24 
SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
those things then, and without a brisk, clever woman, full 
of what the New Englanders called “faculty,” her fam- 
ily would have been a very unhappy one. With all our 
modern inventions nobody has yet invented a substitute 
for a good, all-round woman, in a family, and until some- 
body can invent one, we must continue to take off our 
hats to girls like Louisa Alcott. Imagine what her feel- 
ings would have been if someone had told her that she 
had earned half a dozen merit badges by her knowledge 
of home economics and her clever writing! 
And let every Scout who finds housework dull, and 
feels that she is capable of bigger things, remember this : 
the woman whose books for girls are more widely known 
than any such books ever written in America, had to 
drop the pen, often and often, for the needle, the dish- 
cloth and the broom. 
To direct her household has always been a woman’s job 
in every century, and girls were learning to do it before 
Columbus ever discovered Sacajawea’s great country. To 
be sure, they had no such jolly way of working at it to- 
gether, as the Scouts have, nor did they have the oppor- 
portunity the girl of today has to learn all about these 
things in a scientific, business-like way, in order to get it 
all done with the quickest, most efficient methods, just as 
any clever business man manages his business. 
We no longer believe that housekeeping should take up 
all a woman’s time ; and many an older woman envies the 
little badges on a Scout’s sleeve that show the world she 
has learned how to manage her cleaning and cooking and 
household routine so that she has plenty of time to spend 
on other things that interest her. 
THE PIONEER 
But there was a time in the history of our country when 
men and women went out into the wilderness with no 
