Page:St. Nicholas, vol. 40.1 (1912-1913).djvu/794

560 love are slowly burning, these two stanzas are sung:



The practical things of the Camp-Fire Girls are as commendable as the symbolisms and ideals. They include a long list of health-giving activities pertaining to regularity of school or other work, diet, sleep, games, athletics of a wide variety of interests. The Home Craft includes marketing, washing and ironing, housekeeping, inventing methods for doing better work, of entertaining members of the family, and caring for the little folks.

Under “Nature Lore,” there are the identification and description of fifteen trees, keeping records of outings, doing work in the garden, learning the planets and seven constellations with their stories, identifying a large number of birds, keeping bird books, making notes, providing lunch-counters, etc. There are further requirements in connection with the identification of wild flowers, caring for a hive of bees for a season, learning the habits of honey-bees, and making careful study of four-footed animals.

Naturally, the Camp-Fire Girls should understand Camp Craft, and they have a long list of methods for erecting and keeping the tent, selecting a proper location, making a shelter and a bed of material found in the woods, making a bed on the ground and sleeping on it out-of-doors for five nights, doing for one day camp cooking for four or more persons without help or advice. This includes getting wood and making an open fire. One must know Weather Lore, how to follow the trail, to tie knots in strings and ropes, to do clay modeling, brasswork, silver work, dyeing, basketry, wood-carving, carpentry, textile work. The girls are also instructed in business, and thoroughly trained in patriotism, including the proper celebration of all the principal holidays; they are taught the conservation of streams, birds, trees, forests; the beautifying of front yards, and a knowledge of the history of the country.

They are to attend religious services ten times in three months, and to give brief accounts of what has been done in the world of religious work.

Patriotism is united with religion, and they are required to commit to memory Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the preamble to the Constitution, and to the Declaration of Independence, and also one hundred verses of the Bible, or stanzas of hymns or other sacred literature. So the pursuits of the Camp-Fire Girls comprise all that makes life really worth living. Long may echo the call of Wohelo to inspire thousands and thousands of girls in outdoor activities in personal improvement, and in helpfulness to others.