The book of the Camp fire girls

Front matter

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Foreword

Girls, this book is yours. It has been planned and written for you just as the Handbook for Guardians of Camp Fire Girls was planned and written for leaders.

In this book we have hoped to show you that there is some¬ thing in Camp Fire for all kinds of girls no matter how dif¬ ferently they live, dress, think, or talk. We have aimed also to communicate some of the enthusiasm that comes from doing things together as a group as well as the pleasure to be had from being yourselves and your best selves and of doing things well when you are working alone.

If this book should make some of you want to experience the joy of living with Camp Fire ideals and of following the Camp Fire program, and if it should help others of you to find the activities you most want and need in order to be happier and healthier; if it should open new vistas or give you glimpses of new peaks, on the horizon or help you to lift your standards even a little higher, then the trees that were cut down to make this paper will not have been cut in vain.

The Camp Fire Girls.

A Camp Fire Girl holds her standard high

Chapter 1 The Idea Of Camp Fire

What is this thing that we call Camp Fire ? What is there about these girls that we call Camp Fire Girls that makes them different from other girls?

For Camp Fire Girls are different from other girls; there is a spring to their step, a lift to their heads, a light in their eyes that communicates a purpose and a joy in living that cannot be found in all girls. Camp Fire helps girls recapture part of the forgotten magic of the world.

In this book we are going to tell you som^ of the things Camp Fire Girls do and are, tell you of their program, their honors, and their ranks, their council fire meetings and all the rest; but the secret of the magic we leave you to discover for your¬ selves.

Camp Fire will give you friends just as it will test your powers of friendship; Camp Fire will give you fun, glorious fun out of doors in all kinds-of weather and indoors in your homes and at all kinds of parties. Camp Fire will open doors for you and point out new vistas; Camp Fire will give you hills, purple hills far off for dreaming and green and gold hills close by for climbing. And lastly Camp Fire will give you the strength for the climbing.

Here are the keys to the rooms of the castle, the maps and the charts for the adventure and the quest. There is an abund¬ ance of beauty in the world, and it is you who must and will find it, and finding it, will preserve it for your children and theb children.

The Camp Fire Ideals

As you read through these pages, you will see the good times in store for you as a Camp Fire Girl. But there is more to the idea of Camp Fire than good times.

We have hinted that there is magic; and what is true of all the world is true of Camp Fire, a part of its white magic is its ideals. And Camp Fire ideals are real ideals, and true and simple ones, but they are high as high and as deep as deep.

First is the law: Seek Beauty, Give Service, Pursue Knowl¬ edge, Be Trustworthy, Hold on to Health, Glorify Work, Be Happy.

It gives us the recipe for a happy and serviceable life, doesn’t it?

From the law we have taken our slogan, “Give Service.” Everywhere Camp Fire Girls are carrying their banners of service high. (See Chapter XIV.)

Second is the watchword, “Wohelo,” a word made from the first two letters of the words “work,” “health” and “love.” They furnish a program for living.

Third, the “Desires” of the three ranks (see pages 66, 69, 72) : They express a real philosophy and religion; the comradeship of friends, the love of man for God, and the desire to share with others the good and the beautiful^ things of the world.

These are the ideals of Camp Fire. When you express your determination and desire to follow where they lead you, the magic begins; a lamp of Aladdin is in your hands, and a wide and glorious world of love and beauty and health and happiness is yours.

The Beginnings

Way back in 1911, several persons who were interested in girls, saw the need of an organization that did for girls what the organization of Boy Scouts was doing for boys. These peo¬ ple spent many hours formulating the principles and philosophy of Camp Fire. When we think of the beginnings of Camp Fire, then, we must think of this corps of educators, busy men and women, who did the first planning and formulating of the Camp Fire Idea. They were:

Miss Lina Beard, Dr. Anna L. Brown, Mrs. Charles H. Farnsworth, Mrs. Charlotte V. Gulick, Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick, Mr. W. C. Langdon, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson Seton, Mrs. Justus Traut, Mr. James West, Dr. Mary Shenck Woolman.

The System of Honors all began by a very wise man and a very wise woman taking their family of three girls and one small boy up into the Maine woods for their summers. The

The Idea of Camp Fire

children learned to swim, to dive, to paddle a canoe, to cook over an open fire, to love the four-footed and winged people of the woods and to know their habits, and best of all to be happy out of doors.

