Chapter VIII: Section IV: Who Are the Scouts?

In the early days of this great country of ours, before telephones and telegrams, railroads and automobiles made communications of all sorts so easy, and help of all kinds so quickly secured, men and women--yes, and boys and girls, too!--had to depend very much on themselves and be very handy and resourceful, if they expected to keep safe and well, and even alive.

Our pioneer grandmothers might have been frightened by the sight of one of our big touring cars, for instance, or puzzled as to how to send a telegram, but they knew an immense number of practical things that have been entirely left out of our town-bred lives, and for pluck and resourcefulness in a tight place it is to be doubted if we could equal them today.

"_You press a button and we do the rest_" is the slogan of a famous camera firm, and really it seems as if this might almost be called the slogan of modern times; we have only to press a button nowadays, and someone will do the rest.

But in those early pioneer days there was no button to press, as we all know, and nobody to "do the rest": everybody had to know a little about everything _and be able to do that little pretty quickly_, as safety and even life might depend upon it.

The men who stood for all this kind of thing in the highest degree were probably the old "Scouts," of whom Natty Bumpo, in Cooper's famous old Indian tales is the great example. They were explorers, hunters, campers, builders, fighters, settlers, and in an emergency, nurses and doctors combined. They could cook, they could sew, they could make and sail a canoe, they could support themselves indefinitely in the trackless woods, they knew all the animals and the plants for miles around, they could guide themselves by the sun, and stars, and finally, they were husky and hard as nails and always in the best of health and condition. Their adventurous life, always on the edge of danger and new, unsuspected things, made them as quick as lightning and very clever at reading character and adapting themselves to people.

In a way, too, they had to act as rough and ready police (for there were no men in brass buttons in the woods!) and be ready to support the right, and deal out justice, just as our "cow-boys" of later ranch days had to prevent horse-stealing.

Now, the tales of their exploits have gone all over the world, and healthy, active people, and especially young people, have always delighted in just this sort of life and character. So, when you add the fact that the word "scout" has always been used, too, to describe the men sent out ahead of an army to gain information in the quickest, cleverest way, it is no wonder that the great organizations of Boy and Girl Scouts which are spreading all over the world today should have chosen the name we are so proud of, to describe the kind of thing they want to stand for.

Our British Scout-sisters call themselves "Girl Guides," and here is the thrilling reason for this title given by the Chief Scout and Founder of the whole big band that is spreading round the world today, as so many of Old England's great ideas have spread.

WHY "GUIDES"?

On the North-West Frontier of India there is a
famous Corps of soldiers known as the Guides, and
their duty is to be always ready to turn out at
any moment to repel raids by the hostile tribes
across the Border, and to prevent them from coming
down into the peaceful plains of India. 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. So they are true
handymen in every sense of the word, and true
patriots.

When people speak of Guides in Europe one
naturally thinks of those men who are mountaineers
in Switzerland and other mountainous places, who
can guide people over the most difficult parts by
their own bravery and skill in tackling obstacles,
by helpfulness to those with them, and by their
bodily strength of wind and limb. They are
splendid fellows those guides, and yet if they
were told to go across the same amount of miles on
an open flat plain it would be nothing to them, it
would not be interesting, and they would not be
able to display those grand qualities which they
show directly the country is a bit broken up into
mountains. It is no fun to them to walk by easy
paths, the whole excitement of life is facing
difficulties and dangers and apparent
impossibilities, and in the end getting a chance
of attaining the summit of the mountain they have
wanted to reach.

Well, I think it is the case with most girls
nowadays. They do not want to sit down and lead an
idle life, not to have everything done for them,
nor to have a very easy time. They don't want
merely to walk across the plain, they would much
rather show themselves handy people, able to help
others and ready, if necessary to sacrifice
themselves for others just like the Guides on the
North-West frontier. And they also want to tackle
difficult jobs themselves in their life, to face
mountains and difficulties and dangers and to go
at them having prepared themselves to be skilful
and brave; and also they would like to help other
people meet their difficulties also. 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 to have
made other people succeed also. That is what the
Girl Guides want to do, just as 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 Guide 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
Guide to them.

