At the 1920 meeting of the international conference at London, reports were received from Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, China, and Siberia, as well as from all parts of the British Empire, and the United States.
From a membership of 9,769 in January, 1918, the girl scouts grew to 89,864 in 1921, at the rate of nearly 10 to 1 in three years. The greatest relative growth was in 1918, when the membership grew fourfold. During 1919 the increase over the preceding year was more than two-thirds, while in 1920 the relative increase was one-third. The details are as shown in the accompanying table.
This growth is due to a spontaneous demand of community after community for scouting for girls, and not to deliberate propaganda on the part of the national headquarters. The reasons for it are therefore to be sought in the activities and methods themselves, which make such widespread appeal.
ACTIVITIES.
A glance through the handbook, Scouting for Girls, will show that the activities of the girl scouts center about the three interests—Home, Health, and Citizenship.
Home.—The program provides incentives for practicing woman's world-old arts by requiring an elementary proficiency in cooking, housekeeping, first aid, and the rules of healthful living for any girl scout passing beyond the Tenderfoot stage. Of the forty-odd subjects for which Proficiency Badges are given, more than one-fourth are in subjects directly related to the services of woman in the home, as mother, nurse, or home-keeper.
Growth of Girl Scout membership, Jan. 1, 1918, to Jan. 1, 1921—Active registrations.
| January 1. | Officers. | Increase. | Scouts. | Increase. | Total. | Increase. |
| 1918 | 1,314 | ...... | 8,455 | ...... | 9,769 | ...... |
| 1919 | 3,823 | 2,509 | 36,847 | 28,392 | 40,670 | 30,901 |
| 1920 | 5,357 | 1,534 | 61,754 | 24,907 | 67,111 | 26,441 |
| 1921 | 6,839 | 1,482 | 83,025 | 21,271 | 89,864 | 22,753 |
Into this work, so often distasteful because solitary, is brought the sense of comradeship. This is effected partly by having much of the actual training done in groups. Another element is the public recognition and rewarding of skill in this, woman's most elementary service to the world, usually taken for granted and ignored.
The spirit of play infused into the simplest and most repetitious of household tasks banishes drudgery. “Give us, oh, give us,” says Carlyle, “the man who sings at his work. He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness; altogether past comprehension its power of endurance.”