the game nobly for their country at no matter what danger to their own
life or limb.

It’s just what we want of all Americans in the future—women as well as
men—to think of their country and other people first; to obey the laws
and play the game for the good of others bravely and hopefully, without
caring what hard knocks they get themselves.

Could not some of you who can afford to play hockey yourselves managed
to help some other girls to play it too?

Think what joy it would bring into their lives, what health and
brightness you could offer them and what good and friendly citizens you
could make them.


A Scout Is a Lady

_What is a Lady?_—This is what I saw the other day in the Subway. The
seats were all crowded when a smart-looking girl got in. A wounded
soldier with a bandaged foot and a walking stick stood up rather
painfully and offered her his seat. The girl plumped herself down
comfortably and she did not give him a look or even a word of thanks. A
pale woman then rose and said to him, “I can stand better than you; you
got hurt for me,” and made him take her place.

One of these two women was a lady. Can you guess which?


The Frogs in the Cream

Oh, there is one more thing that hockey teaches. Often you lose a game,
but you do not therefore lose your temper or lose your happiness for,
as a Scout, you at once cheer the winners and forget to be put out by
it.

But you don’t lose every game. Very often it will look as if it was
going against you and there seems little chance of winning when, just
near the end, the other side give out or get careless, and by sheer
sticking to it you win a goal or two in the last few minutes and come
out victorious in the end.

[Illustration: Perseverance: Frogs in the cream.]

Well, it is sticking to it which is so tremendously valuable, not only
in the game, but also for getting on as a Scout, and afterwards in
getting on in life.

Two frogs, out for a walk one day, came upon a bowl of cream, into
which they fell. Thinking it a new kind of water and that it was
hopeless trying to swim, one was drowned through having no pluck. The
other struggled hard to keep afloat. Just when he felt he _must_ give
up a curious thing happened. In his struggles he had churned up the
cream so much that he found himself standing safe on a pat of butter!

If you learnt nothing else from Scouting than this little story of the
frogs, try, at any rate, to remember that; and when you feel you are
failing at your job just think of it; remind yourself of the frogs—and
stick to it.


Happy Housemaids Singing Hymns

Someone asked me the other day why it is that housemaids, when they are
at work, are always droning most dreary hymn tunes. Well, I couldn’t
say exactly why they do it, but I like to hear it, because people who
sing at their work evidently don’t find it a drudgery or irksome.

I was at a great aeroplane factory the other day, where the manager had
encouraged his men in their spare time to form a band, and he supplied
the funds for helping them to get instruments, music, etc.

When they began to get rather good at it they, like all amateur
musicians, began to fancy themselves, and said that they would like to
get some high-class classical music to play.

But he said: “Not a bit of it, I want you to play all the tunes that
you can get, provided that they are jolly ones.”

Then he used to make the men march to their workshops with their band
playing, and for the rest of the morning, instead of working sullenly
and grudgingly at their machines, the men were whistling and singing
the tunes that were running in their heads, and the work consequently
was better done and more of it was got through than would otherwise
have been possible.

So the wretched Girl Scouts, when they are forced to play these dull
games and to do the terrible hard work of Scouting, need something to
cheer them up. All they have to do is to learn a few jingles and to
sing them, stamp, bang, or whistle them as they go along, and they are
sure to feel the better for it.


Patrol Leaders

When you come to be a Patrol Leader you must remember that you are
really taking up a very responsible and important position, because
you are going to be in charge of a number of girls under you, who will
form their characters entirely under your example and guidance, and if
you choose to be a slacker they will become slackers, if you choose
to be a good Scout they will all become good Scouts, or nearly all of
them. That is very much dependent on you yourself. So don’t become a
Patrol Leader merely for the swagger of it or the sake of wearing an
extra badge or two, but really think whether you are fitted to lead
those girls, and take it up with the best of your ability to make good
Scouts of them. You have got to _command_ your Patrol; well, you can
only command others if you have their confidence, and you can only have
their confidence if you have confidence in yourself; you can only have
confidence in yourself by knowing your work thoroughly and well. You
should therefore study the handbook, learn all about Scouting, what
it aims for, and then how you can carry out the instructions given;
practise the things yourself that are shown you, know that you can do
the different things well; and then you will be able to have confidence
in yourself, your Scouts will obey your orders, and so you will be able
to carry out the training of them and their discipline perfectly well.
You lead entirely by your own personal example, don’t forget that; that
is what tells, and that is the easy way to gain success; not only the
easy way, but it is the _only_ way.

As a Leader you must be the best at carrying out the Scout Law in your
Patrol, the others will follow you in it; you must be the captain also
in all the games; you must be the first in every venture; you must be
the one to suggest good games, good ideas, good thoughts. If you are
the first in every way like this your girls will follow your leads and
you will have good discipline among them. Your aim should, of course,
be to make your Patrol the best, and if every Patrol tries to be the
best in the Troop, you may be sure that that Troop will be a very good
one amongst other Troops.

You should take counsel among your Scouts as to what they fancy
themselves at, and then challenge another Patrol to have a competition
in that particular line, whatever it may be, whether Signalling, or
Ambulance Work, or playing a game of Hockey, or baseball, or anything
you like; but continually challenge other Patrols to beat you at
your own game, and then practise your game well and make yourselves
efficient at it, so as you do not get beaten. For every game the whole
Patrol should form the team. Don’t have one or two good players and
the rest no use at all; and don’t have individual competition, one
girl against another, but always try and have your Patrol as a team,
then the worst will try and make themselves better in order to play
up the average of the lot, and so play for the good of the Patrol and
not of themselves. If possible, give each of your Scouts her own job
to do in the Patrol. You may find one good at one thing, another good
at another; well, urge her to do her particular job, and to do it well
for the benefit and honour of the Patrol. You will have one little
difficult point that you must keep an eye on; when you are trying to
lead the Patrol and at the same time to show them the way, don’t forget
that you must not do the work of other girls. Give each one her job and
see that she does it, but don’t do it for her, or else she will always
be leaning on you and expecting you to do it.

A Patrol can specialise, that is, all members to take one special
badge, or a bit of ribbon will do, that a Patrol may be a Despatch
Riding Patrol, or a Signalling Patrol, First Aid Patrol, a Home Helping
Patrol, or even an Entertaining Patrol. All the members of the Patrol
win a certain Proficiency Badge, then that Patrol may be recommended
by the Captain to have the honour of wearing that badge on its flag.
I have known a great deal of good to come of a Patrol challenging a
Patrol in another Troop to some sort of competition, and then going to
visit the other Patrol or inviting them to visit themselves at their
own headquarters and entertaining them and having their competition and
making great friends with them; this leads to very good feeling between
different Troops, and is very useful, because you can often pick up
ideas from Patrols of another Troop better than you can from one of
your own Troops. In camp a Patrol is a very useful unit because a whole
Patrol can just pitch into one tent or probably into one room or barn,
or wherever it may be, and there the Patrol Leader’s duties are very
responsible, because she has to keep order in her own tent and see that
it is properly kept clean and tidy.


Example of an English Display

_A Scout Hostel._—Scene: Inside a Scout Headquarters, fitted with bed,
stretcher table, cooking stove, cupboard, Scout Law, etc.

Patrol at right of stage learning electricity and telegraphy.

Patrol at left of stage bathing, dressing, and feeding model baby.

In centre Brownies learning a dance; all under their Patrol Leaders to
demonstrate the method of instruction in the Scouts.

After short demonstration one of the telegraph Scouts stops all work
by saying that she has intercepted a wireless message saying “Air raid
coming on.”

Patrols immediately fall in under their leaders, one as stretcher party
and the other as first-aiders, with haversacks, etc., and march out to
render assistance to police, etc.

