Sarah Louise Arnold was elected Girl Scout national president in 1925, making her president at the dedication of the Edith Macy Training School the following year.
Like Edith Macy, Sarah was active in the suffrage movement and a forceful advocate of citizenship education. She established a highly regarded program for training Girl Scout staff and adult volunteers.
She’s easy to spot in photographs. She’s usually the shortest person in the VIP section, and even when in uniform, she prefers a distinctive, non-regulation style of hat.
Background
Born in 1859, Sarah was the eleventh in a family of 15 children. She never married, and had no children of her own. She was a voracious book-worm, could read Latin at the age of 11, and graduated from high school when she was only 13. Sarah earned her teaching credentials from the Bridgewater Normal School and began teaching in Minnesota and, later, Massachusetts. She would teach for a year, and impress local officials so much that they would ask her to become superintendent, which she’d reluctantly accept—only if could she could still teach, too.
Sarah always described herself simply as an educator. Recalling, “I have taught in every grade of school from kindergarten through the college; and in several states.”
She wrote books on language arts, spelling, and reading, including Reading and How to Teach It, Stepping Stones to Literature, and The Mastery of Words. In 1902 she became Dean of the School of Household Economics at Simmons College in Boston. From then on, she was always addressed as “Dean Arnold.”
Dean Arnold joined the Girl Scout National Board in 1920, considering volunteer service
a vital fact of the education of America …. I believe that the work of the volunteer is absolutely essential to the progress of democracy.
She reviewed the existing Girl Scout program content and traveled to Cambridge, England, in 1921 to attend the first conference on the Brownie program and approved bringing it to the United States.
Training on Campus
As chair of the National Education Committee, Dean Arnold was instrumental in establishing early Girl Scout training programs at universities. In 1922, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller fund awarded the Girl Scouts the first of many grants to train a group of young women who would teach Girl Scout Leadership Training Courses at colleges as universities—usually for college credit. Fifty-five programs launched in 1923.
The program was extremely popular and quickly spread across the United States.
Between 1923 and 1929, nearly 10,000 young women had taken courses at 116 universities, colleges, and technical schools, located in 39 states and territories.
Losing Income to Serve Girl Scouting
Unlike other national board members at the time, Dean Arnold was not a wealthy woman. She had retired from teaching and spent her time writing and giving frequent lectures across the country. As Girl Scout President is an unpaid job, she feared its time commitments would cut into her income. Lou Henry Hoover, then outgoing national president, sought to make up the gap, discretely securing $3,500 from a variety of Dean Arnold’s non-Girl Scout friends. Hoover also came up with two other creative funding strategies.
Officials Buy Arnold’s Farms
First, in 1928, Helen Storrow—Our Chalet’s Helen Storrow—purchased Clover Ridge farm from Dean Arnold. At the same time, Lou Henry Hoover purchased the adjoining High Haven farm, also from Dean Arnold. Located in New Hampshire, the farms spanned a combined 300 acres.
Leader magazine reports that Hoover and Storrow subsequently presented the land to “the Girl Scout leaders of New England to be used by them as a recreation and training camp.” However, other records suggest that only Storrow’s purchase went to the Girl Scouts. I am curious to learn more about the Hoover transaction. Was the land deeded elsewhere or was this an indirect cash payment?
The Way of Understanding
Second, on Dean Arnold’s 75th birthday in 1934, the Girl Scouts published a collection of her essays, The Way of Understanding. In the foreword, Lou Henry Hoover praised Dean Arnold’s, “Inexhaustible … fund of quaint stories … and constantly have we begged her […] to gather together the talks she has given to Girl Scouts […] that we might have a book of hers for our very own.”
The book is organized thematically, with each excerpt introduced by relevant quotes from well-known authors. Its slim profile was described as ideal for sliding into a pocket, kept ready at hand for a Scout’s Own or other ceremony.
The Way of Understanding was republished with a gold cover for the Girl Scout 50th anniversary in 1962. It is still available. Mine was a gift from my daughter in 2015. A reprint edition was published in 2022.
A Long, Full Life
Dean Arnold died in 1943. She was buried in Massachusetts next to her “life-long friend,” Dr. Mary Gould Hood, a vigorous advocate of sex education for girls and women.
© 2026 Ann Robertson, writer, editor, Girl Scout historian, but NOT a Girl Scout employee.
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