Girl Scouts

Near Ossining, N. Y, there was opened last week Camp Edith Macy, given to the Girl Scouts of America as a training camp tor their leaders. For the opening there came together Girl Scouts and Girl Guides from 39 nations. There were Mrs. Jane Deeter Rippin, the National Director; Lady Baden-Powell (wife of Sir Robert who founded the Scout movement in England), who is the international leader; Mrs. Juliette Low, who introduced the Girl Guide movement in America (but American girls insisted on being called Scouts like their brothers; so their name differs from the name of affiliated groups in England) ; Mrs. Herbert Hoover, the U. S. chairman of the Executive Board; some 400 American Scout leaders, some 50 foreign leaders.

These leaders represent a great movement, for there are now 370,860 Girl Guides in England, 70,410 Girl Guides in the remainder of the Commonwealth, 115,926 Girl Scouts in the U. S. and 56,013 in other countries. They assembled in the lodge on Camp Macy -- a great rough-stone building. Mrs. Rippin, natty and good-looking, unveiled a bronze bust of Edith Macy (wife of Valentine Everit Macy, Manhattan philanthropist, who gave the camp) and explained the necessity for such a camp :

"The average growth in the number of girls enrolled in this country has been 19 to 20% a year. This number cannot be absorbed because leaders cannot be found to take care of them.

"Moreover our camps are too large. They resemble nothing more than orphan asylums transplanted to the woods. . . . The best camp we have is far in the woods of Minnesota, where the girls have a canoe portage of several miles to the nearest village, and where they often meet bears on the trail.

"We have the problem not only of helping growing girls, but of bringing to maturity a generation of women who shall not be nervous wrecks."

Around the camp lodge are several log cook-houses, where some of the American delegates made gingerbread for scout leaders from Poland and Latvia. All over the 281-acre camp tents were pitched where the leaders slept, even on a wet rainy night which fell during the conference. One of the youngest leaders, a 19-year-old girl from Latvia, was afraid and wanted to be locked in one of the cabins for the night so as to be safe from Indians. Mrs. Wynaendts-Francken of Holland, relative of Edward Bok, went about in the mud wearing sabots. A young lady from Egypt started on a hike in a pair of patent leather slippers.

A World Council Fire was lit. There was a parade of the 39 nations carrying flags--but there were only 38 flags; Fraulein Katharina Hertwig, the only German delegate present, declared she was a Nationalist and refused to carry the flag of the German Republic, the "Socialist flag" which had been provided.

And problems were discussed. For example, in Costa Rica and in Portugal, Girl Scouts cannot camp out -- in the one case because of snakes, in the other because tradition forbids girls to sleep away from home.

There was divertissement too. Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr. gave the leaders tea and Mrs. Walter Rothschild (daughter of Felix Warburg) gave them dinner. In addition there was a great review of 1,500 Girl Scouts of Westchester County, who paraded and cooked their dinners -- frankfurters, lamb chops, eggs, potatoes, tea and bread -- under observation.

Then a scout contest was held for "stunts." First prize was given to a skit, Mr. Everyman Gets a Wife in 1936 (Everyman picked a Girl Scout because she could cook). Second prize went to a troop that built a log cabin, a foot bridge and a campfire in three minutes. A troop of young Negresses was honored for portraying a Girl Scout giving her seat to an old man in a street car, another troop for showing Girl Scouts rescuing flappers lost in the woods, a third troop for depicting "the wreck of the 20th Century."