How to Start a Patrol
Eight girls in any town, school, or settlement may join together to form a Patrol. They should have a Captain who must be at least twenty-one years old. The Captain selects a Lieutenant, or second in command, and the girls elect a Patrol leader. The girls should be from ten to seventeen years of age. It is best if all the girls in each Patrol are about the same age. A less number than eight girls can begin the movement, but eight girls are required to form a Patrol. A girl may not become a Lieutenant until she has reached the age of eighteen, or a Captain until she is twenty-one. In Europe, Girl Scout Patrols are sometimes formed by grown women who wish to carry out the Girl Scout program of preparedness. Members of such Patrols are called Senior Scouts. Senior Scouts make the three promises and accept the Scout law. They are enrolled as Scouts but do not meet regularly in the same manner as girls' Troops. They are organized in classes to learn first aid, signalling, marksmanship, or any other subject of the Girl Scout program of training. Senior Scouts may well practice what they learn in such classes by teaching, for one or two months, Patrols of younger Girl Scouts. Thus they improve their command of what they have learned, and serve as an example to the younger Scouts, stimulating their interest in being prepared and especially in the subject taught.