Baron Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell Baden-Powell of Gilwell

“ The machines which make the pins and needles are to-day marvels of skill developed through centuries of patient labor of head and hand. Farm labor is toilsome, but the life of the race depends on the products of field and pasture, and the Citizen Scout who works on the land is helping to feed the world.
But success in an industrial or professional career is neither the end nor the greatest joy of a girl’s life. Home making is after all the vocation which calls most [215] naturally and most deeply to a woman and is most worthy of her best efforts. ”

“ Well, I want Girl Scouts to learn to be almost like detectives in their sharpness in noticing small signs and reading the meaning of them, not merely for the purpose of studying animals and birds, but also for studying their human fellow creatures. ”

“ The way a man (or a woman) walks is often a good guide to his character—witness the fussy, swaggering little man paddling along with short steps and much arm-action; the nervous man’s hurried, jerky stride; the slow slouch of the loafer; the smooth, quick, and silent step of the Scout, and so on.
Judging character by the gait of a man.
With a little practice in observation you can tell pretty accurately a man’s character from his dress.
How would you recognize that a gentleman was fond of fishing? If you see his left cuff with little tufts of cloth sticking up, you may be sure he fishes. ”

“ To be a valuable citizen the first qualification is an understanding of the organization and administration of one’s government. With more knowledge of the principles for which our government really stands there will come to the thinking American girl a desire to help definitely in the administration of those principles. Real social service will develop every Citizen Scout, give her a broader vision of life, awaken her sympathy and clear her intellect so that when she casts her vote she will do it with intelligence and with civic pride. ”

“ If a guilty person finds himself being watched, it puts him on his guard, while an innocent person becomes annoyed. So, when you are observing people, don’t do so by openly staring at them, but notice the details you want to at one glance or two, and if you want to study them more, walk behind them; you can learn just as much from a back view, in fact more than you can from a front view, and, unless they are scouts and look round frequently, they do not know that you are observing them. ”

“ When a girl first joins the Brownies she is only a recruit like a boy who joins the army, and before she can count as a real Brownie she must know and understand the Promise, and what is more she must have carried it out by doing a good turn in her own home. ”

“ When you see an accident in the street or people injured, the sight of the torn limbs, the blood, the broken bones, and the sound of the groans and sobbing all make you feel sick and horrified and anxious to get away from it—if you’re not a Girl Scout. ”

“ All round you, too, are the birds and animals and insects, and the more you know of them the more you begin to like them and to take an interest in them; and once you take an interest in them you do not want to hurt them in any way. You would not rob a bird’s nest; you would not bully an animal; you would not kill an insect—once you have realised what its life and habits are. In this way, therefore, you fulfil the Scout Law of becoming a friend to animals. ”

“ Then, on the moral side, to be good is of little interest to the child; to do good is another matter. She has an innate predisposition to the active practice rather than to the passive reception, and the Scout encouragement to do the daily good turn meets her inclination and eventually leads her—bit by bit—to the practice of kindness and of self-sacrifice for others as her natural habit of mind and action. ”

“ This body of men must be prepared for every kind of fighting. Sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, sometimes in the mountains, often with pioneer work, wading through rivers and making bridges, and so on. But they have to be a skilful lot of men, brave and enduring, ready to turn out at any time, winter or summer, or to sacrifice themselves if necessary in order that peace may reign throughout India while they keep down any hostile raids against it. ”

“ You save every particle of food and in this way you learn not only cleanliness, but thrift and economy. And you very soon realise how cheaply you can live in camp, and how very much enjoyment you can get for very little money. And as you live in the fresh, pure air of God you find that your own thoughts are clean and pure as the air around you. There is hardly one of the Scout Laws that is not better carried out after you have been living and practising it in camp. ”

“ It is the dreams which we teach them: it is the Utopias which we conceive for them: it is the thoughts which we think for them, which will rebuild the world. Give us the young before the evil has held them and we will create a new Heaven and a new Earth. ”