Brownies, meantime, clear up the place, make bed ready, get out lint
and bandages, etc., from cupboards, boil up kettle, put away electrical
apparatus, etc.

Re-enter Scout leading a fat old lady, telling her she will be quite
safe here. Old lady very flustered and very grateful. Brownies take
charge of her, giving her a chair, and make her comfortable. As the
Scout goes out the old lady calls after her and tells her she has
dropped her handbag somewhere in the street. Doesn’t know where, dare
not go out to look for it, but hopes that the Scout will; which she
does smilingly.

Wretched woman with baby and crying children brought in next by
another Scout, and made comfortable by Brownies. Fussy old gentleman,
cantankerous old woman also come hustling in, led by Scouts, some lost
children are brought in howling, also any number of other characters
can be devised among your actors, including one man who will insist on
making speeches against the Government for not stopping these raids.

When the room becomes full of them they all keep talking at once of
their various grievances, and the children howling; bombs are heard
without (bang of a drum or box full of old tins dropped), at each
side of which all shriek, are silent for a moment or two, and then
recommence their jabber.

Finally, half the Scouts having returned, they set to work to prepare
food and hand it round to the people, which very soon quiets them,
except the speech-maker, who seizes the opportunity of the others
becoming quiet to make his speech with greater fervor. The Scouts stop
him by putting a sack over his head and bundling him into a corner.

Then the stretcher party bring in an injured person, who is bandaged
and put to bed. Others have slight wounds bound up and treated, and the
Scouts then set to work with rugs and blankets and make beds on the
floor for the whole party.

They then all go to bed comfortably on the floor.

Two Scouts remain on duty, the others lying down to sleep also.

    (_Curtain._)


Hints as to Camp Orders

_In going into camp it is essential to have a few “Standing Orders”
published, which can be added to from time to time, if necessary. These
should be carefully explained to patrol leaders, who should then be
held fully responsible for their Scouts carrying them out exactly._

_Such orders might point out that each patrol will camp separately from
the others, and that there will be a comparison between the respective
cleanliness and good order of tents and surrounding ground._

_Patrol leaders to report on the good work or otherwise of their
Captains, which will be recorded in the Captain’s books of marks._

_Bathing under strict supervision to prevent non-swimmers getting into
dangerous water. No girl must bathe when not well._

_Bathing picket of two good swimmers will be on duty while bathing is
going on, and ready to help any girl in distress. This picket will be
in the boat (undressed) with bathing costume and overcoat on. They may
only bathe when the general bathing is over and the last of the bathers
has left the water._

_Orders as to what is to be done in case of fire alarm._

_Orders as to boundaries, grounds to be worked over, damages to fences,
property, good drinking water, etc._

_No Scout allowed out of bounds without leave._

_No boy allowed inside bounds without leave._



PART III

CITIZEN SCOUTS

(OVER 16)



SENIOR SCOUTS

[Illustration: Loafing on the pier.]

EVEN before the war came girls had begun to find that there were better
things in the world for them to do than merely spend half their time in
getting up their dresses and the other half in showing them off: there
was enjoyment to be got without playing tennis, reading novels and so
on; some of them had supposed that going to dances or loafing on the
pier or in the street was the only way to get enjoyment, but others
saw that this was really a great waste of time that became very boring
after a bit. A vast number of them had seen that they were capable of
doing a great many of the things that their brothers could do: they
could play in a lot of games and take part in activities and also could
do a good deal in the direction of work and handcraft, also they found
that they could do well in professions and industries; they found
that careers were open to them. Girls found at last that they had the
power to make some use of their lives instead of drifting through them
aimlessly and getting only a very hollow enjoyment out of them.



THE CITIZEN SCOUT

One of the most notable English statesman said in the fourth year of
the Great War:

“I am anxious to bear testimony to the tremendous part played by the
women in England in this vital epoch of human history. They have not
only borne their burden of sorrow and separation with unflinching
fortitude and patience but they have an enormous share of the burdens
necessary to the practical conduct of the war.

“To their ennobling influence we look not only for strength to win the
war, but for inspiration during the great work of reconstruction we
will have to undertake after victory is won.”

This is becoming true in American also. Never before have our national
ideals been so clearly defined; never before have we realized the
relative values of life.

One hundred years ago democracy was a masculine noun. Women worked
loyally in the home for husband, son and brother. The war came and
suddenly they found themselves working for all men who were holding
high the ideals of the American home and the American nation. By
assuming these responsibilities, women have entered unconsciously into
active citizenship from which there is no retreat.

The great experiment is here. American girls are showing that they are
made of the same stuff as their sturdy forefathers, and by thousands
are entering untried and difficult fields and finding themselves
capable of doing a great many things that their brothers and fathers
have heretofore done. Handcraft, industries and professions have all
been opened to young women. They are working in farm and field, factory
and railway, bank and business office, hospital and camp, canteen and
reconstruction. Girls and women with clear heads and adaptability
are entering in amazing numbers into business and professional life,
proving that their brains are not inferior to those of men. They have
been keen to take up new tasks and quick to learn unfamiliar processes
and their employers have been generous in acknowledging that skill
comes only with practice.

But the authorities found on examining women for their new employments,
that the lack was not entirely or fundamentally that of technical
training but that a preliminary course was needed particularly in
health knowledge and in discipline. These things would have been useful
in any line of work, whether for war or for peace, and we are now awake
to the necessity of such training. If a girl is to be equally efficient
with her brother for work in the world, she must be given equal chances
with him, equal chances for gaining character and skill discipline and
bodily health, and equal chances for using these when she has got them.

Therefore the Citizen Scout was started, in order that girls with a
sound body and disciplined mind should be able to help their country in
many different ways after this tremendous world struggle.

Every Citizen Scout should have a vocation which she has chosen and
by which she can support herself. If one can work at some congenial
employment all the better, but even an apparently stupid occupation can
be made interesting by a realization of the part it plays in the world
of industry by which we all live, and one can get great pleasure out
of work well done, even if it is only oiling a machine successfully.
Wouldn’t it make the daily labor more interesting to combine head with
hand? For instance to put heads on pins all day long in a factory
sounds monotonous, but the people to whom pin making is interesting
find out what pins are made of, where the metal is found, how many
things pins are used for; what people used as substitutes before pins
were made. Once in England, a man took so small a thing as a needle
for the subject of a play which has been well known ever since; Gammer
Gurton’s Needle. The machines which make the pins and needles are
to-day marvels of skill developed through centuries of patient labor of
head and hand. Farm labor is toilsome, but the life of the race depends
on the products of field and pasture, and the Citizen Scout who works
on the land is helping to feed the world.

But success in an industrial or professional career is neither the end
nor the greatest joy of a girl’s life. Home making is after all the
vocation which calls most naturally and most deeply to a woman and is
most worthy of her best efforts. However independent and self reliant a
girl may be, the finding of her life comrade, the settling of her own
home and the bringing up of her little ones are the biggest happiness
that can be had in this world. Nature never meant a man or woman to
live alone, and though bachelors may think themselves happy and free,
they cannot realize the intense delight that comes with the home,
the married comradeship and the children. There a woman has her real
opportunity and her kingdom, and at the same time her responsibility.
She is the making or the marring of the house, and her influence will
rule her children all through their after life. If she recognizes
this and shoulders her duty with that idea in mind she can in forming
her children’s character do a tremendous thing for each of them and a
valuable service for the nation.

But to be the right sort of comrade to her husband and her children
a girl must have known work herself. She must have gone through the
struggle against failure and have enjoyed the triumph of success to be
able fully to sympathize with her partner in his troubles and to be of
use in helping him through them. A house mother is a money spender not
a money getter, and her work is really much harder than his. A wise
educator has said: “I will undertake to guarantee the stability of our
American democratic institutions if you will see to it that American
wives are taught how best to spend the money their husbands earn.
Somewhere in that last ten per cent of a man’s income are hidden away
his present happiness and future prospects,” and those of his children.

