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.

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 house.Yellow and white.
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 while he works. Greyish brown and white.

List of Troop Crests Always Kept in Stock

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.