FEEDING HER BIRD
Mabel C——, aged 12, Algona, Washington

SCHOOL CREDIT
FOR HOME WORK

BY L. R. ALDERMAN

CITY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS
PORTLAND, OREGON
FORMERLY SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC
INSTRUCTION, STATE OF OREGON

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY L. R. ALDERMAN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
U.S.A

TO THE MEMORY
OF
MY FATHER AND MOTHER
Who made their boys happy partners in the
work of the home and farm

PREFACE

It has been a surprise and a delight to me, as this book has been in progress, to learn of the many different ways that people have worked out these home credit plans. It has been as if I could see into many happy schoolrooms. Letters from mothers and fathers boasting of the accomplishments of their children, have brought to me a little glow from the hearthsides of many homes. A father brought his boy—or rather the boy brought his father—up to see me and talk over what the boy was doing at home. The father boasted of the boy's fine garden, his big pumpkins, his watermelons that would attract the neighbors. Johnny almost burst the top button off his vest with pride as his father praised him and patted him on the head. After this happy meeting, the father and the son got on the high wagon seat and rode home; and as I saw them going down the street, I could imagine what they talked about. Such glimpses help to make a school man's life worth while; and I have had many of them as I have been writing this book.

For the fact that this book exists at all, I am indebted to my wife, who has helped me with every part of it, and to Mr. and Mrs. C. C. Thomason, of Olympia, Washington, who believed in the book from the first. Mrs. Thomason has also done much work on the book; she has gathered all the illustrative material, visiting many schools and writing many letters. She and my wife have done most of the organizing of material, and have gone over the manuscript together. To Miss Fanny Louise Barber, of the Washington High School, Portland, I am grateful for her careful reading and revision of several chapters. I owe thanks to Mrs. Sarah J. Hoagland, of Belt, Montana, for the true and vivid stories she has sent me; and I am thankful to all the home credit teachers, with whom we have been corresponding, for their painstaking answers to our letters, as well as for the valuable plans that they have originated.

L. R. Alderman.

Portland, Oregon,
November 16, 1914.

CONTENTS

PART ONE

PART TWO

ILLUSTRATIONS

SCHOOL CREDIT FOR HOME WORK

PART ONE

I

INTRODUCTION

The child is a born worker; activity is the law of his nature.

Francis W. Parker.

This book is simply the narrative of the working-out of an idea. The idea first came to me from memories of my own home, where tasks were assigned to us children and were made to seem important. With my father, the work was always carried on in the spirit of a game, and the game could be made as interesting as any other game; in the meantime something was being done that was worth while. Among many other memories there comes one of our laying a rail fence by moonlight, after a freshet had taken the other fence away; when the game was to get the line completed before the moon went down. I can still see father laying rail on rail, and enjoy his glowing enthusiasm at our accomplishment. The fence still stands. Besides seeking to make the work interesting in itself, father had a device to put a value on time for his boys by giving us free time after the tasks were completed to do as we saw fit.

The desire, after I became a teacher, to put myself in the enviable position of my father as an inspiring influence with children, was the motive that took my thoughts out of the schoolroom into the homes of my pupils. Should not the school be simply a group of people come together for improvement, with the teacher as their best friend, ready to discuss and promote everything that seems worth while? We found it easy to talk at school about the things the children were concerned with out of school. One spring my pupils carried home, from our little boxes at school, cabbage plants and tomato plants to become members of their families for the summer. Later we had a county school fair for the exhibition of the children's clear jelly and fine bread and vegetables and sewing and carpentry. The schools were trying to recognize "the whole child."

This book is written in the hope that parents, teachers, and children may be helped to work together more joyously and harmoniously on the real problems of life.