The women of America must see to it that as far as lies in their power
the vast resources of this great country are carefully conserved and
wisely expended.

To be a valuable citizen the first qualification is an understanding
of the organization and administration of one’s government. With
more knowledge of the principles for which our government really
stands there will come to the thinking American girl a desire to help
definitely in the administration of those principles. Real social
service will develop every Citizen Scout, give her a broader vision
of life, awaken her sympathy and clear her intellect so that when she
casts her vote she will do it with intelligence and with civic pride.


Qualifications for Citizen Scouts

To become a Citizen Scout a girl must be 17 years old, or over, and she
must declare her belief in the civic ideals of:

1. Good health—by trying to attain the Girl Scout standard of physical
health.

2. Vocational Skill—by being willing to perfect herself in some work by
which she can earn her living.

3. Public Service—by pledging herself to some public service, either
individually or in her troop.

Any Girl Scout over seventeen shall be eligible for promotion to
“Citizen Scout.” When there are enough Citizen Scouts in any troop
they may form a Citizen Scout patrol under their own patrol leader, in
the same troop where they were formerly Scouts, or separate troops
of Citizen Scouts may be formed if desired, either by ex-Scouts
or by young women who have not been Scouts before. The number of
members for Citizen Scout patrol or troop is not limited. One member
will be elected Troop leader, and other officers may be elected as
found desirable. A Troop may, if it likes, choose a member of the
Local Committee or any woman in the community in whose sympathy and
judgment they have confidence to act as “counsellor and friend.” Or
they may refer to the local director or to the chairman of Girl Scout
Captain Association when any difficulty arises, or they may be quite
independent of any control outside of their own troop, except the
Council and Local Committee.

A Citizen Scout troop may adopt any crest of the list authorized by
Headquarters but a crest is not obligatory.

Each Citizen Scout must pay an annual registration fee of 25 cents to
National Headquarters.

A Citizen Scout is expected to make the regular Girl Scout promise
and in addition to accept for herself the three ideals of good
citizenship.—Good Health, Vocational Skill, and Public Service.

Motto, “Be Prepared.”

Badge: The Trefoil. To the Citizen Scout the badge stands not only for
the three parts of the Scout promise, but also for the three civic
ideals.

Citizen Scouts use the regular Girl Scout Salute. (See p. 65.)

The uniform consists of:

    Khaki long coat (or Norfolk suit).
    Khaki hat.

G.S. (Girl Scout) on collar, or coat lapels.

Hat band with Tenderfoot badge on it.

Instead of the full uniform a Citizen Scout may wear a brassard of
khaki with stencilled trefoil and letters G.S. to which she may add the
crest of her troop. The Troop leader’s insignia is a ¼ inch red ribbon
around the left arm above elbow. This may be put on uniform or brassard.

Citizen Scouts may work for the same proficiency badges as Girl Scouts.
They are recommended to qualify for the progressive badge, especially
if they have already won the Proficiency badges.

A Citizen Scout who has been a Girl Scout may continue wearing her
badge or she may wear the stripes to indicate the number of badges
secured. One stripe denotes five badges; two stripes denote ten, and
three denote fifteen badges.


Citizen Scout Ideals

Under the three civic ideals of Good Health, Vocational Skill and
Public Service certain activities are suggested from which the Citizen
Scout may choose.


I. “I WILL MAKE MYSELF PHYSICALLY PERFECT.”

The Government requires that its employees shall pass a physical
examination to determine their fitness for service. It is strongly
recommended that every Citizen Scout shall determine her own physical
fitness by a similar examination given by some competent physician.
In this way she may discover any weakness or defect and remedy it by
exercise, rest or medical care. An annual examination of one’s body is
a strong asset for a long life.

The best body to have is one which is in such good health that its
owner does not need to think about it. It serves her constantly and
faithfully. The rules for keeping such a servant are:

    Absolute cleanliness in body and clothing.
    Daily exercise and rest in proper amounts.
    Sufficient good plain food at regular intervals.
    Plenty of fresh air and sunshine.

A Citizen Scout should have a definite knowledge of personal health and
of her own physical constitution and powers; should know the dangers of
disease, and the effects of the social evil.

A Citizen Scout should also understand the health conditions in her
own neighborhood and have full information as to food, water, and milk
supply, the ashes and garbage disposal, street cleaning and other
matters relating to the public health in her community.


Suggested Activities

Gymnasium Exercises.

Organized sports and games, with teams for competitions against other
Scout troops, Y. W. C. A. Jewish Alliance, schools, colleges or other
organizations.

Troop hikes, indoor social games, and dancing.

Debates, talks by public health officers, readings on topics relating
to household and civic sanitation. These should be linked up with
some sort of actual community public health work such as milk or food
inspection, school inspection, work of visiting nurse and school
doctor, anti-tuberculosis campaigns, etc.

    Advanced First Aid.
    Advanced Home Nursing.
    Badges: Ambulance.
            Athletics.
            Public Health.
            Home Nursing.
            Special Health Award


Special Health Award

Citizen Scouts who attain to the Girl Scout standard of health shall
be known as Super Scouts or Senior Scouts, and they shall be allowed
to arrange the Girl Scout inter-troop athletic meets and competitions,
calling upon the various captains of Girl Scout troops in the community
and also Citizen Scouts to furnish girls to make up the teams. The
Citizen Scouts may coach teams and shall act as umpires and referees in
the games.


II. “I WILL BE ABLE TO EARN MY OWN LIVING.”

Among the subjects Citizen Scouts may take up are nursing, child
nursing, wood working, metal working, design, interior decoration,
stenographer, typewriting, journalism, telegraphy, dress-design,
dressmaking, salesmanship, cooking, marketing, farming, gardening, and
all varieties of trades.

Groups of Citizen Scouts would find much pleasure and profit, if they
would undertake some quite different line from their daily occupation
such as basket making, modeling, pottery, book-binding, upholstery, or
any other branch of industrial or fine arts.

If a troop of Citizen Scouts wishes to study industrial problems in
their own trade or trades where other girls are employed, meetings may
be arranged between the groups of girls in the different occupations.
A sympathetic understanding of others needs will tend to create a
better social stability. Self perfection and vocational advancement
need not necessarily lead to selfishness and fancied superiority. In
these discussions or debates outsiders may be invited to take part. A
successful business woman might come to give her experience and help
in the discussion. A troop scrap book of clippings from newspapers and
magazines showing what is going on in the industrial world will be of
interest.

Badges

    Artist
    Automobiling
    Child nurse
    Clerk
    Cook
    Invalid
    Dairy
    Electricity
    Farmer
    Gardening
    Home nursing
    Housekeeper
    Interpreter
    Laundress
    Music
    Needlewoman
    Photography
    Scribe
    Telegraphy

Special Vocational Award

_Home maker._—To win this a Citizen Scout must hold the cook,
laundress, needlewoman, housekeeper, and home nurse’s badges, and must
actually take charge of her home for a period of three months, keeping
the accounts, and superintending all the housework that is done when
she cannot do it all herself.

_Industrial Worker._—To win this badge a Citizen Scout must support
herself for at least three months, and bring a certificate from her
employer to prove she has done this.


III. “I WILL SERVE MY COUNTRY.”

Each Citizen Scout troop should when possible, take up some definite
form of public service. When such group work is not possible, each
individual can find real public service opportunities open in any
number of fields.

