FOREWORD

How Scouting Began

"How did Scouting come to be used by girls?" That is what I have been asked. Well, it was this way. In the beginning I had used Scouting—that is, wood craft, handiness, and cheery helpfulness—as a means for training young soldiers when they first joined the army, to help them become handy, capable men and able to hold their own with anyone instead of being mere drilled machines.

You have read about the Wars in your country against the Red Indians, of the gallantry of your soldiers against the cunning of the Red Man, and what is more, of the pluck of your women on those dangerous frontiers.

Well, we have had much the same sort of thing in South Africa. Over and over again I have seen there the wonderful bravery and resourcefulness of the women when the tribes of Zulu or Matabeles have been out on the war path against the white settlers.

In the Boer war a number of women volunteered to help my forces as nurses or otherwise; they were full of pluck and energy, but unfortunately they had never been trained to do anything, and so with all the good-will in the world they were of no use. I could not help feeling how splendid it would be if one could only train them in peace time in the same way one trained the young soldiers—that is, through Scoutcraft.

I afterwards took to training boys in that way, but I had not been long at it before the girls came along, and offered to do the very thing I had hoped for, they wanted to take up Scouting also.

They did not merely want to be imitators of the boys; they wanted a line of their own.

So I gave them a smart blue uniform and the names of "Guides" and my sister wrote an outline of the scheme. The name Guide appealed to the British girls because the pick of our frontier forces in India is the Corps of Guides. The term cavalry or infantry hardly describes it since it is composed of all-round handy men ready to take on any job in the campaigning line and do it well.

Then too, a woman who can be a good and helpful comrade to her brother or husband or son along the path of life is really a guide to him.

The name Guide therefore just describes the members of our sisterhood who besides being handy and ready for any kind of duty are also a jolly happy family and likely to be good, cheery comrades to their mankind.

The coming of the Great War gave the Girl Guides their opportunity, and they quickly showed the value of their training by undertaking a variety of duties which made them valuable to their country in her time of need.

My wife, Lady Baden-Powell, was elected by the members to be the Chief Guide, and under her the movement has gone ahead at an amazing pace, spreading to most foreign countries.

It is thanks to Mrs. Juliette Low, of Savannah, that the movement was successfully started in America, and though the name Girl Scouts has there been used it is all part of the same sisterhood, working to the same ends and living up to the same Laws and Promise.

If all the branches continue to work together and become better acquainted with each other as they continue to become bigger it will mean not only a grand step for the sisterhood, but what is more important it will be a real help toward making the new League of Nations a living force.

How can that be? In this way:

If the women of the different nations are to a large extent members of the same society and therefore in close touch and sympathy with each other, although belonging to different countries, they will make the League a real bond not merely between the Governments, but between the Peoples themselves and they will see to it that it means Peace and that we have no more of War.