When I was teaching in the University of Oregon in the spring of 1910, I wrote and had published in the Oregon papers the following article:—

We all believe that civilization is founded upon the home. The school should be a real helper to the home. How can the school help the home? How can it help the home establish habits in the children of systematic performance of home duties so that they will be efficient and joyful home helpers? One way is for the school to take into account home industrial work and honor it. It is my conviction, based upon careful and continuous observation, that the school can greatly increase the interest the child will take in home industrial work by making it a subject of consideration at school. A teacher talked of sewing, and the girls sewed. She talked of ironing, and they wanted to learn to iron neatly. She talked of working with tools, and both girls and boys made bird houses, kites, and other things of interest. Recently a school garden was planned in a city and one of the boys was employed to plow the land. Seventy-five children were watching for him to come with the team. At last he came driving around the corner. He could manage a team. He drove into the lot, and a hundred and fifty eyes looked with admiration at the boy who could unhitch from the sled and hitch to the plow; and then as he, "man-fashion,"—lines over one shoulder and under one arm,—drove the big team around the field, all could feel the children's admiration for the boy who could do something worth while. And I have seen a girl who could make good bread or set a table nicely get the real admiration of her schoolmates.

The school can help make better home-builders. It can help by industrial work done in the school, but as that is already receiving consideration by the press and in a few schools, I shall not in this short article treat of it.

The plan I have in mind will cost no money, will take but little school time, and can be put into operation in every part of the State at once. It will create a demand for expert instruction later on. It is to give school credit for industrial work done at home. The mother and father are to be recognized as teachers, and the school teacher put into the position of one who cares about the habits and tastes of the whole child. Then the teacher and the parents will have much in common. Every home has the equipment for industrial work and has some one who uses it with more or less skill.

The school has made so many demands on the home that the parents have in some cases felt that all the time of the child must be given to the school. But an important thing that the child needs along with school work is established habits of home-making. What people do depends as much upon habit as upon knowledge. The criticism that is most often made upon industrial work at school is that it is so different from the work done in the home that it does not put the child into that sympathetic relation with the home, which after all is for him and the home the most important thing in the world. Juvenile institutions find that they must be careful not to institutionalize the child to such an extent that he may not be contented in a real home. In my opinion it will be a great thing for the child to want to help his parents do the task that needs to be done and to want to do it in the best possible way. The reason why so many country boys are now leading men of affairs is because early in life they had home responsibilities thrust upon them. I am sure that the motto "Everybody Helps" is a good one.

But one says: "How can it be brought about? How can the school give credit for industrial work done at home?" It may be done by sending home printed slips asking the parents to take account of the work that the child does at home under their instruction, and explaining that credit will be given for this work on the school record. These slips must be used according to the age of the child, so that he will not be asked to do too much, for it must be clearly recognized that children must have time for real play. The required tasks must not be too arduous, yet they must be real tasks. They must not be tasks that will put extra work on parents except in the matter of instruction and observation. They may well call for the care of animals, and should include garden work for both boys and girls. Credit in school for home industrial work (with the parents' consent) should count as much as any one study in school.

To add interest to the work, exhibitions should be given at stated times so that all may learn from each other and the best be the model for all. The school fairs in Yamhill, Polk, Benton, Lane, Wasco, and Crook Counties, together with the school and home industrial work done at Eugene, have convinced me most thoroughly that these plans are practicable, and that school work and home work, school play and home play, and love for parents and respect for teachers and fellow pupils can best be fostered by a more complete coöperation between school and home, so that the whole child is taken into account at all times.

After the home-credit schools of Mr. O'Reilly and Mr. Conklin were well under way, I received many inquiries about the home credit idea. As I was then State Superintendent, I had a pamphlet printed by the State Office, describing the workings of the plan, and had it distributed to Oregon teachers. Fifteen thousand copies were also printed for Mr. Claxton, Commissioner of Education, in the summer of 1912, and distributed by the National Bureau to superintendents and teachers throughout the United States. Since this pamphlet has been out of print there have been many inquiries sent me about home credit, and I hope that this book may answer some of them.

II

MARY

The brain and the hand, too long divorced, and each mean and weak without the other; use and beauty, each alone vulgar; letters and labor, each soulless without the other, are henceforth to be one and inseparable; and this union will lift man to a higher level.—G. Stanley Hall.