Scouting gets its “punch” from actual participation in doing things
worth while. Therefore, use study clubs, lectures, books, etc.; as
may be necessary but base your tests on actual deeds performed. First
a follower (learner) and then a leader. A Citizen Scout can observe
and study law-making in progress in a local board of supervisors of a
county or city council or state legislature; or report on a session
of court covering at least one full legal case. She might visit the
freight terminal, and follow the milk delivery to the door of the
consumer; or find a voluntary job in a creche, hospital or old ladies’
home, and do something worth while for thirty hours. She might attend
a meeting of the School Board; help with school luncheons, and follow
the work of the school nurse in the home. Any girl who will follow
up any department of government and actually take part in it for a
week—whether in street cleaning or reading to blind old ladies—will
always thereafter have a different attitude toward civic affairs in
that field.

Each Citizen Scout should find her own field and cultivate it: devote
so many hours actual participation and report on it; develop qualities
of leadership for her patrol; assist a captain of younger Girl Scout
troop; take over the village park, the care of a public library,
provide summer outings for poor children, conduct a camp, helping
a teacher, etc. District nursing offers many chances for voluntary
effort. Sunday school teaching, Y. W. C. A. work, Girl’s Friendly
Societies, Big Sisters, all provide good opportunities. Red Cross and
other patriotic organizations need helpers. No one should live to
herself alone these days. Your country needs YOU now—not next week or
when you have leisure, but NOW. The girl who doesn’t respond never will
be worth what she might be. What are you going to do about it? Do it
now!


Badges

    Public Health.
    Civics.

_Special Civic Award._—Must hold a civics badge, and carry out some
definite investigation of civic matters, and report on it in an article
of 500 words or more, or must carry through some public service for a
period of at least three months.

The Badges are similar to those for Girl Scouts with a red border round
them.

Badges are also given to girls who qualify in technical or
continuation schools, or in some cases in their now factories or
workshops. These are grouped as follows:


Activities for Citizen Scouts

GROUP 1. _Nursing Service._

    Medical Student.
    Home Nursing.
    Convalescent Nursing.
    Child Nursing.
    Hospital Nursing.
    Masseuse.
    Physical Trainer.

GROUP 2. _Arts and Crafts._

    Architects.
    Artists.
    Embroiderer and Lace Maker.
    Designer.
    Wood-worker.
    Sculptor and Modeller.
    Metal worker.
    Musician.
    Photographer.
    Acting and reciting.
    Dancing.

GROUP 3. _Professional._

    Accountant.
    School Teacher.
    Secretary.
    Journalist.
    Motorist.
    Telegraphist.

GROUP 4. _Manufacturer._

    Textile worker.
    Leather worker.
    Toy maker.
    Confectioner.
    Dressmaker.

GROUP 5. _Commercial._

    Clerk.
    Saleswoman.
    Traveller.
    Foreign Correspondent.
    Manager.

GROUP 6. _Housework._

    Cook.
    Domestic Science.
    Parlourmaid.
    Housemaid.

GROUP 7. _Outdoor work._

    Agriculture.
    Dairy farming.
    Horticulture.
    Poultry farming.
    Bee keeping.
    Fruit growing.
    Market gardening.
    Naturalist.

The badge for these is a coloured Badge round the arm. When a Student
passes a higher examination of the technical school, she obtains a
further Badge of a crown to add to the stripe.

In many places the leaders of Scout troops have felt the need of
more training for the work they were doing with their girls, and so
Training Schools have been established, or classes have been organized
under the auspices of a local Council. In some cases regular troops
of older girls have been organized for the purpose of training them
to be Girl Scout leaders. Such “Officers’ Training Troops” offer
excellent opportunities for girls to learn all the Scout practices and
activities, and at the same time how to manage troops, by the best
possible method—that of actually doing it.


Discipline

In training yourself to be an officer you will recognise that in order
to command obedience you have yourself to understand how to obey. It is
only by practising your own self-discipline that you will see how to
develop it in others.


Responsibility

As an officer you will be a responsible person in authority. You will
not have others to turn to for instruction, you will have to devise
your own plans and to put them into action for yourself. You will be
_trusted_ and _expected_ to do these things.


Sympathy and Fairness

In dealing with those under you you must have sympathy with each
individual. Each one of them has a different mind and a different
capacity; this you have to take into account, and you must remember
that success will only come where you get their whole-hearted
enthusiasm for the work. The successful officer never drives—she leads.


Leadership

[Illustration: “Come on, Lads!”]

[Illustration: “Go on, you ——”]

So the Scout officer leads her girls by her own example, whether it is
in

    her Character that is patience, good temper, keenness,
    and zeal,

or

    her Skill at handcraft,

or

    her Service in doing good turns and readiness to
    sacrifice her time, money, or even life itself for
    others,

or

    her Development of her own health and strength in order
    to fit her to carry out her life’s work.


The Joy of Scouting

Now after reading this don’t, for goodness’ sake, drop your jaw and
think that “this is not the sort of thing you want to learn in becoming
a Cadet.” There is no need to be downhearted because there is a serious
side underlying all the jollity of Scout games. Quite the opposite.
Scout games and practices are just as lively and exciting as any
others, but they bring greater enjoyment in the end. Why? Because after
all, when you have played your tennis or your golf, your hockey or even
your humble hopscotch, you begin to think it was very jolly but there
was something lacking; what _good_ did it do to anyone? It was to some
extent time wasted. The worst agony of death at the moment when the
sands are running out and minutes are precious is the feeling that so
many hours of life have been wasted on things that did not matter.



PART IV

CAPTAINS



WHAT IS GIRL SCOUTING?

THE Girl Scouts are a Sisterhood. This means that members of it, from
top to bottom, are working together as sisters—elder and younger
sisters—from joy of the work. It is not a small army composed of
officers, non-commissioned officers and privates in their respective
grades directing or directed under imposed instruction, therefore
the title of Captain and Lieutenant, which, although adopted in the
Association, does not exactly describe their rôle, so I shall in these
notes refer to the seniors of all grades as I always think of them,
viz. as the Captains—those who, like elder sisters, show the younger
ones how “to turn to the right and keep straight on.” The secret of
successful execution of a scheme or of an order is that those to whom
it is imparted should not merely have the statement but understand the
meaning that underlies it. So I would propose here—without any idea of
instructing my grandchildren how to masticate hen products—to help them
to understand some of the methods of our movement so that those who
are interested may the more easily take up the work of guiding girls in
this happy sisterhood.


The Need

That nation comes to the fore which has the most character in its
citizens. It deserves its supremacy only when that character is a
good character. The character of a nation is not merely that of a
few leaders but of the majority of the people. Character is largely
a matter of environment and training, and, later on, of experience.
Undoubtedly the mother’s influence gives as a rule the first impetus
to character. A mother cannot give that which she does not possess
herself. Therefore it is all-important that the mothers of our country
should possess character of a high quality in order to inculcate it
in their children. Hitherto the girls, some of the future mothers
of our race, have had little character training as a direct part of
their education. Character includes self-reliance, self-discipline,
cheerfulness, consideration for others, sense of duty, patriotism,
and other such moral qualities. But there are other things besides
character needed to make a citizen, especially:

    Skill in handicraft or other work.
    Sense of duty and service for others.
    Physical health and knowledge.

It is on these four lines therefore that the training of the Girl
Scouts is carried out, through games and practices which appeal to the
girls.


What Need Is There for It?

1. War has shown how valuable women can be to the country and to
themselves if only trained.

2. Also peace has shown how far from happy life can be for some unless
they are trained. From want of proper training preventable misery
exists among a very large class. This is to be seen in the squalor in
our great cities, in the poverty and unhappiness, the infant mortality,
the preventable diseases and social diseases due to ignorance,
carelessness, and generally to want of character.


Is Not Education Good Enough?

No. Though it is very good and vastly improved of late years and
probably better than that of any other nation, yet it cannot under
existing conditions entirely prepare the girl for what is possible for
her in the present day, much less for what will be required of her in
the near future. The remedy largely needed is formation of character.
Character is formed more by the environment outside the school walls
than by the instruction within them; that environment may be for good
and at the same time it may very easily be for bad.

