Educational Work of the Girl ScoutsBryant, Louise Stevens
General
Educational Work of the Girl Scouts
Bryant, Louise Stevens
Girl Scouts -- United States
Some observers have criticized the girl-scout organization because of
its apparently military character. It is true that the girls wear a
uniform of khaki and are grouped in patrols corresponding to the "fours"
in the Army; that they salute and learn simple forms of drill and
signaling. But the reason they do these 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. Following directions given to a group is quite
a different matter from doing something alone, and most of us need
special training in this. 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, moreover, 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 signaling 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.
_Uniform._--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. It keeps constantly before
them the fact that they represent a community to whose laws they have
voluntarily subscribed, and whose honor they uphold. It is well, too, to
have an impersonal costume, if for no other reason than to counteract
the tendency of girls to concentrate upon their personal appearance. To
have a neat, simple, useful garb is a novel experience to many an
overdressed doll who has been taught to measure all worth by
extravagance of appearance.
ORGANIZATION.
The outstanding feature of the girl-scout organization is its voluntary
character. Among some 7,400 officers and leaders of girl scouts
throughout the country in the fall of 1920, just 211 were "paid
workers." This is about 3 per cent. The organization is actually a great
volunteer school of citizenship in which the women of the country share
with their younger sisters the results of their own experience in ideals
and practical working knowledge of community living. Scout troops are
organized either independently or in connection with public and private
schools, churches, settlements, and other associations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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