The idea of giving school credit for home work first occurred to me when I was a high-school principal in McMinnville, Oregon, in 1901. Often, in the few years that I had been teaching, I had felt keenly a lack of understanding between school and home. As I was thinking over this problem, and wondering what could be done, I chanced to meet on the street the mother of one of my rosiest-cheeked, strongest-looking high-school girls. I saw that the little mother looked forlorn and tired. There was a nervous twitch of the hand that adjusted the robes about the crippled child she was wheeling in a baby buggy. I had frequently noticed that Mary, the daughter, who was one of the very poorest students in her class, was on the streets the greater part of the time after school hours. I thought, "What value can there be in my teaching that girl quadratic equations and the nebular hypothesis, when what she most needs to learn is the art of helping her mother?"

In the algebra recitation next day I asked, "How many helped with the work before coming to school?" Hands were raised, but not Mary's. "How many got breakfast?" Hands again, not Mary's. "I made some bread a few days ago, bread that kept, and kept, and kept on keeping. How many of you know how to make bread?" Some hands, not Mary's. I then announced that the lesson for the following day would consist as usual of ten problems in advance, but that five would be in the book, and five out of the book. The five out of the book for the girls would consist of helping with supper, helping with the kitchen work after supper, preparing breakfast, helping with the dishes and kitchen work after breakfast, and putting a bedroom in order. Surprise and merriment gave place to enthusiasm when the boys and girls saw that I was in downright earnest. When I asked for a report on the algebra lesson next day all hands went up for all the problems both in algebra and in home-helping. As I looked my approval, all hands fell again, that is, all hands but Mary's. "What is it, Mary?" I asked. "I worked five in advance," she replied with sparkling eyes: "I worked all you gave us, and five ahead in the book!"

Since that day I have been a firm believer in giving children credit at school for work done at home. We did not work home problems every day that year, but at various times the children were assigned lessons like the one mentioned, and scarcely a day passed that we did not talk over home tasks, and listen to the boys and girls as they told what each had achieved. The idea that washing dishes and caring for chickens was of equal importance with algebra and general history, and that credit and honor would frequently be given for home work, proved a stimulus to all the children, and especially to Mary. Her interest in all her school duties was doubled, and it is needless to say that her mother's interest in the school was many times increased as her heavy household cares were in part assumed by her healthy daughter.

A few weeks after the first home credit lesson Mary brought her luncheon to school. At the noon hour she came to my desk, opened her basket, and displaying a nicely made sandwich said, "I made this bread." The bread looked good, and must have been all right, for she ate the sandwich, and it did not seem to hurt her. She came again wearing a pretty new shirt-waist, and told me she had made it herself, and that it had cost just eighty-five cents.

After Mary graduated from high school she went out into the country to teach, and boarded with her uncle's family. Her uncle's wife was ill for a while, and Mary showed that she knew how to cook a fine meal, and how to set a table so that the food looked good to eat. She made herself generally useful. Her uncle came to my office one day and told me that Mary was the finest girl he ever saw, and that every girl like that should go to college, and that he was going to see that she went to college if he had to sell the farm to send her. She went to college, but it didn't take the farm to send her.

III

THE SPRING VALLEY SCHOOL

An excellent result of the absence of centralization in the United States.... The widest possible scope being allowed to individual and local preferences, ... one part of our vast country can profit by the experience of the other parts.

John Fiske.

Kindly convey my blessing to that genius of a teacher in Spring Valley, the same to stand good till judgment day.

Wm. Hawley Smith.

Mr. A. I. O'Reilly, in the school at Spring Valley, Oregon, was the first to give systematic, certified credit for home work. He originated the idea of having a prize contest for credits, and put care for health and cleanliness on the list of home duties. Dr. Winship classifies new educational suggestions as dreams, nightmares, and visions. The remarkable success of Mr. O'Reilly in his home credit school should place his ideas in the "vision" list.

