s and bookkeepers in their
husbands' business. In America the test of a good husband is that he
brings home his pay envelope unopened, a tacit recognition that the
mother controls spending. The Girl Scouts encourage thrifty habits and
learning economy of buying in all of its activities. One of the ten
Scout Laws is that "A Girl Scout is Thrifty."

IV. _Woman, the citizen._ The basic organization of the Girl Scouts
into the self-governing unit of a Patrol is in itself an excellent
means of political training. Patrols and Troops conduct their own
meetings and the Scouts learn the elements of parliamentary law.
Working together in groups they realize the necessity for democratic
decisions. They also come to have community interests of an impersonal
sort. This is perhaps the greatest single contribution of the Scouts
toward the training of girls for citizenship. Little boys play
together and not only play together, but with men and boys of all
ages. The interest of baseball is not confined to any one age. The
rules of the game are the same for all, and the smallest boy's
judgment on the skill of the players may be as valid as that of the
oldest fan. Girls have had in the past no such common interests. Their
games have been either solitary or in very small groups in activities
largely of a personal character. If women are to be effective in
modern political society, they must have from very earliest youth
gregarious interests and occupations.

V. _Woman, the human being._ Political economy was for a long time
known as the "dead science" and was quite ineffective socially. This
was largely because it attempted to split man, the human being, into
theoretical units such as "the producer," or "the consumer." In the
same way many organizations for women have died because they have not
remembered that woman is first of all a human being. Thus nearly all
institutions for women, even those supposedly purely educational in
character, have existed to shelter her from the world, or to segregate
her, or have been designed to make her into a good servant or to
"finish" her for society. The activities of the Girl Scouts have been
selected on quite a different plan. They have not been designed for
women as women, but for women as human beings. Real work may be
followed with a great deal of enjoyment provided it is creative and
awakens the instinct of workmanship. But it is when at play that a
human being realizes his own nature the m