Practical efficiency in homecraft or in mothercraft is essential, but
efficiency is desirable in many other spheres for professions, and in
the many fields in which woman has proved that she can shine.

The need of health for herself and knowledge of health for her children
and for the service for others is essential on a far more general
scale than has been heretofore possible through school training alone.


Sense of Duty to Others

Though the war has brought a splendid exhibition of self-sacrifice
and devotion on the part of women and a desire to be helpful and
patriotic, the sense of service is one which requires further education
in the rising generation. The results of such training can only mean
a stronger patriotism and a sound practical Christianity instead of a
mere profession.



WHAT REMEDY IS PROPOSED?

The aim of the Girl Scout Movement is to assist parents and school
teachers by supplying the desirable environment and healthy activities
outside the school. The first thing is to attract the girls by happy
comradeship, neat uniform, games and competitions which will appeal
to them. Then through these to develop in them the four points which
I have mentioned as “essential.” But please don’t think that we want
to make a school of it. My harping on the “training” may lead you to
think so. We do not want to trespass on the school teacher’s ground nor
to adopt school curricula or examination systems. Quite the contrary.
The weak point of modern education is that though it recognises the
value of more up-to-date subjects it has not yet broken away from old
methods in presenting them to the child. Till it does so it will remain
Instruction instead of Education. Our object in the Scouts is to
supply healthy play and recreation: but play when organised need not be
waste of time. In these days we cannot afford, nor is it fair on them,
to let children waste time and then to launch them “half-baked” into
the sea of life-troubles. The Scout training offers them ideals and
activities which supplement, without tiring them, the teaching of the
school.

Results and experience of five years shows that the scheme is
successful in attracting girls of every class in every part of the
world. It can be applied equally well in town or country and it helps
rather than interferes with every form of religion. Where properly
handled it gives remarkable and satisfactory results in the directions
looked for.



WHAT IS THE ORGANISATION?


[Illustration:

                       A
                       |
               NATIONAL|COUNCIL
                       |
             B         |         B
             +---------+---------+
             |     FEDERATION    |
             |      OR STATE     |
             |    ORGANIZATION   |
           C |                   | C
           +-+-------------------+-+
           |LOCAL COUNCILS         |
           |                       |
           |                       |
           |                       |
         D |                       | D
        +--+---                ----+--+
        |TROOPS                       |
        |                             |
        |                             |
        |                             |
      E |                             | E
      +-+-----                   -----+-+
      |PATROLS                          |
      |                                 |
      |                                 |
      |                                 |
    F |                                 | F
    --+-----------           -----------+--
      GIRL SCOUTS

    A—National Council—Officers, Executive Board,
        Headquarters, Staff.

    B—Federation or State Organization. Commissioner.

    C—Local Council Officers, Local Director or Secretary.

    D—Troops—Captains and Lieutenants.

    E—Patrols—Patrol Leaders and Corporals.

    F—Girl Scouts—Brownies—Citizens Scouts.]


A.—NATIONAL COUNCIL

The National Council is the governing body of the Girl Scout
organization. It is composed of delegates from Local Councils and of
other elected members. It holds one meeting a year to elect officers
and the members of the Executive Board, and to decide matters that
concern the policy and welfare of the entire organization.


Duties

The duties of the National Council are to

    Charter Local Councils, to commission officers, and
    register Scouts.

    Manufacture and copyright the Badges.

    Select uniforms and other equipment.

    Determine the general policies and lay down the lines
       of Girl Scout training.

These functions are carried out by an Executive Board between the
annual meetings of the National Council. The National Headquarters and
a staff of workers are employed to execute the orders of the National
Council.


Officers

    The President.
    Two Vice-Presidents.
    The Treasurer.
    The Chairman of the Executive Board.


Executive Board

The Executive Board works through Committees, which act as advisers to
the board in matters concerning Field, Standards, Uniforms, Business,
Education, Editorial, Publicity, etc. Final action is in the hands of
the Executive Board, which is responsible to the National Council.


National Headquarters

National Headquarters is divided into departments for the more
efficient handling of the work. The head of the office staff is the
National Director.

The _Director_ is appointed by the Executive Board, and serves as the
Secretary of the National Council, the Executive Board and the various
committees thereof. Under the authority of the Executive Board she
acts as the administrating officer of the Girl Scouts and has general
direction of the administrative work.

_Uniform._ Khaki Norfolk suit.

Scout hat, gold and black hat cords (see Committee on Uniforms, Jan.
12, 1918).

_Insignia._ Four bands of half-inch black braid all around left cuff
(see Committee on Standards, May 7, 1918).

_National Field Captains_ are employed by the organization and assigned
to work in the field.

_Uniform._ Khaki Norfolk suit.

Scout hat, gold and black hat cord (see Com. on Uniforms, Jan. 12,
1918).

_Insignia._ Three bands of half-inch black braid all around left cuff
(see Com. on Standards, May 7, 1918).



COMMUNICATIONS

Every Girl Scout, every officer and councilor, every troop and council
has the right of direct communication with National Headquarters and
in cases of dispute an appeal may be made to the Executive Board.
It is, however, desirable that in all ordinary matters the lines of
communication to Headquarters should be as follows:—

From a troop, through the Captain, or through the troop secretary
giving name and number of troop, and name of captain.

Where a Local Council is established, it is the normal medium of
communication between the captains (troop) under its jurisdiction and
National Headquarters.

Where a Federation or State Organization is established it may serve
as the medium of communication between the Local Councils and National
Headquarters in matters that affect the general policy of all the Local
Councils included in it.

Local Councils may also communicate direct with National Headquarters
in matters that concern their own locality.



B.—FEDERATION OR STATE ORGANIZATIONS

A number of Local Councils may join together to form a Federation for
mutual support. Local Councils belonging to it may delegate their
general policy to the Federation but retain their power to control
their Councils in local matters.

The officers of the Federation may be elected as required.

Field Captains may be employed for organizing their work.

The presiding officer is the Commissioner.

Membership in such a Federation is voluntary.

Or instead of a Federation of Councils a State Organization may be
formed. The area under control will coincide with the State of the
United States.


C.—LOCAL COUNCILS

In any community where there are Girl Scouts a Local Council may be
organized. This is a body of representative citizens of the community
(number varies according to size of the community) who are organized
for the purpose of promoting the welfare of the Girl Scouts of that
district. They determine the policies and direct the local work,
following the rules and regulations laid down in the official Handbook
and Manual subject to the general policies determined by the National
Council or its Executive Board. Each Chartered Local Council may send
one delegate to the National Council and one additional delegate for
every 200 registered Scouts under its jurisdiction. The National
Executive Board is the court of last resort and every member of the
Girl Scout Organization has the right of appeal to that court. The
Local Council’s officers recommend Captains and Lieutenants for
commissions, and have the power to request their resignation when
desirable, or they may appeal to National Headquarters to dismiss an
undesirable captain. A Local Council may ask Headquarters for the
assistance of a Field Captain.

_Insignia for Local Councilors._ Gray and black shoulder cord and
fringe (see minutes Executive Board, April 11, 1918).

Gray and black hat cord.

The shoulder cords may be worn with any costume—the hat cords are
generally worn only with the uniform hat.


The Commissioner

Is the presiding officer of the Local Council. She is chairman of the
Local Executive Board, she is elected by the Local Council and receives
a commission from the National Headquarters.

_Duties._ Her duties are to secure the harmonious coöperation of the
captains in her district, to inspect Scout patrols and troops and
advise how to conduct them according to the principles found in the
Handbook, to be the authority for recommending the issue or denial of
captains’ certificates and foster the movement generally.