Spring Valley is a rich farming district in Polk County, Oregon, about nine miles from Salem. Mr. O'Reilly took the school in the fall of 1909. He rented a farmhouse about half a mile away, brought his wife and little boys out from Dakota, where he had served as county superintendent, and went to work building up his school. He gained great influence with the boys and girls, and was much respected and thoroughly liked by everybody.

He noticed that on each big, well-developed farm in the neighborhood there was a great deal of work for the boys and girls to do, but that they did not as a rule do it with cheerfulness and interest. He wanted, if possible, to change their attitude of mind. So, with the hearty approval of his board of directors, he arranged to give school credit for home work. This was in the fall of 1911. Various tasks that the children ought to do he put into a list, and allowed a certain number of minutes credit for each one.[1] The three children having earned the greatest number of credits at the close of the nine school months were to receive three dollars each, and the three next highest, two dollars. The money was to be allowed by the school board, and put into the savings bank to the credit of the prize-winners.

Every one of the thirty-three pupils in the school was enrolled in this new kind of contest. The registering of the credits each morning meant extra work for the teacher, but it brought extra results. The prospect of a bank account for the winners incited the children to learn for the first time something about banks and banking. There was a "we-are-doing-something" atmosphere throughout the school.

SPRING VALLEY SCHOOL, OREGON, WHERE HOME CREDITS WERE GIVEN, 1911-1912

In answer to the query of some visitors if this giving of credit for home work did not interfere with school work, Mr. O'Reilly pointed to the record in the county spelling contest, in which his school had earned 100 per cent that month.

The county superintendent, Mr. Seymour, had announced that a banner would be given to his rural schools showing that they were standard schools as soon as they should meet certain requirements. These requirements were well-drained school grounds; school building properly lighted, heated, and ventilated; schoolhouse and grounds neat and attractive; sanitary outbuildings; walk made to building and outbuildings; individual drinking-cups; the purchase each year of one standard picture; thorough work on the part of teacher and pupils; the enrollment of every pupil in the spelling contest; and an average of 95 per cent in attendance. Spring Valley was the first school in the county to receive the banner and become a standard school.

The county superintendents of Oregon were assembled at Salem in January, 1912, for the purpose of grading teachers' examination papers. They were much interested in what they heard of Mr. O'Reilly's work at Spring Valley and accepted with great pleasure the invitation of Mr. Seymour to visit the school. As that day in Mr. O'Reilly's school is significant, I wish to quote an article about it written by T. J. Gary, superintendent of Clackamas County. Mr. Gary's article was printed in one of the Oregon City papers in January, 1912.

Last Saturday seventeen county school superintendents and the superintendent of public instruction drove through the wind and rain to Spring Valley, Polk County, to attend a parent-teachers' meeting. Why? Because we had heard much of a new plan that was being tried out by the teacher, pupils, and parents of the school in that beautiful valley. Did we go because it was a new plan? No. If we should try to investigate every new plan we would be going all the time. We went because we thought we saw a suggestion, at least, of a solution of two very important problems: "How to bring the school and the home into closer relation," and "How to make the boys and the girls in the country love their home."

We arrived at the Spring Valley School at 10.30 A.M. and observed first a board walk from the road to the schoolhouse door and a well-drained school-yard free from all rubbish, such as sticks, pieces of paper, and so forth.

Upon entering the room we observed that the directors had made provision for the proper heating, lighting, and ventilation of the schoolroom. On the walls were three nicely framed pictures, the "Sistine Madonna," "The Christ," and "The Lions," all beautiful reproductions of celebrated works of art. The building was a modest one, much like many school buildings we find through the country, but there was about it that which said plainer than words can say it, "This is a well-ordered school."