At a camp in the woods, just as in most of our homes, there are certain things which have to be done in order that the family life may go on. There are meals to be cooked, beds to be made, wood to be cut, water to be fetched, and numerous other little and even greater tasks. Camping is not any fun if one person does all the chores and the others do nothing but camp. But as you all know, even the chores of camp become irksome just as soon as the novelty of doing them wears off. But these very wise parents. Dr. and Mrs. Luther Halsey Gulick, found a way to keep their children’s interest in the work that had to be done. By awarding small honors for each task which was well done, they made popular the pleasure of accomplishment.

From these beginnings the great organization of the Camp Fire Girls grew. What had proved to bring so much happiness and benefit to the girls of this family, was enlarged and ex¬ tended so that it might do even greater things for all girls. And now they are giving it to you. It is your inheritance from the good men ^nd women who long ago did their work for you.

The Girl and Her Group as Parts of Something Bigger

Do you realize that there are hundreds of thousands of Camp Fire Girls and thousands of Guardians? In twenty-two dif¬ ferent countries throughout the world, there are Camp Fire Girls carrying out the program. The idea of Camp Fire can’t be limited to one type of girl in one country because girls all over want what Camp Fire has to give. ^

The germ of Camp Fire is international and if you rightly understand it, you pass it on in that way. You give each new girl who joins it an impression of it that merely begins wiih herself—an impression that does not end until it has taken in the whole world of girls.

How can you explain it in any other way? The ideals of work, health, and love begin with you but they are not com¬ plete if they stop with you, your group, your community, your state, your nation, or even your continent. They must be made possible for all girl everywhere.

So Camp Fire is bigger than Camp Fire in your community and in your state. It is international because its program holds what girls everywhere want. And each girl in your group and each group in your community are a part of this something which makes of the something bigger an international organi¬ zation.

How are you going to make the new girl in your group real¬ ize that just as work and fitness for camp and consideration for one’s parents are important to you, they are important to her and to every other girl? Remember that though your group technically stops with maybe six or twenty girls, in the wider sense it includes every girl in the world. You learn this as you go through the Camp Fire program.

Camp Fire nvill bring you the good and happy things of life

Chapter II How To Become A Camp Fire Girl

The Group

The first thing that girls who are interested in Camp Fire want to know is how they can become members of the Organi¬ zation. You see friends and acquaintances of yours with their ceremonial gowns and their honor beads, their Camp Fire rings and pins and you wonder what it is all about.

Becoming a Camp Fire Girl is a very simple process. If you are interested in it and determined to have a group, you need only get five friends and a leader to start with. You and your friends must be at least eleven years old. Most Camp Fire Girls are from eleven to twenty years old but there is no age limit after you are eleven. There are, of course, dues of $1.00 a year for every girl, but if you really want a Camp Fire, the dues will not keep you from getting it, for most Camp Fire Girls earn the money to pay their dues.

Camp Fire Groups are often organized in schools or churches, settlements, or recreation centers. You may be a member of a Sunday school class or a grade school class or of a club that wishes to carry on the Camp Fire program. This makes form¬ ing a group very simple because you have your girls banded together in the first place.

The Guardian or Leader of the Group

The older girl or woman whom you ask to be your Guardian must be at least eighteen years of age. Sometimes girls have difficulty in finding a leader, but it would be too bad for you and five of your friends to want a Camp Fire and not be able

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Alon^ the road that leads the way; our hearts are light, our courage high

Getting Started 15

to have one for this reason. Surely there is a mother, an older sister, or a teacher you know who particularly likes and under¬ stands the things that you want to do. Why not ask her to be your Guardian? Or if there is already a Camp Fire in your community, ask the Guardian to lead yours and get one of her older girls to act as her helper or assistant.

Supposing that you ask your mother to be the leader of your group because you have such good times with her. She may say to you that she is too busy with things at home to do it. Tell her that she can have an assistant who will relieve her of some of the actual duties and work with her in carrying out your plans. Then find another person to work with her and share the responsibility. Don’t let her refuse because she is too busy if all the girls want her and she is interested in the work.

First she or one of you must write to the National Head¬ quarters of the Camp Fire Girls, 31 East 17th Street, New York City, for an application blank. As soon as her applica¬ tion for Guardianship is in, she will learn about the various duties. Tell her that there is a book {The Handbook for Guardians, $1.00, Camp Fire Outfitting Company, 197 Greene Street, New York City) written especially to make her work easier for her. She will also receive a copy of The Guardian and EverygkVs Magazine each month. A great deal of printed material will be sent her which will help your group to get started.

If your grade school class, for example, is interested in Camp Fire, you may have to divide it up into several groups. No Camp Fire group can contain more than twenty members. As soon as it has overgrown its quota of twenty, a new group must be formed. But it is all the more interesting to have several groups working side by side competing to turn out the best handcraft work, the finest results in camping, the earning of money, and even better, working together to give service and to do well other parts of the Camp Fire program.