“ But now about the second promise, namely, to do a good turn to somebody every day.
The Brownies and the Girl Scouts have a patent dodge of making themselves happy. How do you suppose they do it?
By running about and playing at scouting games? By going out into camp? By lighting fires and cooking their own grub? By tracking down animals, and getting to know all about their ways?
Yes, they do all these things, and make themselves happy; but they have a still better way than that. It is very simple. They do it by making other people happy. ”

“ Every Citizen Scout should have a vocation which she has chosen and by which she can support herself. If one can work at some congenial employment all the better, but even an apparently stupid occupation can be made interesting by a realization of the part it plays in the world of industry by which we all live, and one can get great pleasure out of work well done, even if it is only oiling a machine successfully. ”

“ Our object in the Scouts is to supply healthy play and recreation: but play when organised need not be waste of time. In these days we cannot afford, nor is it fair on them, to let children waste time and then to launch them “half-baked” into the sea of life-troubles. The Scout training offers them ideals and activities which supplement, without tiring them, the teaching of the school. ”

“ A very good way to stand tall and sit tall is to imagine a string tied to your scalp lock, drawing you up to the ceiling or the sky, and all the rest of you, both inside and out, will fall into good position. ”

“ That is the aim of our training.
Happy, smiling face, ready resourcefulness and quick intelligence in carrying out any job that may be given is the evidence of keen esprit de corps in the Patrol, are by far the best indications to the inspecting officer as to whether or not true Scout training is practised by the Captain in her Troop.
Give Us the Young!
As Benjamin Kidd has written, let our cry be:——
“Oh! you wise men who would reconstruct the world! Give us the young. Give us the young. Do what you will with the world, only give us the young. ”

“ It is by noticing small signs of distress or poverty in people that you can often help them in the best way. Generally those people who most need help are the ones who hide their distress; and if you are clever and notice little signs such as unhappiness, you can then give them or offer them help in some way or other. In this way you learn sympathy for fellow-creatures—not merely to be a friend of animals, but also to be a friend of your fellow-men in this world; and that again is carrying out the Girl Scout Law of helping others and being friendly to all. ”

“ That is to say, your eyes show you something on the table and the invisible thought comes in your mind that you would like to catch hold of it, and the thought then makes the material sinews of your arm get to work and grasp it. ”

“ I was present when a German aeroplane dropped a bomb on to a railway station in London. There was the usual busy scene of people seeing to their luggage, saying good-bye and going off by train, when with a sudden bang a whole car was blown to bits, and the adjoining [39] ones were in a blaze; seven or eight of those active in getting into the train were flung down—mangled and dead; while some thirty more were smashed, broken, and bleeding, but still alive. ”

“ It is an interesting thing to take as the object of a walk the selection of a house where you would like to live. Notice the position, estimate the cost of rent, rates, taxes, etc., notice its garden and how you would utilise it, and, inside, what kind of wall-paper, etc., you would select so it would be homely and not merely for show, in good taste and not tawdry, airy and not stuffy with too many hangings, which will clean, and so on. ”

“ For the first time you live under the stars and can watch them by the hour and see what they really look like, and realise what an enormous expanse of almost endless space they cover. You know from your lessons at school that our sun warms and lights up a large number of different worlds like ours, all circling round it in the Heavens. ”

“ You will have one little difficult point that you must keep an eye on; when you are trying to lead the Patrol and at the same time to show them the way, don’t forget that you must not do the work of other girls. Give each one her job and see that she does it, but don’t do it for her, or else she will always be leaning on you and expecting you to do it.
A Patrol can specialise, that is, all members to take one special badge, or a bit of ribbon will do, that a Patrol may be a Despatch Riding Patrol, or a Signalling Patrol, First Aid Patrol, a Home Helping Patrol, or even an Entertaining Patrol. ”

“ So the wretched Girl Scouts, when they are forced to play these dull games and to do the terrible hard work of Scouting, need something to cheer them up. All they have to do is to learn a few jingles and to sing them, stamp, bang, or whistle them as they go along, and they are sure to feel the better for it. ”

“ That nation comes to the fore which has the most character in its citizens. It deserves its supremacy only when that character is a good character. The character of a nation is not merely that of a few leaders but of the majority of the people. Character is largely a matter of environment and training, and, later on, of experience. ”