Looking to the right, we saw on a partition wall, on the floor, and on the side wall, a variety of articles: aprons, dresses, doilies, handbags, handkerchiefs, kites, traps, bird houses, and various other things made by the boys and girls of the school. At the left in the other corner of the room were loaves of bread, pies, cakes, tarts, doughnuts, and other tempting things prepared by the girls and boys. The writer sampled various edibles, among them a cake baked by Master Z——, son of our ex-superintendent, J. C. Z——. I can cheerfully say that it was the kind of cake that makes a man want more.

These things were all of interest to us, but the one thing we were most curious to know about was the system the teacher had of giving credits for home work; not school work done at home, but all kinds of honest work a country girl or boy can find to do. Pupils were given five minutes credit for milking a cow, five minutes for sleeping in fresh air, five minutes for taking a bath, and so on through the long list of common duties incident to home life in the country. The rule of the school is that any pupil who has earned six hundred minutes may have a holiday, at the discretion of the teacher. If the pupil asks for a holiday to use for some worthy cause the teacher grants it, providing it does not interfere too much with the pupil's school work.

Space will not permit my giving a more detailed account of the plan. I trust that enough has been given to show the principle involved. The teacher was subjected to volley after volley of questions from the superintendents, but was able to answer all of them with alacrity. The chairman called upon the parents to give their testimony as to the success of the movement. I cannot write here all that was said, but will give two statements as fair samples of all.

One good motherly-looking country woman said: "Before this plan was started I got up in the morning and prepared breakfast for the family, and after breakfast saw to the preparation of the children for school. Now, when morning comes the girls insist upon my lying in bed so that they may get breakfast. After breakfast they wash the dishes, sweep the kitchen, and do many other things as well as make their own preparation for school. I think the plan is a success. My only fear is that it will make me lazy."

One father said: "I have two boys—one in the high school and Jack, here. It was as hard work to get the older boy out in the morning as it was to do the chores, and as Jack was too young to be compelled to do the work, I let them both sleep while I did it. Now, when the alarm sounds, I hear Jack tumbling out of bed, and when I get up I find the fires burning and the stock at the barn cared for; so all I have to do is to look happy, eat my breakfast, and go about my business. Yes, it is a great success in our home."

At this point Superintendent Alderman said: "Jack, stand, we want to see you," and Jack, a bright, manly-appearing country boy of fourteen years stood blushing, while we looked our appreciation.

One man told of the many things that his daughter had done, whereupon it was suggested that she might do so much that her health would be in danger. A pleasant smile flitted across the face of the father as he said, "Daughter, stand and let these men see if they think you are injuring your health." A bright, buxom, rosy-cheeked girl—the very picture of health and happiness—arose while we laughed and cheered.

To the question, "Does this work interfere with the work of the school?" the teacher pointed to the record of the school in a spelling contest that is being conducted in this county, and read "100 per cent for this month; 98.12 per cent for last," and said, "No, I find that the children have taken more interest in their work and are making more progress than before."

When alone, after time for reflection, I thought, "One swallow does not make a summer" and one school does not prove that this is a good plan. In Spring Valley the conditions are ideal,—a board of directors who do their duty, a citizenship that is far above the average, girls and boys from well-ordered homes of a prosperous people, a teacher who would succeed anywhere with half a chance, a wide-awake, sympathetic county school superintendent,—and yet I thought if this is good for the Spring Valley School, might it not be a good thing for all our schools? I have not reached a conclusion, but have had much food for thought, and am more than pleased with my experience and observation.

What do you think about it, gentle reader? Is it a passing fancy? A fad, if you please? Or is it a means for training boys and girls to habits of industry and to a wholesome respect for honest toil? Will it bring the home and the school into closer relation? And will it cause the country boys and girls to love their homes, to love the country with its singing birds, its babbling brooks, its broad fields and friendly hills?

There was not a school in the State that responded better to any movement initiated by the State or county than the one in Spring Valley. Every pupil was greatly interested in the boys' and girls' industrial and agricultural contest which Oregon carried on that year for the first time. The children raised cabbage plants at school, protected from the cold by a tent that Mr. O'Reilly provided. They planned to sell them to the neighbors in order to get money for seeds, but were sadly disappointed, when they came to school one morning, to find that a cow had broken in during the night and destroyed almost every plant. The owner of the cow paid them the value of the plants, but they were never quite so happy over the fund as they would have been if the plants had been allowed to grow.

