table.

This growth is due to a spontaneous demand of community after community
for scouting for girls, and not to deliberate propaganda on the part of
the national headquarters. The reasons for it are therefore to be sought
in the activities and methods themselves, which make such widespread
appeal.

ACTIVITIES.

A glance through the handbook, Scouting for Girls, will show that the
activities of the girl scouts center about the three interests--Home,
Health, and Citizenship.

_Home._--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 home-keeper.

_Growth of Girl Scout membership, Jan. 1, 1918, to Jan. 1, 1921--Active
registrations._

January 1. Officers. Increase. Scouts. Increase. Total. Increase.

1918 1,314 ...... 8,455 ...... 9,769 ......
1919 3,823 2,509 36,847 28,392 40,670 30,901
1920 5,357 1,534 61,754 24,907 67,111 26,441
1921 6,839 1,482 83,025 21,271 89,864 22,753

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,
"the 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."

While the place of most production is to-day outside the home, much of
the final preparation of goods, particularly food and clothing, is still
done there. So that, while the homecrafts are far from being the vital
necessities they once were, they are still needed.

Handicrafts of many sorts enter into the program of the girl scouts. In
camping, girls must know how to set up tents, build