There is a still higher rank than Fire Maker; it is that of Torch Bearer. The one who reaches this rank by special study and work, is an assistant to the Guardian, who is the leader of the society and is a person of maturity and of training for the work of guide to the younger ones. The Camp Fire Girls as an association is especially adapted to charm and interest the girls of from twelve years old to sixteen, while it is good also for older girls.
It is evident that the useful activities that lie back of the attainment of these varied beads in the Camp Fire Girls' necklace will influence every girl that undertakes them in the direction of the aims and purposes of the society. The camp craft and wood craft will awaken the outdoor spirit, and the health craft will help to establish habits making for health and vigor. The same red bead brings games and exercises that will teach girls how to do team work, how to work together to gain the power of quick decision, to take defeat casually, to acknowledge the rights of others, to perceive justice when its laws are thrust upon one in fair play. When the red-white-and-blue bead is gained, a service to the community has been emphasized; and throughout all the list the emerging standardization of women's work is seen. In this respect the Camp Fire Girls as an organization joins with many other movements in working toward placing home economics on a more respected and honorable platform.
Just how the system of activities is to make a closer and more intimate relation between daughter and mother is yet to be revealed. The daughter's appreciation, developed through actual experimentation, of what the mother has perhaps been doing all alone in carrying household burdens, will no doubt tend to make a more cordial relation and intimacy between the house leader that has been and the house leader that is to be in the home that goes on forever. At all events there is a crying need just to-day for a closer understanding and sympathy between mothers and daughters: and if this organization of young women and girls will help in that phase of our life, it will be performing a great national service.
A great deal of poetry has been written for and by the Camp Fire Girls and much fine music has been composed for them to sing in their ceremonies. What could be more beautiful than this, by Katherine Lee Bates:
"Burn, fire, burn!
Flicker, flicker, flame!
Whose hand above this flame is lifted
Shall be with magic touch engifted,
To warm the hearts of lonely mortals
Who stand without their open portals.
The torch shall draw them to the fire,
Higher, higher,
By desire.
Whoso shall stand by this hearthstone,
Flame-fanned,
Shall never, never stand alone;
Whose house is dark and bare and cold,
Whose house is cold,
This is his own.
Flicker, flicker, flicker, flame;
Burn, fire, burn!"
The whole ritual is so poetic that it seems to have touched the young life into creative energy.
The ceremony of receiving a girl into the various honors is altogether beautiful; but we must leave something for a surprise to the young girl who is hoping to become some day a member. It must be remembered, however, that the honors are to be earned. The friend of a member is not begged to join the Camp Fire Girls; she is allowed to join if she will enter into the spirit of the society and make herself worthy. To do that she may have to alter her point of view. If she has been in the habit of thinking of the humble duties of life as a drudgery, she certainly will have to change her mind in that respect. To throw romance and beauty and the spirit of adventure about the common things of life is the avowed object of the association. And these are the common things of life—dish washing, house cleaning, first aid to the injured, darning stockings and keeping accurate accounts. To view these as adventures, as bits of romance, is what the Camp Fires are aiming toward. And they are succeeding; for there are hundreds of groups of girls all over the country who are struggling to win the beads by study and service, that shall make these prized necklaces represent their endeavors. The mothers are welcoming this spirit that turns a disliked piece of household work into an adventure of high emprise. They find themselves rushed away from a task they were about to begin lest the daughter should fail by chance to gain a bead she was striving for, and prevented from various branches of work by the rules the daughter was following. But it is not the spirit of vanity and self aggrandizement that forms the basis of the girls' endeavor; it is the love of achievement; it is the game!
If one looks over the books of directions for Camp Fire Girls, one is delighted and fascinated by the pictures that show the many ways the girls have to carry out the intention of the society. Here are girls in the ceremonial costumes, the hair braided Indian fashion, the decorated band drawn around the forehead and fastened behind at the back of the head. In one picture the girls are sitting by the tent at camp, sewing and carving and carpentering for honors. Here they are in a big canoe with paddles lifted all together; again they are starting out for a hay-rack ride, or building a gigantic bonfire for Independence Day, setting up the logs in tepee-shape, while eight girls are bearing the next log to the pyramid. We see them wading, swimming, and making fire in antique fashion with bow and drill; they are cooking in house and in camp; they are washing, they are ironing, they are mending; here they are serving the community by teaching some little girls to sew, or by helping to fight a real forest fire; they are holding ceremonial meetings and conferring honors on those that by hard work have won them. One can only say: O happy, happy girls in this happiest of countries, that have so much done for them, that have so great opportunities, that are so diligently and joyously making the most of their chance in life!