Six weeks before the end of the school year Mr. O'Reilly began making Saturday trips to Salem to arrange for the fair with which he intended to close the school. The merchants subscribed liberally for prizes both for the children's work and for the athletic events which Mr. O'Reilly had planned for the afternoon. A local piano house sent out a piano for the occasion, and an amusement company put up a merry-go-round, and stands for lemonade, ice-cream, and all the rest that goes with a first-class picnic. The picnic was held in the grove a short distance from the schoolhouse. Mr. O'Reilly and the neighbors had made a platform for which the children's work formed the background,—dresses, bird houses, fancy work, cakes, bread, and other articles,—and had made seats of rough lumber for the crowd. And a crowd it was, for the whole county was interested in the Spring Valley School. This was one of the first local fairs in connection with the county school fairs which were held throughout the State, and the awards were also to be made to the children who had earned the most credits in the home credit contest.

PICNIC LUNCHEON COOKED AND SERVED BY SPRING VALLEY CHILDREN

We drove out from Salem in automobiles. On reaching the grove we found it filled with teams tied everywhere, and many automobiles standing about. Promptly at ten o'clock the school children marched down from the schoolhouse in an industrial parade, carrying things that they had made or raised in the garden. A pretty sight they were, as they took their places on the reserved benches in front, all in their best clothes, most of the girls in white dresses of their own making.

The Governor of Oregon was there, and made the first address. At the close of his talk, the Spring Valley children sang in voices as clear as the birds, "There is no Land Like Oregon," and were most heartily cheered. After the remainder of the addresses and songs came the most breathless part of the day, the awarding of the school-credit prizes for the year's work. A member of the school board read the list of winners, and took occasion to express the appreciation that the district felt for Mr. O'Reilly's work. He assured the audience that the people of the district considered the plan one of the very finest that they had ever known, for it put the children in the right attitude toward their work, and gave the parents the feeling that they were assisting in the work of the school. Never in the history of the community had there been such a year.

The judging of the industrial work was then carried on, while the Spring Valley home-credit girls set the long tables for the luncheon, which they had prepared without assistance from their mothers. We all envied the three women up on the platform tasting the cakes, and were glad when the ribbons were pinned on, for we knew then that the dinner would begin. The blue ribbon for cake-making by children under thirteen was awarded to a boy, Arthur Z——. The governor and I placed this lad between us at the head of the table, and he gave us very generous portions of the prize cake.

This was Mr. O'Reilly's last day with the Spring Valley School. The next year he was chosen one of the rural school supervisors in Lane County, and he is still there making an excellent record. A recent letter from him briefly takes up the later history of his Spring Valley winners in the home credit contest. He says:—

Evangeline J—— was one of the winners. She is doing finely in high school, and still winning prizes at fairs. She leads her class in domestic science in the Eugene High School. She has eighty dollars in the bank, sixty-one dollars and fifty cents earned from prizes. You know the home credit started her bank account with three dollars. Golda B—— is another. She is attending the high school at Sheridan. Her standings are fine. She very seldom has to take examinations. She has about seventy-five dollars in the bank. Jack S—— has finished the eighth grade, and is going to attend high school in Eugene this year. His bank account is thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents. Mabel S—— has finished the grades and will go to high school in Hopewell this year. Her bank account is thirty-eight dollars. She has a piano her father got her, and is doing well in music. Verda R—— attends high school in Eugene this year. The other winners are still little ones, and are attending school in Spring Valley.

IV

WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE ALGEBRA?

Present interest is the grand motive power.—Rousseau.

