Page:Scouting for girls, adapted from Girl guiding.djvu/245

Rh What Need Is There for It?

1. War has shown how valuable women can be to the country and to themselves if only trained.

2. Also peace has shown how far from happy life can be for some unless they are trained. From want of proper training preventable misery exists among a very large class. This is to be seen in the squalor in our great cities, in the poverty and unhappiness, the infant mortality, the preventable diseases and social diseases due to ignorance, carelessness, and generally to want of character.

Is Not Education Good Enough?

No. Though it is very good and vastly improved of late years and probably better than that of any other nation, yet it cannot under existing conditions entirely prepare the girl for what is possible for her in the present day, much less for what will be required of her in the near future. The remedy largely needed is formation of character. Character is formed more by the environment outside the school walls than by the instruction within them; that environment may be for good and at the same time it may very easily be for bad.

Practical efficiency in homecraft or in mothercraft is essential, but efficiency is desirable in many other spheres for professions, and in the many fields in which woman has proved that she can shine.

The need of health for herself and knowledge of health for her children and for the service for others is