THE GIRL SCOUTS
A Training School for
Womanhood
By KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
189 Lexington Avenue
New York City
A Training School for
Womanhood
By Kate Douglas Wiggin
I am heartily interested in the GirlScouts of America. The fact is, I thinkI was always a Girl Scout myself (althoughthe name was unknown); yes,from the very beginning. Even myfirst youthful story was “scouty” intone, if I may invent a word. Thenfor a few years afterward, when I was“scoutingly” busy educating littlestreet Arabs in San Francisco, I wrotebooks, too, for and about younger children,but there came a time when“Polly Oliver's Problem” brought mea girl public. It was not an oppressivelylarge one; that is, I never wasmobbed in the streets by Polly's admirers,but they existed, and Heavens!how many letters they wrote!
I see now that “Polly” was a real girlscout, but faithful as she unconsciouslywas to the then unwritten laws of thesisterhood, she faded into insignificancewhen my absolutely true-to-typeScout appeared in the guise of Rebeccaof Sunnybrook Farm. Rebecca did notreform, convert or uplift her seniors,her parents, grandparents, neighborsand constituents, but she could neverkeep her hands off things that neededto be done, and whatever enterprisewas on hand there was Rebecca to befound—sometimes on the outskirts,frequently, I fear, in its storm centre.
Do you remember that it was Rebeccaand her twelve-year-old friendswho sewed the white stars on the Riverborohome-made flag, just as theRoosevelt High School girls have beendoing for their great leader these lastweeks?
My summer home lies between twoMaine villages on opposite sides of theSaco River. There are Girl Scouts andBoy Scouts in each of the villages;but off the main roads, almost on thefringe of the pine forests, are boys andgirls too far away from one anotherto reach any group. One little chapsaid to me: “My brother Tim wantsto be a Scout, but there isn't anybodyto be a leader and the boys live toofar apart. Tim's got all the circularsand books and instructions and he canbe a lone scout, but he doesn't want tobe a lone scout—Tim doesn't; he wantsto be with other boys.”
The very words “A lone scout” suggesteda story to me that I have neverwritten, but wish that these wordsmight reach the eye of a girl who wouldlike to practise the scout virtues, evenif she cannot belong to the great band.It is hard, without the companionshipand inspiration of a large friendly company,to follow a secret ideal and animaginary leader, to be a lone scoutyet to be working with thousands ofunknown little sisters. All the whilethat the “lone scout” is learning to bea woman—true, brave, busy, thrifty,cheerful, she can say to herself: “Tohelp a little is to do the work of theworld.” That is the real slogan of theGirl Scouts since for the most part theydo little duties, assume small responsibilities,carry the lighter burdens.Above all, they learn to “Carry on!”doing a woman's work in a woman's way,doing small things that women havealways done as well as the new thingsthat have opened to women, either bytheir own pluck or because men haveat least given women a chance, anddoing them patiently, self-forgettingly,with the old-fashioned touch of awoman's hand. The world isn't in needof women who are duplicates of men.A girl should try to be the best scoutin the world, if