To a group of jolly girls in Savannah, Georgia, goes the honor of starting the movement which grew into the Girl Scouts of America. It came about in this manner:

Their brothers and boy friends were members of the Boy Scouts, and the girls looked upon their good times with considerable envy. How long would they stand idly by and watch the boys march away upon their weekly hikes? Not long, that was too much for a group of wide-awake girls to endure.

"Why not organize a troop and go on hikes ourselves?" The question was no sooner asked than answered with shouts of approval by all of the girls. And forthwith the first club of Girl Scouts was launched.

In a little while other troops were organized, and in June, 1915, the national organization was chartered.

Here is the pledge which every girl scout takes, and the laws which she promises to obey:

THE PLEDGE

On my honor, I will try:

To do my duty to God and to my Country.
To help other people at all times.
To obey the Scout Law.

SCOUT LAWS

1. A Girl Scout's Honor is to be Trusted.
2. A Girl Scout is Loyal.

3. A Girl Scout's Duty is to be Useful and to
Help Others.

4. A Girl Scout is a Friend to all, and a Sister to every other Girl Scout.

5. A Girl Scout is Courteous.

6. A Girl Scout is a Friend to Animals.

7. A Girl Scout Obeys Orders.

8. A Girl Scout is Cheerful.

9. A Girl Scout is Thrifty.

10. A Girl Scout is Clean in Thought, Word, and Deed.

The four corner stones of the Girl Scout activities are headwork, handwork, health, and helpfulness.

For headwork she must first of all know the Scout promise and laws, the Girl Scout motto, "Be prepared," and the Girl Scout slogan, "Do a good turn daily." She should also know by heart the first and last verses of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the full name of the President of the United States, the governor of her state, and the head of her city or

town government, all this before she is formally accepted as a tenderfoot scout.

For handwork she must be able to tie four sailor knots in approved fashion-the reef, bowline, clove hitch, and sheepshank-before she may be a tenderfoot. The requirement in health is knowledge of the simple setting-up exercise and tenderfoot drill. And for helpfulness she promises to try to do a good turn daily to her troop, her school, her home, or her community.

No girl may wear the Girl Scout pin, insignia, or uniform until she has met these tenderfoot requirements, and has been formally accepted as a tenderfoot scout.

There are three classes of scouts: tenderfoot scouts who must be at least ten years old; secondclass scouts; and first-class scouts who cannot be over eighteen years of age.

"To promote the virtues of womanhood by training girls to recognize their obligations to God and country, to prepare for duties devolving upon women in the home, in society, and in the state, and to guide them in ways conducive to personal honor and the public good." This is the declared purpose of the Girl Scout organization. This means, to talk in simpler terms, that the girl who joins the Girl Scouts finds in this organization the incentive to prepare herself to be a citizen of the United States, and to be a vital force in her own community. -Frances J. Jones.

A BOY'S CLOCK

Every state has one or more distinguished sons. See if you think "distinguished" is the right word to use in this case.

"Right this way, ladies and gentlemen, to see the most interesting invention on the fair grounds! See the big, wooden clock, made by a boy in the backwoods of Wisconsin, with only a hammer and a jackknife for his tools. Without doubt, this is the most wonderful clock in the whole world, and what makes it seem all the more wonderful is the fact that the maker of this marvelous piece of machinery had never seen the inside of a clock, or a watch, before he made his first model; had never been inside of a machine.shop of any kind to study the working of machinery; and whose first sight of a locomotive was the train that brought him to this fair. And yet this boy has produced a clock that will tell accurately the time of day, the day of the week, and the day of the month; will light the lamp in the morning and start the fire while he slumbers in peace; and finally, at the appointed hour, will roll him out of bed in time for breakfast without any assistance from his father. These are just a few of the many acts this remarkable clock can do. It will perform almost anything he wishes, except to eat; he prefers to do that act himself."

The speaker was one of the officials of the fair, and the clock he described was made and exhibited at the Wisconsin State Fair in 1870 by a boy named John Muir. Both the clock and its inventor in after years attained wide fame, and to-day his name is known and loved wherever people love to read books on science and nature.

John Muir was a Scotch lad who came to America in 1849 when he was eleven years old. The place selected by the father for their new home was in a Scotch settlement in southern Wisconsin. The region was one of dense forests, and the new home had to be literally "chopped out of the woods.' "Oh, that glorious Wisconsin wilderness! Everything new and pure in the very prime of the spring when Nature's pulses were beating highest and mysteriously keeping time with our own! Young hearts, young leaves, flowers, animals, the winds and the streams and the sparkling lake, all wildly, gladly rejoicing together!"

The first house was a log house, and the first crops were planted among the stumps of newly cleared land. In this almost endless work of chopping down trees, sawing out logs, piling up brush, grubbing out stumps, and burning the huge piles of brush and dead timber, John did a man's part. From sunrise till dark the work went on, day after day and year after year. There was no time for play and no time for school, not even in winter. The work had to be done, and John's father saw