“ As a Leader you must be the best at carrying out the Scout Law in your Patrol, the others will follow you in it; you must be the captain also in all the games; you must be the first in every venture; you must be the one to suggest good games, good ideas, good thoughts. If you are the first in every way like this your girls will follow your leads and you will have good discipline among them. Your aim should, of course, be to make your Patrol the best, and if every Patrol tries to be the best in the Troop, you may be sure that that Troop will be a very good one amongst other Troops. ”

“ Dissecting.—If you go to the butcher’s and get him to give you a sheep’s foot and you carefully open it up with a sharp penknife you will see how wonderfully every bone and joint and sinew is made and fitted into the machine which enables the foot to move and the sheep to get along. Then, if you think it out, you know that if you go away across the sea to the other end of the world, to Australia or New Zealand, and take a sheep’s foot there and dissect it in the same way you find it exactly and identically the same over there as it is here. God’s work is the same all over the world. ”

“ Bathing.—When in camp, bathing will be one of your joys and one of your duties, a joy because it is such fun, a duty because no Scout can consider herself a full-blown Scout until she is able to swim and to save life in the water. ”

“ And for these reasons the name Scout was given to them originally.
By means of games and activities which the Scouts practise they are able to learn the different things which will help them to get on in life, and show the way to others to get on also. Thus camping and signalling, first aid work, camp cooking, and all these things that the Scouts practise are all going to be helpful to them afterwards in making them strong, resourceful women, skilful and helpful to others, and strong in body as well as in mind, and what is more it makes them a jolly cheery lot of comrades also. ”

“ The dissection of a plant or bird, the observation of the habits of an animal or an insect, or the study of the stars and planets all command the eager interest of the girl, and if properly applied, reveal to her with absorbing force the miracle laws of Nature ”

“ A caddis worm is really only the larva of a large sort of dragon fly; so when he wants to change into a winged insect, he cleverly spins a silken door across each end of his tubular house, and fixes it on to the stalk of a plant near the water. Then he waits till his wings have grown, and at last he crawls out and runs up the plant out of the water, and flies away into the sunshine. ”

“ There always are and always will be children to be care of. Perhaps there is no better way for a girl to help her country than to fit herself to undertake the care of children. She should learn all she can about them, and take every opportunity of helping to look after these small Boy and Girl Scouts of the future. Many girls are already doing this and are realizing that the Child Welfare badge is one of the most important in the whole list for a Scout to win. ”

“ Through such Nature investigation, and the consequent appreciation of God the Creator, the Captain can lead the girl on to a right understanding of biology and of her own position in the order of nature; to realise how she can be associated with the Creator in His work and how she can have her part in the romance of reproduction and the carrying on of the race; also that good motherhood is a wonderful gift of God, at once a sacred and a patriotic privilege and duty.
Many a girl has been ruined by ignorance on the subject, and by the wrong or debased views picked up haphazard. ”

“ All you have to do is at first to try and swim like a dog, as if trying to crawl slowly along in the water; don’t try all at once to swim with the ordinary breast stroke that swimmers use, because this only lets your mouth go under water every time. When paddling along like a dog get a friend to support you at first with a pole or his hand under your belly. ”

“ When they attain success after facing difficulties, then they feel really happy and triumphant. It is a big satisfaction to them to have succeeded and [51] to have made other people succeed also. That is what the Girl Scouts want to do, just like the mountaineer guides do among the mountains.
Then, too, a woman who can do things is looked up to by others, both men and women, and they are always ready to follow her advice and example, so there she becomes a Scout too. And later on if she has children of her own, or if she becomes a teacher of children, she can be a really good Scout to them. ”

“ Nature in the City.—This noticing of small things, especially in animal life, not only gives you great interest, but it also gives you great fun and enjoyment in life. Even if you live in a city you can do a certain amount of observation of birds and animals. You would think there is not much fun to be got out of it in a city, and yet if you begin to notice and know all about the sparrows you begin to find there is a great deal of character [73] and amusement to be got out of them, by watching their ways and habits, their nesting, and their way of teaching their young ones to fly. ”