f the girls
as the 60,000 registered Scouts and the 5,000 new applicants each
month testify.

Activities

The activities of the Girl Scouts may be grouped under five headings
corresponding to five phases of women's life today:

I. The Home-maker.
II. The Producer.
III. The Consumer.
IV. The Citizen.
V. The Human Being.

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. 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. This
is effected partly by having much of the actual training done in
groups. Another element is the public recognition, and rewarding of
skill in this, woman's most elementary service to the world, usually
taken for granted and ignored.

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; altogether past comprehension its power of
endurance."

II. _Woman, the producer._ 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. There are very few purchases, even for men's own
use, which women do not have a hand in selecting. Practically the
entire burden of household buying in all departments falls on the
woman. In France this has long been recognized and the women of the
middle classes are the buying partner