Dues

Every time you join anything nowadays you expect to pay dues. Camp Fire is like all other organizations in this respect.

The dues of a dollar a year for every girl are reckoned not from the time you yourself become a member but from the time the dues from your group are sent in.

It is important that you pay promptly so that you do not hold back the dues of your group and they can be sent in on time. If you are tardy or your group is late in paying, it is dropped from the active list at Headquarters and you do not receive the material you are entitled to have for your Camp Fire. To be Camp Fire Girls of a group not in good standing (dues not paid) is like stealing a ride on the railroad train, taking the seat of someone who has bought a ticket.

When new members come into your group after the group dues have been sent in, they must pay their dues just the same before they can be recorded as members. The only exception to this is girls who join within six months of the date when the group dues are next due. In this case they pay half-yearly dues or fifty cents a girl. Your secretary, in the Guardian’s name, must send National Headquarters the name, age, and dues of the new member immediately.

If girls drop out after the group dues have been paid, new girls who come in may take advantage of the unexpired dues. Additional dues are necessary only when you have more mem¬ bers in your group than dues have been paid for. So you see the girls in your Camp Fire can change and if the number does not increase, no more dues are necessary. National Head¬ quarters must always be notified of these changes so that the records can be kept accurate.

Absent Members

Supposing you should go away to school or move to another town but still want to remain a member of your Camp Fire Group. You may continue your membership by paying your dues. Submit your requirements for honors and ranks to your Guardian. As an absent member you will not count in the twenty who are entitled to membership in your group but you will be an active member.

Getting Started

Transferred Members

If you wish to transfer your membership from the Camp Fire you first belonged to to one in another town to which you are moving, you will receive full credit for all the ranks and honors you won which are properly recorded. Your old Guardian should send your record to the new Guardian. The matter of your dues when you transfer your membership must be settled through your new Guardian with Headquarters.

Supplies

There are certain things which all Camp Fire Girls are interested in owning. The ring, for example, is the insignia for membership. It costs fifty cents and you are entitled to it after your dues have been paid. The blue enameled threecornered pin also tells people that you are a member of a Camp Fire group. Some girls prefer to Wear the pin rather than the ring. Many girls wear both.

The ceremonial gown is a very distinctive part of Camp Fire and is worn at all Council Fires or ceremonial meetings. Its decoration tells the record of your achievements and the ranks which you have won. Planning its decoration and its improvement is a process which ought never to stop with any Camp Fire Girl. More is told about the gown in Chapter V.

The ceremonial gown need not be bought at once. It is the insignia for the rank of Wood Gatherer and need not be bought until the girl is ready to take that rank if she so wishes.

When she buys the ring, a credit slip is sent from the Camp Fire Outfitting Company which should be kept until the gown is ordered. This is a credit slip for fifty cents on the gown and therefore reduces the price of the gown fifty cents. Many groups work as a group to earn the money for their gowns, as well as for their dues.

These special supplies and others you can order from the Camp Fire Outfitting Company, 197 Greene Street, New York City. If you examine the catalogue which they will send you upon request, you will find that there are many other special kinds of Camp Fire equipment which you can purchase from them. Other supplies, like camp or craft equipment, you can secure very reasonably by patronizing the advertisers in EverygirVs Magazine,

Meetings

Your Camp Fire group holds weekly meetings. There is no set program which you are obliged to follow. The meetings vary to fit the activities of the group. Hikes and outdoor meetings are possible in some communities all year round, in others only during certain seasons.

Council Fires or Ceremonial Meetings are held at least once every two months except at camp. Here it is well to hold them weekly because there are special honors to be awarded and ranks to be conferred.

You can never exhaust the possibilities for making your meetings interesting. Outdoors or indoors, no two should be alike. All can represent some phase of your Camp Fire pro¬ gram that you take up as a group, and draw together the experience you have as individual Camp Fire Girls working out your honors in the seven crafts. Talk over with your Guardian your program for the year. With her you can plan your activities.

Where to Hold Meetings

Sometimes girls think they can not become Camp Fire Girls because they would have no place to hold their meetings. Many groups hold them in the girls’ homes, taking turns. Others hold them in church parlors, in school rooms, or some even in a barn or garage.

If you have no place available, go to the school superinten¬ dent or the Mayor and tell him about Camp Fire. Ask him to let you use a room in one of the city buildings. Oftentimes the Chambers of Commerce lend the girls a room for their meetings and parties. Never think anything is impossible. If you have determination, you can have Camp Fire at its best.