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“ The object of the Girl Scouts is to bring to all girls the opportunity for group experience, outdoor life, and to learn through work, but more by play, to serve their community. Patterned after the Girl Guides of England, the sister organization of the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts has developed a method of self-government and a variety of activities that appear to be well suited to the desires of the girls as the 60,000 registered Scouts and the 5,000 new applicants each month testify. ”

“ The spirit of play infused into the simplest and most repetitious of household tasks banishes drudgery. "Give us, oh give us," says Carlyle, "a 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 ”

“ The interest of baseball is not confined to any one age. The rules of the game are the same for all, and the smallest boy's judgment on the skill of the players may be as valid as that of the oldest fan. Girls have had in the past no such common interests. Their games have been either solitary or in very small groups in activities largely of a personal character. If women are to be effective in modern political society, they must have from very earliest youth gregarious interests and occupations. ”

“ The activities of the Girl Scouts may be grouped under five headings corresponding to five phases of women's life today:
I. Woman's most ancient way of service—the home-maker, the nurse, and the mother. 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. ”

“ The Council acts as the link between the Girl Scouts and the community. It has the same relation to the separate Troops that the school board has to the schools, that is; it guides and decides upon policies and standards, interprets the Scouts to the community and the community to the Scouts. It does not do the executive or teaching work—that belongs to the Captains, Lieutenants and Patrol Leaders. ”

“ 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 homekeeper. Into this work so often distasteful because solitary is brought the sense of comradeship. ”

“ In the first place all these activities have a common motive which is preparation for a fuller life for the individual, not only in her personal, but in her social relations. It is believed that the habits formed and the concrete information acquired in these activities both contribute to the girls being ready to meet intelligently most of the situations that are likely to arise in their later life. This concept is expressed in the Girl Scouts Motto—"Be Prepared." ”

“ Handicrafts of many sorts enter into the program of the Girl Scouts. In camping girls must know how to set up tents, build lean-tos, and construct fire-places. They must also know how to make knots of various sorts to use for bandages, tying parcels, hitching, and so forth. Among the productive occupations in which Proficiency Badges are awarded are bee-keeping, dairying and general farming, gardening, weaving and needlework.
III. Woman, the consumer. One of the features in modern economics which is only beginning to be recognized is the fact that women form the consuming public. ”

“ Another of the functions of the Council is to interest public spirited women and men, particularly artists and scientists in Girl Scout work and get them to act as referees in awarding Merit Badges for proficiency in the many lines encouraged for Girl Scouts. ”

“ There may also be, and this is desirable, a Council composed of women and men representing all the best interests of the community: parents, schools, religious denominations of all sorts, business, producers, women's clubs, and other social and philanthropic organizations. ”

“ A group of eight has been found to work the best because it is the largest number that can be handled by a person just beginning to be a leader, and m oreover elementary qualities of leadership seem to exist in just about the proportion of one in eight. It is probably on this account that children take so kindly to the form—rather than because of any glamor of the army, though this must be admitted as a factor. In actual practice the drill and signalling take up a very small portion of the program, and are nowhere followed as ends in themselves, but only as a means to an end. ”

“ Just to mention a few: a Girl Scout may be an Astronomer, a Bee keeper, a Dairy-maid, or a Dancer, an Electrician, a Geologist, a Horsewoman, an Interpreter, a Motorist or a Musician, a Scribe, a Swimmer or accomplished in Thrift. ”

“ Scout has been a Tenderfoot for at least one month, and can pass a test of distinctly greater difficulty, including a good deal about cooking and housekeeping, animals and birds, flowers and trees, some important first aid things, and the laws of health. ”

“ V. Woman, the human being. Political economy was for a long time known as the "dead science" and was quite ineffective socially. This was largely because it attempted to split man, the human being, into theoretical units such as "the producer," or "the consumer." ”

“ But the reason they do this is because the military organization happens to be the oldest form of organization in the world, and it works. It is the best way men have found of getting a number of persons to work together. ”

“ The uniform is simple, durable and allows freedom of action. It is of khaki because this has been found to be the best wearing fabric and color. It is not easily torn and does not readily soil. Wearing it gives the girls a sense of belonging to a larger group, such as it is hard to get in any other way. ”

“ Scout and is to be attained only by a young person of considerable accomplishment. She must be able to find her way about city or country without any of the usual aids, using only the compass and her developed judgment of distance and direction. ”