By means of games and activities which the Guides
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 go on also. Thus camping
and signalling, first aid work, camp cooking, and
all these things that the Guides 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
lot of comrades also.

The motto of the Guides on which they work is "Be
Prepared," that is, be ready for any kind of duty
that may be thrust upon them, and what is more, to
know what to do by having practised it beforehand
in the case of any kind of accident or any kind of
work that they may be asked to take up.

MAGDELAINE DE VERCHÈRES

"THE FIRST GIRL SCOUT"

It is a great piece of luck for us American Scouts that we can claim the very first Girl Scout for our own great continent, if not quite for our own United States. A great Englishman calls her "the first Girl Scout," and every Scout must feel proud to the core of her heart when she thinks that this statue which we have selected for the honor of our frontispiece, standing as it does on British soil, on the American continent, commemorating a French girl, the daughter of our Sister Republic, joins the three great countries closely together, through the Girl Scouts! Magdelaine de Verchères lived in the French colonies around Quebec late in the seventeenth century. The colonies were constantly being attacked by the Iroquois Indians. One of these attacks occurred while Magdelaine's father, the Seigneur, was away. Magdelaine rallied her younger brothers about her and succeeded in holding the fort for eight days, until help arrived from Montreal.

The documents relating this bit of history have been in the Archives for many years, but when they were shown to Lord Grey about twelve years ago he decided to erect a monument to Magdelaine de Verchères on the St. Lawrence. It was Lord Grey who called Magdelaine "The First Girl Scout," and as such she will be known.

The following is taken from "A Daughter of New France," by Arthur G. Doughty who wrote the book for the Red Cross work of the Magdelaine de Verchères Chapter of the Daughters of the Empire, and dedicated it to Princess Patricia, whose name was given to the famous "Princess Pat" regiment.

"On Verchères Point, near the site of the Fort, stands a statue in bronze of the girl who adorned the age in which she lived and whose memory is dear to posterity. For she had learned so to live that her hands were clean and her paths were straight.... To all future visitors to Canada by way of the St. Lawrence, this silent figure of the First Girl Scout in the New World conveys a message of loyalty, of courage and of devotion."

Our own early history is sprinkled thickly with brave, handy girls, who were certainly Scouts, if ever there were any, though they never belonged to a patrol, nor recited the Scout Laws. But they lived the Laws, those strong young pioneers, and we can stretch out our hands to them across the long years, and give them the hearty Scout grip of fellowship, when we read of them.

THE EXPLORER

If we should ever hold an election for honorary membership in the Girl Scouts, open to all the girls who ought to have belonged to us, but who lived too long ago, we should surely nominate for first place one of the most remarkable young Indian girls who ever found her way through the pathless forests,--Sacajawea, "The Bird Woman."

In 1806 she was brought to Lewis and Clark on their expedition into the great Northwest, to act as interpreter between them and the various Indian tribes they had to encounter. From the very beginning, when she induced the hostile Shoshones to act as guides, to the end of her daring journey, during which, with her papoose on her back, she led this band of men through hitherto impassable mountain ranges, till she brought them to the Pacific Coast, this sixteen-year-old girl never faltered. No dangers of hunger, thirst, cold or darkness were too much for her. From the Jefferson to the Yellowstone River she was the only guide they had; on her instinct for the right way, her reading of the sun, the stars and the trees, depended the lives of all of them. When they fell sick she nursed them; when they lost heart at the wildness of their venture, she cheered them. Their party grew smaller and smaller, for Lewis and Clark had separated early in the expedition, and a part of Clark's own party fell off when they discovered a natural route over the Continental Divide where wagons could not travel. Later, most of those who remained, decided to go down the Jefferson River in canoes; but Clark still guided by the plucky Indian girl, persisted in fighting his way on pony back overland, and after a week of this journeying, crowded full of discomforts and dangers, she brought him out in triumph at the Yellowstone, where the river bursts out from the lower canon,--and the Great Northwest was opened up for all time!

