The Daily News. MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1912. THE GIRL SCOUTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 185, 23 December 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1912. THE GIRL SCOUTS.

There has been a good deal of general controversy with regard to the Girl Scout movement, and there have not been wanting people who have condemned it with no uncertain voice. Mrs. Grundy has a horrid habit of looking down her nose whenever our girls glance even, sideways, and if they dare to say anything but "prunes and prisms" their characters are gone at once. The latest person to attack the Girl Scouts is Archbishop Carr, who, according to a cablegram from Sydney, speaking at a confirmation service, expressed a hope that no parents would so far forget their duty as to allow their daughters to become Girl Scouts. He went on to explain that there were grave moral and physical dangers inseparable from the girls camping out. It is just possible that his Lordship had the Scout movement in his mind when he made these remarks, but it seems more likely that he was thinking of the "Girl Guides of Australia," an entirely different organisation which has lately attracted some attention in the Commonwealth. The Girl Scouts as they are; known in New Zealand are not required to be "far distant from parental control," and they are not given to "camping out" under such conditions as the good Archbishop implied. Their training, which includes instruction in a number of useful domestic accomplishments, simple ambulance work and rather extensive "nature study" of an eminently practical kind, is conducted by thoroughly reliable "scoutmistresses," who take good care that their charges have no opportunity to get into mischief. The whole purpose of the training is to make the girls courteous,, observant and self-reliant, and to equip them with a stock of general information which will prove useful to them in after life. We shall be having a camp of the local Girl Scouts at Moturoa very shortly, and it would be well if any of those who have doubts as to the excellence of these summer outings would pay a visit to the camp and satisfy themselves as to the legitimacy and usefulness of such organisations. There is nothing better in the wide, wide world for our girls than the open-air training and experience that are to be gained by a participation, under proper supervision, in the Girl Scout movement. The fact that many of our most experienced social workers are taking a keen interest in the movement ought to free it from the reproach of opening the way to improprieties. Girls require the stimulus of an open-air life from time to time just as much as the boys, and they will make none the less better mothers for a hearty physical cultivation under God's blue *ky.