Educational Work of the Girl Scouts
Do you believe that girls should like to work at home, to cook and clean house and mind the baby? Do you believe that a girl should like to take care of her clothes and be able to make them; that she should know how to be thrifty and to conserve the family money in buying and using food and clothing; that she should play a fair game and put the group above her personal interests? Do you believe that she should value a strong healthy body above clothes and cosmetics, and rejoice in the hope of being some day the healthy mother of healthy children?
If you do, you believe in the Girl Scouts, for in this organization the girls learn all these things in such a happy way that they like to do them, which means that they keep on doing them.
The Girl Scouts, a national organization, is open to any girl who expresses her desire to join, and voluntarily accepts the promise and the laws. The object of the Girl Scouts is to bring to all girls the opportunity for group experience, outdoor life, and to learn through work, but more by play, to serve their community. Patterned after the Girl Guides of England, the sister organization of the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts have developed a method of self-government and a variety of activities that appear to be well suited to the desires of the girls, as the 89,864 scouts and the 2,500 new applicants each month testify.
Girl Scouts and their leaders, to the number of 89,864, were in 1920 organized in every State, and in Hawaii, Porto Rico, and Alaska. There are troops in 1,400 cities, and local councils in 162 places. This represents a tremendous growth since the founding by Mrs. Juliette Low in March, 1912, of a handful of enthusiastic “Girl Guides” in Savannah, Ga. In 1915 the growth of the movement warranted its national incorporation; so headquarters were established in Washington, D. C., and the name changed to Girl Scouts, Incorporated. In 1916 the headquarters were removed to New York, and are now located at 189 Lexington Avenue.