_Uniform._ Khaki Norfolk suit. Scout hat with gray cord with gray
acorns.

_Insignia._ Gray shoulder cord and fringe (may be worn with any costume
if Commissioner prefers not to have a uniform) (see minutes Executive
Board, April 11, 1918).


Officers

Of Local Councils will be elected according to the needs of the
community.

Deputy Commissioner

Stands in the relation of vice-president to the commissioner.

_Uniform._ Khaki Norfolk Suit. Scout hat with gray cord with black
acorns.

_Insignia._ Gray shoulder cord with black and gray fringe and black
center, may be worn with any costume if the Deputy Commissioner
prefers not to have a uniform (see minutes Executive Board, April 11,
1918).


District Commissioner

In large communities it is possible to divide the territory into
districts each with a District Commissioner who is responsible for the
work in that district to the Commissioner.

_Uniforms._ Khaki Norfolk Suit. Scout hat with gray cord with gray
acorns.

_Insignia._ Black shoulder cord with black and gray fringe with gray
center. May be worn with any costume if the District Commissioner
prefers not to have a uniform.


The Local Director

Is the title given to the executive officer of the local Council. (This
officer was formerly called Secretary.)

_Duties._ She has charge of Headquarters and other property of
the local organization, has general supervision of the Captains
and instructs new captains in their duties, organizes new troops,
receives and forwards to Headquarters all applications for captains’
certificates, keeps all records of the council and of the troops and
such information concerning them as may be necessary for the work. She
is secretary of the Committees, but her presence at each meeting is
decided by the Local Council; it is her duty to attend public meetings
connected with the organization and she represents Girl Scouts at
the meetings of other organizations unless otherwise directed by the
Council.

_Uniform._ Khaki Norfolk suit. Scout hat with gold and black hat cord
(see Com. on Uniforms, Jan. 12, 1918).

_Insignia._ Four bands one-fourth-inch black braid, all around left
cuff (Com. on Standards, May 7, 1918).


Local Field Captains

May be employed by Local Councils for organizing their work.

_Uniform._ Khaki Norfolk suit. Scout hat, gold and black hat cord (Com.
on Uniforms, Jan. 12, 1918).


Troops

_Insignia._ Three bands of one-fourth-inch black braid all around left
cuff (Com. on Standards, May 7, 1918).

Girl Scouts are organized in troops under the direct charge of a
Captain who may or may not have one or more Lieutenants to assist her.

A troop may be of any size, although it is not advisable for a Captain
to have a troop of more than thirty girls unless she is assisted by a
capable Lieutenant.


The Captain

Must not be less than twenty-one years old, and must have a personal
character and standing, a good moral influence over girls, and
sufficient steadfastness of purpose to carry out the work with
energy and perseverance. She should have a general knowledge of the
Handbook, and should appreciate the underlying aim and principles of
Girl Scout training. She must apply to National Headquarters for her
commission. Application should be made on blanks supplied from National
Headquarters and must be endorsed by three prominent citizens of the
community. Where a Local Council is established the application must
be sent through the Local Council. The Captain has the power to enroll
Scouts, and to release a Scout from her promise, to suspend her for a
certain period, or withdraw her badges and discharge her. A Scout who
considers herself unjustly treated may appeal to the Local Council or
even to National Council. The Captain directs the Scout training of the
girls in her troop, and may examine them for the Tenderfoot and Second
Class tests. Where no court of honor exists she may secure examiners
for them for the special subjects of proficiency badges or this may be
done by the Local Council.

_Uniform._ Khaki Norfolk suit. Scout hat, gold and black hat cord (Com.
on Uniforms, Jan. 12, 1918).

_Insignia._ Gold and black shoulder cord (Com. on Uniforms, Jan. 12,
1918), two bands one-fourth-inch black braid all around left cuff (Com.
on Standards, May 7, 1918).

Captain’s pin.


Lieutenant

Should not be less than 18 years of age. Her qualifications are the
same as those for Captain and she receives her commission in the same
way. She is chosen by the Captain, performs the duties of the Captain
during her absence and such other duties as the Captain may assign to
her.

_Uniform._ Khaki Norfolk suit. Scout hat, gold and black hat cord (Com.
on Uniforms, Jan. 12, 1918).

_Insignia._ One braid one-fourth-inch black braid all around left cuff
(Com. on Uniforms, May 7, 1918).

Lieutenant’s pin.

Captains and Lieutenants on making their application to enter the
organization pay a small fee which covers the entire period of
membership. Commissions are issued for one year and must be renewed at
the end of the period.



E.—PATROLS

Troops are divided into _Patrols_ of about eight girls each, for
convenience in work and play. One of the eight girls is chosen _Patrol
Leader_ and another the _Corporal_.

_The Patrol Leader_ must be what her name implies, a leader, for she
stands next to the Captain and Lieutenant and takes either’s place in
their absence. She is responsible for her patrol. She may be elected by
the girls themselves or appointed by the captain, with the consent of
the girls. She holds office for six months or a year, and is eligible
for reëlection. Her duties include calling the roll, keeping records of
the attendance and dues of her patrol, and leaving the meeting place in
order. Any of these duties may be delegated to the Corporal, or to some
other member of the patrol, particularly as the Patrol Leader becomes
capable of assuming heavier responsibilities, to relieve her of the
routine duties.

_Uniform._ Regular Scout uniform.

_Insignia._ Chevron, two stripes, on left sleeve above elbow.

The Patrol Leader carries the patrol pennon.

_The Corporal_ may be elected by the patrol, appointed by the captain
or by the Patrol Leader. She takes the latter’s place when she is
absent, and performs such other duties as may be assigned to her by the
Patrol Leader or by the Captain.

_Uniform._ Regular Scout uniform.

_Insignia._ Chevron, one bar; on left sleeve above elbow.

Want of space in the present book prevents me from going into the
details of the dress, administration, and discipline of the Movement,
but these can all be found in the _Book of Rules_, which can be
obtained from Headquarters price 6_d._


Discipline of the Movement

All these rules may appear rather alarming to an outsider, but please
remember that they are “rules” as for cricket and not “regulations”
as for police purposes. They are merely intended as indications for
“playing the game,” and that is the only form of discipline that we ask
for in the sisterhood. Their object is to ensure that their policy is
adhered to under which our Charter of Incorporation was granted, and
also to guarantee to parents that reliable officers are in charge of
their girls to ensure fairness of standard in awards, and to secure
efficient training by having efficient Scouters.


Method

_Method._—Our method of training is to educate from within rather than
to instruct from without; to offer games and activities which, while
being attractive to the girl, will seriously educate her morally,
mentally, and physically.

Our aim is to promote “not so much the acquisition of knowledge as the
desire and capacity for acquiring knowledge.”

In other words, the Captain’s job is to enthuse the girl in the
right direction. By acting on this principle she will save herself
considerable trouble in reaching her goal and in producing smart, keen
and capable girls.

It is the means by which the modern schoolmistress scores over her more
old-fashioned sister, since she develops a girl to be efficient rather
than scholarly, to have character rather than erudition—and that is
what counts towards success in life nowadays.

By “efficiency” I don’t mean mere money-making skill, but a general
intelligence and capability to live a free, prosperous and happy life.

To preach “don’t” is to incite the doing of wrong. Rather infuse the
right spirit; as powder is to the shot, so is spirit to action.

_Moral Instruction._—Direct moral instruction—like drill—produces a
pleasing veneer, but unless there is properly seasoned character below
this will not stand wear.

Wise old Plato long ago gave us the right lead in education, and one
which only now is beginning to be followed, when he said that there
was innate good in every child, and the aim of education should be to
develop these natural “instincts of virtue” through suitable practices.

_Active versus passive education._—No mention of reading, writing, and
’rithmetic as essentials, but of enlarging the natural instincts, i.e.,
character by practices not merely by precepts.

