polite.

All Girl Scouts take particular care of our dumb friends, the animals, and are always eager to protect them from stupid neglect or hard usage. This often leads to a special interest in their ways and habits, so that a Girl Scout is likely to know more about these little brothers of the human race than an ordinary girl.

This means that you should obey those to whom obedience is due, through thick and thin. If this were not an unbreakable rule, no army could endure for a day. It makes no difference whether you are cleverer, or older, or larger, or richer than the person who may be elected or appointed for the moment to give you orders; once they are given, it is your duty to obey them. And the curious thing about it is that the quicker and better you obey these orders, the more quickly and certainly you will show yourself fitted to give them when your time comes. The girl or woman who cannot obey can never govern. The reason you obey the orders of your Patrol Leader, for instance, in Scout Drill, is not that she is better than you, but because she happens to be your Patrol Leader, and gives her orders as she would obey yours were you in her place.

A small well trained army can always conquer and rule a big, undisciplined mob, and the reason for this is simply because the army has been taught to obey and to act in units, while the mob is only a crowd of separate persons, each doing as he thinks best. The soldier obeys by instinct, in a great crisis, only because he has had long practice in obeying when it was a question of unimportant matters. So the army makes a great point of having everything ordered in military drill, carried out with snap and accuracy; and the habit of this, once fixed, may save thousands of lives when the great crisis comes, and turn defeat into victory.

A good Scout must obey instantly, just as a good soldier must obey his officer, or a good citizen must obey the law, with no question and no grumbling. If she considers any order unjust or unreasonable, let her make complaint through the proper channels, and she may be sure that if she goes about it properly she will receive attention. But she must remember to obey first and complain afterward.

This means that no matter how courteous or obedient or helpful you try to be, if you are sad or depressed about it nobody will thank you very much for your effort. A laughing face is usually a loved face, and nobody likes to work with a gloomy person. Cheerful music, cheerful plays and cheerful books have always been the world's favorites; and a jolly, good-natured girl will find more friends and more openings in the world than a sulky beauty or a gloomy genius.

It has been scientifically proved that if you deliberately make your voice and face cheerful and bright you immediately begin to feel that way; and as cheerfulness is one of the most certain signs of good health, a Scout who appears cheerful is far more likely to keep well than one who lets herself get "down in the mouth." There is so much real, unavoidable suffering and sorrow in the world that nobody has any right to add to them unnecessarily, and "as cheerful as a Girl Scout" ought to become a proverb.

This means that a Girl Scout is a girl who is wise enough to know the value of things and to put them to the best use. The most valuable thing we have in this life is time, and girls are apt to be stupid about getting the most out of it. A Girl Scout may be known by the fact that she is either working, playing or resting. All are necessary and one is just as important as the other.

Health is probably a woman's greatest capital, and a Girl Scout looks after it and saves it, and doesn't waste it by poor diet and lack of exercise and fresh air, so that she goes bankrupt before she is thirty.

Money is a very useful thing to have, and the Girl Scout decides how much she can afford to save and does it, so as to have it in an emergency. A girl who saves more than she spends may be niggardly; a girl who spends more than she saves may go in debt. A Girl Scout saves, as she spends, on some system.

Did you ever stop to think that no matter how much money a man may earn, the women of the family generally have the spending of most of it? And if they have not learned to manage their own money sensibly, how can they expect to manage other people's? If every Girl Scout in America realized that she might make all the difference, some day, between a bankrupt family and a family with a comfortable margin laid aside for a rainy day, she would give a great deal of attention to this Scout law.

In every great war all nations have been accustomed to pay the costs of the war from loans; that is, money raised by the savings of the people. Vast sums were raised in our own country during the great war by such small units as Thrift Stamps. If the Girl Scouts could save such wonderful sums as we know they did in war, why can they not keep this up in peace? For one is as much to their Country's credit as the other.

SALUTING THE FLAG IN A GIRL SCOUT CAMP

This means that just as she stands for a clean, healthy community and a clean, healthy home, so every Girl Scout knows the deep and vital need for clean and healthy bodies in the mothers of the next generation. This not only means keeping her skin fresh and sweet and her system free from every impurity, but it goes far deeper than this, and requires every Girl Scout to respect her body and mind so much that she forces everyone else to respect them and keep them free from the slightest familiarity or doubtful stain.

A good housekeeper cannot endure dust and dirt; a well cared for body cannot endure grime or soil; a pure mind cannot endure doubtful thoughts that cannot be freely aired and ventilated. It is a pretty safe rule for a Girl Scout not to read things nor discuss things nor do things that could not be read nor discussed nor done by a Patrol all together. If you will think about this, you will see that it does not cut out anything that is really necessary, interesting or amusing. Nor does it mean that Scouts should never do anything except in Patrols; that would be ridiculous. But if they find they could not do so, they had better ask themselves why. When there is any doubt about this higher kind of cleanliness Captains and Councillors may always be asked for advice and explanation.

SECTION III

ORGANIZATION OF THE GIRL SCOUTS

Lone Scout

The basis of the Girl Scout organization is the individual girl. Any one girl anywhere who wishes to enroll under our simple pledge of loyalty to God and Country, helpfulness to other people and obedience to the Scout Laws, and is unable to attach herself to any local group, is privileged to become a Lone Scout. The National Organization will do its best for her and she is eligible for all Merit Badges which do not depend upon group work.

Patrol

But the ideal unit and the keystone of the organization is the Patrol, consisting of eight girls who would naturally be associated as friends,