* * * * *

The women of Oregon have raised a statue to this young explorer, and there she stands in Portland, facing the Coast, pointing to the Columbia River where it reaches the sea.

These great virtues of daring and endurance never die out of the race; though the conditions of our life today, when most of the exploring has been done, do not demand them of us in just the form the "Bird Woman" needed, still, if they die out of the nation, and especially out of the women of the nation, something has been lost that no amount of book education can ever replace. Sacajawea, had no maps to study--she _made_ maps, and roads have been built over her footsteps. And so we Scouts, not to lose this great spirit, study the stars and the sun and the trees and try to learn a few of the wood secrets she knew so well. This out-of-door wisdom and self-reliance was the first great principle of Scouting.

THE HOMEMAKER

But of course, a country full of "Bird Women" could not be said to have advanced very far in civilization. Though we should take great pleasure in conferring her well-earned merit badges on Sacajawea, we should hardly have grown into the great organization we are today if we had not badges for quite another class of achievements.

In 1832, not so many years after the famous Lewis and Clark expedition, there was born a little New England girl who would very early in life have become a First Class Scout if she had had the opportunity. Her name was Louisa Alcott, and she made that name famous all the world over by the book by which the world's girls know her--"Little Women." Her father, though a brilliant man, was a very impractical one, and from her first little story to her last popular book, all her work was done for the purpose of keeping her mother and sisters, in comfort. While she was waiting for the money from her stories she turned carpets, trimmed hats, papered the rooms, made party dresses for her sisters, nursed anyone who was sick (at which she was particularly good)--all the homely, helpful things that neighbors and families did for each other in New England towns.

In those days little mothers of families could not telephone specialists to help them out in emergencies; there were neither telephones nor specialists! But there were always emergencies, and the Alcott girls had to know what to put on a black-and-blue spot, and why the jelly failed to "jell," and how to hang a skirt, and bake a cake, and iron a table-cloth. Louisa had to entertain family guests and darn the family stockings. Her home had not every comfort and convenience, even as people counted those things then, and without a brisk, clever woman, full of what the New Englanders called "faculty," her family would have been a very unhappy one. With all our modern inventions nobody has yet invented a substitute for a good, all-round woman in a family, and until somebody can invent one, we must continue to take off our hats to girls like Louisa Alcott. Imagine what her feelings would have been if someone had told her that she had earned half a dozen merit badges by her knowledge of home economics and her clever writing!

And let every Scout who finds housework dull, and feels that she is capable of bigger things, remember this: the woman whose books for girls are more widely known than any such books ever written in America, had to drop the pen, often and often, for the needle, the dish-cloth and the broom.

To direct her household has always been a woman's job in every century, and girls were learning to do it before Columbus ever discovered Sacajawea's great country. To be sure, they had no such jolly way of working at it together, as the Scouts have, nor did they have the opportunity the girl of today has to learn all about these things in a scientific, business-like way, in order to get it all done with the quickest, most efficient methods, just as any clever business man manages his business.

We no longer believe that housekeeping should take up all a woman's time; and many an older woman envies the little badges on a Scout's sleeve that show the world she has learned how to manage her cleaning and cooking and household routine so that she has plenty of time to spend on other things that interest her.

THE PIONEER

But there was a time in the history of our country when men and women went out into the wilderness with no nearer neighbors than the Indians, yet with all the ideals of the New England they left behind them; girls who had to have all the endurance of the young "Bird Woman" and yet keep up the traditions and the habits of the fine old home life of Louisa Alcott.

One of these pioneer girls, who certainly would have been patrol leader of her troop and marched them to victory with her, was Anna Shaw. In 1859, a twelve-year old girl, with her mother and four other children she traveled in a rough cart full of bedding and provisions, into the Michigan woods where they took up a claim, settling down into a log cabin whose only furniture was a fireplace of wood and stones.