The average girl (if there is such a thing as an average girl) does
not want to sit down and passively receive theoretical instruction.
She wants to be up and actually doing things in practice, and this is
a good lever to work upon if only the teacher will recognise it as the
instrument ready to her hand.

Your first step then is to study the girl herself; to recognise her
likes and dislikes, her good qualities and her bad, and to direct her
training on these.


How to Apply the Training

The scheme given in this book is little more than a suggestive outline.
It is left to the ingenuity of the Captain to devise generally on these
lines further activities such as will best suit her local conditions.

Games and practices selected or planned for the purpose can be made to
teach, through the youthful enthusiasm of the girls, most of the moral
attributes required, such as self-restraint, good temper, obedience to
leaders and to rules, unselfishness, pluck, moral endurance, fairness,
esprit de corps, etc., as well as physical hygiene. Further, they teach
soberness in success, good humour in defeat, and repression of show-off
and hysterics.

For example, if a girl faints on parade it should be a point of honour
almost to take no notice of her beyond allowing her Corporal and one
other Scout to look after her. The business of the moment should go on
as if nothing untoward were happening.



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SCOUTER

There are two fundamental points to be considered in dealing with
Scouts. The first is that the only woman who can hope for real success
as a trainer of Scouts is the one who can be their elder sister. The
“Commanding Officer” is no good and the “Schoolmistress” is doomed to
failure (though in neither case probably would the woman recognise
it herself nor admit it). This fact is being proved daily by the
successful results already gained by our Captain. By the term “elder
sister” I mean one who while commanding their respect can place herself
on terms of comradeship with her girls, entering into their games and
laughter, herself thereby winning their confidence and putting herself
into that position which is essential for teaching, namely, where by
her own example she leads them in the right direction instead of merely
pointing the way.


The Psychology of the Girl

The second item to recognise, although as a point it is of first
importance, is that the girl of eight to ten is psychologically quite
different from the girl of ten to fifteen. I don’t mean that the change
comes about with a bang in the tenth year; but the younger girl is
growing relatively in mind and body more rapidly than the elder one,
and the transition gradually comes about approximately at those ages in
the average girl. The age at which crime begins among the poorer class
of children points to the age at which character begins to form itself,
and it appears much earlier in life than is usually supposed; that is
to say, the crime returns show a good deal of juvenile depravity at
the early age of ten and eleven, and at twelve it has mounted to its
highest point in the young generation up to twenty. Between the ages
of eight and nine, therefore, seem to be the right time to get hold of
the girl when the seeds of character may begin to sprout into pliant
tendrils ready to trail off in the wrong direction, but easily taken in
hand at that time and trained aright.

Under eleven the following are common attributes in the average
child: make-believe, appreciation of fairy tales, eagerness for
new experiences, collection of stamps and other curios, mental
restlessness, physical restlessness, thoughtlessness, untruthfulness,
etc. Over eleven the following attributes may be generally counted
on: constructiveness, hero-worship, liking for team games, dawning
conscience, sense of humour, of pathos and of sympathy.


Character

In any case sense of honour, truth, self-control, fairness, discipline,
responsibility and good humour have been too little inculcated among
girls in the past, and this important omission we endeavour to make
good in the practices and activities of the Scout work adapted to the
psychology changes as they come.


The Patrol System for Scouts

I remember when we first started the Boy Scout and Girl Scout Movements
in England, I received some valuable advice from a prominent business
man with regard to organising the Headquarters Office.

He told me that women were far the best clerks to employ in preference
to men, but he said the pity of it was that they only rose to a certain
height in their work and they could not be made managers of departments
because they could not take responsibility.

War conditions have since shown that if he meant this as a rule he was
wrong. Women have risen splendidly to the occasion, and in very many
cases have shown themselves perfectly qualified to take higher duties
upon themselves.

At the same time there is no doubt that if more of them were prepared
for it early in life, many more of them would be so employed in
ordinary times of peace.

In the Girl Scout Movement, as in the Boy Scouts, we also have the
small unit—the Patrol—commanded by its own girl Leader.

This in the first place conduces to the Patrol Spirit among its
members, where each of them considers the honour of her unit to be
always at stake, and that it is up to her among its other members
constantly to uphold its reputation.

This brings the development of self-discipline, sense of duty and
selflessness down to the individual. Emulation between Patrols in
a Troop make for a higher standard of efficiency and collective
discipline all round; and this is a great help to the Captain.

But also there is the Patrol Leader. She is the responsible officer for
leading her Patrol to victory and for keeping each member of the unit
up to the mark so that the Patrol as a whole does not fall behind any
other.

To do this effectively she soon discovers, if it is not otherwise
pointed out to her, that she has to be a Leader not only in name but in
fact and in act.

She has to be an all-round efficient, and she has to use her brain and
thought, her initiative and power of command to hold and lead those
under her.

With a little practice this rôle becomes a habit. Having learnt how
to obey and how to restrain herself she develops the power of command
and her own sense of responsibility, thereby unconsciously preparing
herself to take higher positions of trust in real life later on.

But above all this means for each individual the development of
_character_. And that is our aim.

_The Court of Honour_ formed by Patrol Leaders and their Assistants
(“Corporals”) is also of untold value in founding and developing the
strength of the Scout spirit and the sense of responsibility to a
further degree among the girls.

For these reasons the Patrol System is the most important element in
the Girl Scout Training, and it is, as far as I know, the only step so
far made available towards educating girls practically in two points
which have long been missing in their upbringing—namely, in the sense
and practice of Self-discipline and Responsibility.


How the Scout Training Appeals

From the parents’ point of view Scout work gives character to the
girls, also skill at handicrafts; thirdly, service and helpfulness to
others; fourthly, physical health and development.

From the teacher’s point of view it provides a healthy environment
outside the school, and activities which tend to develop in practice
many of these attributes inculcated theoretically in the girls’ lessons.

From the girls’ point of view Scouting puts them into fraternity gangs
among jolly comrades and it gives them a smart dress and equipment,
it appeals to their imagination in results, and it engages them in an
active open-air and healthy life.

Our aim is to give equal chances to all and to give the most help to
the least fortunate.

The training applies equally well to girls of all classes and can be
carried out in towns just as well as in the country.


Camps

Camping, which a few years ago was looked upon as impossible for girls,
has now become an institution in very many centres—or one that has
brought the very best results. It is what the girls look forward to
with intense joy, and it gives the Captains their greatest opportunity.

Large camps are, for training purposes, a mistake: one troop of three
or four patrols is as much as a Captain and Lieutenant can manage with
due regard to the health and training of the girls. They may be carried
out in tents or in barns and farm buildings, empty houses, etc.


Religion

Two authorities from very different points of view have gone so far as
to describe Scouting and Scout work as “a new religion and a practical
one.” One of these was a clergyman and a schoolmaster, and the other a
statesman of strong human sympathies.

We have not ourselves pretended to claim any such standing for the
teaching, but we do find from experience that _where rightly handled_
it can put the right spirit and the right grounding into children for
developing religion through their inner consciousness instead of having
theology imposed upon them through surface instruction of morality
taught them through fear of punishment.


Nature Study and Good Turns

To interest the child is our method of training in the Scout movement,
whatever may be the subject taken up. It can equally be used in the
development of the elements of religion without in any way trenching on
the teaching of any particular denomination—indeed it is helpful to all.

We use, therefore, the study of Nature as a first step to the
realisation of the Creator. The dissection of a plant or bird, the
observation of the habits of an animal or an insect, or the study of
the stars and planets all command the eager interest of the girl, and
if properly applied, reveal to her with absorbing force the miracle
laws of Nature; it gives her a sense of the beautiful; it gives her an
uplifting instinct of reverence for the power of God.

