The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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WASHINGTON, Thursday—I attended the Girl Scout luncheon yesterday and enjoyed very much seeing the youngsters sit on the stage in the big dining room, around a make-believe campfire, and hearing them sing some of their camp songs. At the end, they played taps, as they do every evening in their encampment.

Since I knew of Lord Baden-Powell's death, I thought it was appropriate that we should close a meeting of the Girl Scouts in this manner. They are so closely allied in their aims and in their programs with the Boy Scouts, that on this day when the leader of the Boy Scouts throughout the world, had passed away, playing taps seemed a fitting gesture of respect and sympathy.

It seems to me that the Girl Scouts have a great opportunity for beginning their education in citizenship at an age when young people are most impressionable and are setting their standards of values for the future.

On my return to the White House, I was happy to meet with a group from the Department of Agriculture, headed by Dr. Gertrude Warren of the Federal Extension Service. She brought two young 4-H Club people who have won scholarships to spend the winter in Washington, and several other people who work in the Department on 4-H Club programs.

I was impressed by their seven point defense program. It is important, I think, for us all to realize that we cannot all be doing spectacular emergency work and that for many of us, our best defense work is to do the jobs that we have been doing better than we have ever done them before. The health program carried on by the 4-H Clubs interests me particularly, and I think can be developed to meet any of the needs which are uncovered by the Army and Navy doctors in their examinations of our boys.

At 4:00 o'clock we had a musicale which I enjoyed very much. A young violinist, Miss Viola Wasterlain, played delightfully and a group of dancers from the Arthur Murray Studios demonstrated to us that old and new dances are equally charming, if you know how to dance them well!

I spent only a few minutes at tea after the musicale and then went upstairs and talked for a little while with Lady Abingdon, who is succeeding in raising money here to help Great Britain care for the refugees from every invaded country who are even now arriving daily on that small island.

Mr. and Mrs. Archibald MacLeish and Mr. Adrian Dornbush joined us for dinner. When the President went to work, we attended the National Symphony Orchestra concert, which gave us all a most delightful program with Igor Stravinsky as guest conductor.

This morning I attended the opening session of the public speaking class conducted by Mrs. Hugh Butler for some of the Congressional ladies. I then spent a little over an hour at the first meeting which I have attended since being elected to the board of the Southern Education Foundation.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 10, 1941

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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