She and her brothers floored this cabin with lumber from a mill, and actually made partitions, an attic door and windows. They planted potatoes and corn by chopping up the sod, putting seed under it and leaving it to Nature--who rewarded them by giving them the best corn and potatoes Dr. Shaw ever ate, she says in her autobiography.

For she became a preacher and a physician, a lecturer and organizer, this sturdy little Scout, even though she had to educate herself, mostly. They papered the cabin walls with the old magazines, after they had read them once, and went all over them, in this fashion, later. So eagerly did she devour the few books sent them from the East, that when she entered college, years later, she passed her examinations on what she remembered of them!

They lived on what they raised from the land; the pigs they brought in the wagon with them, fish, caught with wires out of an old hoop skirt, and corn meal brought from the nearest mill, twenty miles away. Ox teams were the only means of getting about.

Anna and her brothers made what furniture they used--bunks, tables, stools and a settle. She learned to cut trees and "heart" logs like a man. After a trying season of carrying all the water used in the household from a distant creek, which froze in the winter so that they had to melt the ice, they finally dug a well. First they went as far as they could with spades, then handed buckets of earth to each other, standing on a ledge half-way down; then, when it was deep enough, they lined it with slabs of wood. It was so well made that the family used it for twelve years.

Wild beasts prowled around them, Indians terrified them by sudden visits, the climate was rigorous, amusements and leisure scanty. But this brave, handy girl met every job that came to her with a good heart and a smile; she learned by doing. The tests and sports for mastering which we earn badges were life's ordinary problems to her, and very practical ones. She never knew it, but surely she was a real Girl Scout!

It is not surprising to learn that she grew up to be one of the women who earned the American girl her right to vote. A pioneer in more ways than one, this little carpenter and farmer and well-digger worked for the cause of woman's political equality as she had worked in the Michigan wilderness, and helped on as much as any one woman, the great revolution in people's ideas which makes it possible for women today to express their wishes directly as to how their country shall be governed. This seems very simple to the girls of today, and will seem even simpler as the years go on, but, like the Yellowstone River, it needed its pioneers!

In the Great War through which we have just passed, the Scouts of all countries gave a magnificent account of themselves, and honestly earned the "War Service" badges that will be handed down to future generations, we may be sure, as the proudest possessions of thousands of grandchildren whose grandmothers (think of a Scout grandmother!) were among the first to answer their Country's call.

Let us hear what our British sisters accomplished, and we must remember that at the time of the war there were many Girl Guides well over Scout age and in their twenties, who had had the advantage, as their book points out, of years of training.

This is what they have done during the Great War.

In the towns they have helped at the Military
Hospitals.

In the country they have collected eggs for the
sick, and on the moors have gathered sphagnum moss
for the hospitals.

Over in France a great Recreation and Rest Hut for
the soldiers has been supplied by the Guides with
funds earned through their work. It is managed by
Guide officers, or ex-Guides. Among the older
Guides there are many who have done noble work as
assistants to the ward-maids, cooks, and laundry
women. In the Government offices, such as the War
Office, the Admiralty, and other great departments
of the State, they have acted as orderlies and
messengers. They have taken up work in factories,
or as motor-drivers or on farms, in order to
release men to go to the front.

At home and in their club-rooms they have made
bandages for the wounded, and warm clothing for
the men at the Front and in the Fleet.

At home in many of the great cities the Guides
have turned their Headquarters' Club-Rooms into
"Hostels." That is, they have made them into small
hospitals ready for taking in people injured in
air-raids by the enemy.

So altogether the Guides have shown themselves to
be a pretty useful lot in many different kinds of
work during the war, and, mind you, they are only
girls between the ages of 11 and 18. But they have
done their bit in the Great War as far as they
were able, and have done it well.

There are 100,000 of them, and they are very
smart, and ready for any job that may be demanded
of them.

They were not raised for this special work during
the war for they began some years before it, but
their motto is "Be Prepared," and it was their
business to train themselves to be ready for
anything that might happen, even the most unlikely
thing.

So even when war came they were "all there" and
ready for it.