Then, on the moral side, to _be_ good is of little interest to the
child; to do good is another matter. She has an innate predisposition
to the active practice rather than to the passive reception, and the
Scout encouragement to do the daily good turn meets her inclination
and eventually leads her—bit by bit—to the practice of kindness and
of self-sacrifice for others as her natural habit of mind and action.
In other words, the germ of the Divine Love that is within her is
developed along lines which appeal to her, till it blossoms out as an
integral part of her life and character, as her soul. In this way the
soul is educated, that is, self-expanded from within: it cannot be
developed artificially by the application of book instruction and rules
from without.

Nature study should not be the mere formal class teaching of the
school, but should be the interested pursuit of each individual girl in
that branch of it which particularly appeals to her, through practical
handling and dealing with it.

Through such Nature investigation, and the consequent appreciation
of God the Creator, the Captain can lead the girl on to a right
understanding of biology and of her own position in the order of
nature; to realise how she can be associated with the Creator in His
work and how she can have her part in the romance of reproduction and
the carrying on of the race; also that good motherhood is a wonderful
gift of God, at once a sacred and a patriotic privilege and duty.

Many a girl has been ruined by ignorance on the subject, and by the
wrong or debased views picked up haphazard. Parents to a great extent
evade their duties in this direction, and yet they are apt to resent
other people trying to remedy their neglect. So it is often desirable
for a Captain to consult the mother before talking to a girl, but
the girl should not be left to slide in ignorance. Then it is not a
thing to deal with before a number of girls, but with the individual
according to her psychology.

One of the objects in a Captain being “an elder sister rather than an
officer” to her girls is precisely that she can talk to them intimately
and naturally on this very vital topic.


Rallies

Rallies are useful for bringing together a number of Troops to see
each other and be seen by others whom it is desired to interest in
the Movement. For either or both purposes it is a good thing to have
displays of Scout activities by the different patrols and companies,
and also to have competitions between them in various Scout practices.

A too common fault about Rallies is that the stage-managing is
faulty—the way in which the thing is presented is as important as the
thing presented, so far as the outside impression is concerned. The
other fault is that generally the displays are chosen too much with a
view to training the girls and too little with a view to interesting
the onlookers. This is a bad fault if you are trying to spread the
Movement and to get people keenly interested in it. The two points can
perfectly well be combined. Let the programme err on the short side,
and let it be full of variety, novelty, incident, and interest. Long
signalling tests and bandaging exhibitions are intensely boring to the
onlookers who don’t understand them. Whereas a realistic accident, a
pretty dance, good acting, and graceful gymnastics, and exhibitions of
work done, or girls at work, are pleasing and attractive.

Let it go with a snap—short, sharp and sweet.

Often the Rally includes inspection by a Commissioner or other officers.


Inspection of Troops by Commissioners

There was in the early days of the Movement a tendency to look upon the
inspection of a Troop rather in the light of a military parade or a
social function, when in point of fact it should be neither.

A cursory review by a visiting officer is bound to induce training for
outward effect and appearance, an entire perversion of our aims and
methods.

I have seen it suggested, even quite recently, that the girls in the
Troop should be ranged for inspection in order of size so that they may
please the eye of the inspector!

The up-to-date inspecting officer is not likely to be taken in by
eye-wash. Her aim is to ascertain to what extent results have been
attained by the Captain among the girls in each Patrol in her Troop in
the four main branches of our training.

    Character and Intelligence.
    Skill and Handicraft.
    Service for Others.
    Physical Health and Health Knowledge.

She will generally take each Patrol separately, or if there is not time
for this, one Patrol selected at random from each Troop.

She will then, by questioning the Patrol Leader and some of the
Scouts, judge for herself to what extent the leader is capable of
responsibility and leadership, and to what extent the girls are
efficient, keen, and smart.

She can, by a few simple tests, soon see whether they have really
earned their badges, and she can offer them simple personal advice
which will sink in and be valued.

The Scout Spirit and Scout proficiency are to her the important points
to look for.

Accurate drill, neat bandaging, quick and legible signalling, smart
uniform, are excellent steps, but they are only steps among others
towards the attainment of womanly efficiency on the part of the
individual girl.

That is the aim of our training.

Happy, smiling face, ready resourcefulness and quick intelligence
in carrying out any job that may be given is the evidence of keen
esprit de corps in the Patrol, are by far the best indications to
the inspecting officer as to whether or not true Scout training is
practised by the Captain in her Troop.


Give Us the Young!

As Benjamin Kidd has written, let our cry be:——

“Oh! you wise men who would reconstruct the world! Give us the young.
Give us the young. Do what you will with the world, only give us the
young. It is the dreams which we teach them: it is the Utopias which we
conceive for them: it is the thoughts which we think for them, which
will rebuild the world. Give us the young before the evil has held them
and we will create a new Heaven and a new Earth.”



       *       *       *       *       *



Transcriber’s note:

Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.

Some of the layout forms in the book were unable to be followed
exactly. Changes are noted below.

Page 13, “thy” changed to “they” (they must always wash)

Page 19, “simultaneuosly” changed to “simultaneously” (two pairs
playing simultaneously)

Page 48, “throughtout” changed to “throughout” (reign throughout India)

Page 65, “salue” changed to “salute” (the salute, otherwise)

Page 74, “strips” changed to “stripes” (thirteen stripes symbolize)

Page 80, “AB” was originally positions with the A directly above the B.

Page 80, “split” changed to “splint” (tie on a splint)

Page 85, “parellel” changed to “parallel” (chin parallel with floor)

Page 89, the following line was the final line on the page but does not
fit in the text and was deleted:

  not feel it at the time, but it may lead to illnesses years

This line may be found on page 84.

Page 100, “lettter” changed to “letter” (choose a letter of the)

Page 106, “anl” changed to “and” (and slugs as food)

Page 125, “plans” changed to “plants” (any ordered plants)

Page 149, “find” changed to “five” (Boer five pounds for)

Page 154, “says” changed to “say” (stick, say, six feet)

Page 156, “which” changed to “when” (when you hold it)

Page 158, “mackeral” changed to “mackerel” (are the herring mackerel)

Page 158, “warking” changed to “working” (keep a hard-working man)

Page 159, “strip” changed to “string” (string to your package of)

Page 161, “bright” changed to “bring” (overnight, bring to boiling)

Page 169, “medal” changed to “medals” (received medals for saving)

Page 176, “stragihtened” changed to “straightened” (straightened and
bound to)

Page 178, “suck” to “sucked” (spirit is thus sucked in)

Page 179, “away” to “awake” (be kept awake if)

Page 180, “tonsilitis” changed to “tonsillitis” (suffer from
tonsillitis)

Page 180, “vitrol” changed to “vitriol” (throwing vitriol over)

Page 194, “angles” changed to “ankles” (the ankles, should be)

Page 204, “dulll” changed to “dull” (play these dull games)

Page 206, “Madge” changed to “Badge” (a certain Proficiency Badge)

Page 217, “Committe” changed to “Committee” (of the Local Committee)

Page 217, “000” changed to “65” (See p. 65.)

Page 223, “teach” changed to “teacher” (helping a teacher)

Page 224, “Groud” changed to “Group” (GROUP 2. _Arts and Crafts._)

Page 229, “Associaton” changed to “Association” (adopted in the
Association)

Page 230, “mapority” changed to “majority” (majority of the people)

Page 236, “back” changed to “black” (gold and black hat cords)

Page 236, “Form” changed to “From” (From a troop, through)

Page 239, “corporation” changed to “coöperation” (the coöperation of
the)

Page 242, “withdrew” changed to “withdraw” (withdraw her badges)

Page 250, “it” changed to “its” (uphold its reputation)

Page 251, “unbringing” changed to “upbringing” (in their upbringing)





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