It is not only in Great Britain that they have
been doing this, but all over our great Empire--in
Canada and Australia, West, East and South Africa,
New Zealand, the Falkland Islands, West Indies,
and India. The Guides are a vast sisterhood of
girls, ready to do anything they can for their
country and Empire.

Long before there was any idea of the war the
Guides had been taught to think out and to
practise what they should do supposing such a
thing as war happened in their own country, or
that people should get injured by bombs or by
accidents in their neighborhood. Thousands of
women have done splendid work in this war, but
thousands more would have been able to do good
work also had they only Been Prepared for it
beforehand by learning a few things that are
useful to them outside their mere school work or
work in their own home. And that is what the
Guides are learning in all their games and camp
work: they mean to be useful in other ways besides
what they are taught in school.

WHAT THE GUIDES DO

As a Guide your first duty is to be helpful to
other people, both in small everyday matters and
also under the worst of circumstances. You have to
imagine to yourself what sort of things might
possibly happen, and how you should deal with them
when they occur. Then you will know what to do.

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 carriage was blown
to bits, and the adjoining 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. The suddenness of it
made it all the more horrifying. But one of the
first people I noticed as keeping her head was a
smartly dressed young lady kneeling by an injured
working-man; his thigh was smashed and bleeding
terribly; she had ripped up his trousers with her
knife, and with strips of it had bound a pad to
the wound; she found a cup somehow and filled it
with water for him from the overhead hose for
filling engines. Instead of being hysterical and
useless, she was as cool and ready to do the right
thing as if she had been in bomb-raids every day
of her life. Well, that is what any girl can do if
she only prepares herself for it.

These are things which have to be learnt in
peace-time, and because they were learnt by the
Guides beforehand, these girls were able to do
their bit so well when war came.

FIRST AID.

When you see an accident in the street or people
injured in an air raid, 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 Guide. But that is cowardice:
your business as a Guide is to steel yourself to
face it and to help the poor victim. As a matter
of fact, after a trial or two you really get to
like such jobs, because with coolheadedness and
knowledge of what to do you feel you give the
much-needed help.

_The Value of Nursing._--In this war hundreds and
hundreds of women have gone to act as nurses in
the hospitals for the wounded and have done
splendid work. They will no doubt be thankful all
their lives that while they were yet girls they
learnt how to nurse and how to do hospital work,
so that they were useful when the call came for
them. But there are thousands and thousands of
others who wanted to do the work when the time
came, but they had not like Guides, Been Prepared,
and they had never learnt how to nurse, and so
they were perfectly useless and their services
were not required in the different hospitals. So
carry out your motto and Be Prepared and learn all
you can about hospital and child nursing, sick
nursing, and every kind, while you are yet a Guide
and have people ready to instruct you and to help
you in learning.

In countries not so settled and protected as England and America, where the women and girls are taught to count upon their men to protect them in the field, the Girl Scouts have sometimes had to display a courage like that of the early settlers. A Roumanian Scout, Ecaterina Teodorroiu actually fought in the war and was taken prisoner. She escaped, traced her way back to her company, and brought valuable information as to the enemy's movements. For these services she was decorated "as a reward for devotion and conspicuous bravery" with the Order of Merit and a special gold medal of the Scouts, only given for services during the war. At the same time she was promoted to the rank of Honorary Second Lieutenant.

Can we wonder that she is known as the Joan of Arc of Roumania?

During the Russian Revolution the Girl Scouts were used by the Government in many practical ways, as may be seen from the following letter from one of them:

"The Scouts assisted from the beginning, from
seven in the morning until twelve at night,
carrying messages, sometimes containing state
secrets, letters, etc., from the Duma to the
different branches of it called commissariats, and
back again. They also fed the soldiers that were
on guard. The Scout uniform was our protection,
and everywhere that uniform commanded the respect
of the soldiers, peasants and workingmen.

"As great numbers of soldiers came from the front,
food had to be given them. It was contributed by
private people, but the Scouts had lots of work
distributing it. All the little taverns were
turned into eating houses for the soldiers, and
there we helped to prepare the food and feed them.
As there were not enough Boy Scouts, the Girl
Scouts helped in the same way as the boys.

"The Scouts also did much First Aid work. In one
instance I saw an officer whose finger had been
shot off. I ran up to him and bandaged it up for
him. (All of us Scouts had First Aid kits hanging
from our belts.)

"It was something of a proud day for us Scouts
when the Premier after a parade, called us all
before the Duma and publicly thanked us for our
aid."

Indeed it was and we heartily congratulate our Sister Scouts! But if we do our duty by our Patrol and the Patrols all do their duty by their Troop, that proud moment is going to come to every single Scout of us, when the town where we live tells us by its smiles and applause, when we go by in uniform, what it thinks of us.

We Scouts shall be more and more interested, as the years go on, to remember that in the great hours of one of the world's greatest crises we helped to make its history. Instances like these are very exceptional; they could not occur to one in ten thousand of us; but we stay-at-homes can always remind ourselves that it was the obedience, the quickness, and the skill learned in quiet, every-day Scouting that made these few rise to their opportunity when it came.

War and revolution do not make Scouts either brave or useful; they only bring out the bravery and the usefulness that have been learned, as we are all learning them, every day!

All we have to do is to fix Scout habits in our hearts and hands, and then when our Country calls us, we shall be as ready as these little Russian Scouts were.

In France the Scouts, known as the Eclaireuses, have agreed with us that the "land Army" is the best army for women. Rain or shine, in heat and cold, they have dug and ploughed and planted, and learned the lesson American girls learned long ago--that team work is what counts!

A bit of one of their reports is translated here:

"The crops were fine--potatoes, radishes, greens
and beans were raised. The crop of potatoes,
especially, was so good that the Eclaireuses were
able to supply their families with them at a price
defying competition, and they always had enough
besides for their own use on excursions. (Our
hikes.)

"Such has been the reward of the care, given so
perseveringly and intelligently to the gardening.

"And what an admirable lesson! Not a minute was
lost in this out-of-door work; chests and muscles
filled out; and at the same time the girls learned
to recognize weather signs; rain or sun were the
factors which determined the success or
non-success of the planting. And each day, there
grew in them also love and gratitude for the earth
and its elements, without the assistance of which
we could harvest nothing.

"Is this not the best method of preparing our
youth to return to the land, to the healthy and
safe life of the beautiful countryside of France;
by showing them the interest and usefulness that
lie in agricultural labor?

"So the Eclaireuse becomes a model of the new
women, used to sport, possessing her First Aid
Diploma, able to cook good simple meals, marching
under orders, knowing how to obey, ready to accept
her responsibility, good-natured and lively in
rain or sun, in public or in her home.... They
continue their courses in sewing, hygiene and
gymnastics and assist eagerly at conferences
arranged for them to discuss the duties of the
Eclaireuses and what it is necessary to do to
become a good Captain.

"To make themselves useful--that is the ideal of
the Eclaireuses. They know that in order to do
this it is becoming more and more necessary to
acquire a broad and complete knowledge."

It is quite a feather in the cap of this great Scout Family of ours that we are teaching the French girl, who has not been accustomed to leave her home or to work in clubs or troops, what a jolly, wonder-working thing a crowd of girls, all forging ahead together, can be.

In our own country we were protected from the worst sides of the great war, but we had a wonderful opportunity to show how we could Be Prepared ourselves by seeing that our brave soldiers were prepared.

Our War Records show an immense amount of Red Cross supplies, knitting, comfort kits, food grown and conserved in every way, money raised for Liberty Loans and Thrift Stamps, war orphans adopted, home replacement work undertaken and carried through; all these to so great an amount that the country recognized our existence and services as never before in our history, the Government, indeed, employing sixty uniformed Scouts as messengers in the Surgeon General's Department.

Perhaps it is only the truth to say that the war showed our country what we could Be Prepared to do for her! And it showed us, too.

It has been said that women can never be the same after the great events of the last few years, and we must never forget that the Girl Scouts of today are the women of tomorrow.