An objection to the introduction of new subjects is that children are already overworked in school. There is, however, a precaution against overwork; it is making school work interesting to the children. To introduce new and higher subjects into the school program is not necessarily to increase the strain upon the child. If this measure increases the interest and attractiveness of the work and the sense of achievement, it will diminish weariness and the risk of hurtful strain.

Charles W. Eliot.

When I was county superintendent in Yamhill County I used to talk much of the home credit plan in local institutes. One day when I was explaining how the plan worked, and how I had given credit in algebra for home activities, a teacher arose in the audience and said he was willing to go almost any length with me, but he thought it was going too far to give credit in algebra for what was not algebra. "Is it not dishonest?" he asked, "and will it not teach dishonesty? Besides, if you give credit in this way for things not algebra, what will become of the algebra?" This is an unsettled problem: what will become of the algebra? True, Mary got more algebra! I put this unsettled question alongside of another. I was arguing for the consolidation of schools in a little district near a larger district, and had tried to show that consolidation would be much cheaper, and would bring greater advantages, when a man stood up and said that he agreed in general with the plan but that it would not work in this district, "for," said he, "this district has a cemetery deeded to it, and if the district should lose its identity, what would become of the cemetery?" As these questions are similar, I put the algebra into the cemetery.

I believe in algebra, but in order to teach algebra I believe it is first necessary to see to it that the child is in a constructive frame of mind. He should be in harmony with his surroundings. When Mary became interested in her home, she was in a mood to work problems in advance. When her home was neglected, her algebra problems were all in arrears.

Even though we omitted the consideration of the health, the morals, and the working ability of the pupils, the home credit system would be justified as a part of the school work because of its revitalizing effect on the regular school work. The teacher who succeeds in touching the hidden springs of youthful interest is doing more for humanity than the man who discovers the much-sought-for method of bringing static electricity out of space. A child, or a man either for that matter, is a dynamo of energy when interested. Many people think that children in school are overworked; in my opinion they are more often underinterested. One little lad of about five, taking a Sunday walk with grown people, told his father that he was very tired, that his legs fairly ached, and that he would have to be carried or else camp right there. A member of the party (I wish I could remember his name, for he was a good child psychologist) said to the boy, "Why, sure, you don't have to walk. I'll get you a horse." He cut a stick horse and a switch. The boy mounted at a bound, whipped his steed up and down the road, beating up the dust in circles around the crowd. By the time he reached home he had ridden the stick horse twice as far as the others had walked, and had not remembered that he was tired.

My first trial of home credits convinced me that children would do better school work because of the plan. I have letters from many teachers through the Northwest bearing me out in my opinion. I quote: "It stimulates to better work in school." "The teachers notice an improvement in school work along all lines." "It has helped to make our school, in some respects at least, as good as any in the county, according to the county superintendent's own word. A member of the board says the children have never made such progress since the school was built, and all say these children have never made so much progress before." Tardiness is reported to be much less in home credit schools.

A prominent Western dairyman remarked that arithmetic had always been a hopeless subject for him. He declared that arithmetically he was "born short." A listener inquired if he had any trouble in keeping accounts, in figuring out the profits on each dairy cow, or in doing other problems connected with his farm. He replied very quickly, "No, not at all. I don't have any trouble with anything except arithmetic." Home credits take into account the out-of-school mathematical activities. So the boy who has measured a cord of wood, laid out a garden plot, figured out the costs, income, and profits of feeding a pig for a year, or solved any problem that comes up on the farm, will be considered to have done something in arithmetic.

From Auburn, Washington, comes a story of the effect of giving school credits for garage and shop work. Joe, a boy of seventeen, who had attended high school for a year and a half, had earned only three academic credits, and his other work was below passing. The superintendent, Mr. Todd, called a conference with Joe's parents and, to use his own expression, went after Joe "with hammer and tongs." After much discussion, the superintendent finally asked the father and mother what the boy seemed most interested in outside of school. Exchanging a troubled glance with his wife, the father said that as soon as Joe got out of school he rushed straight to Meade's garage. So the superintendent went to the garage, and found that Joe could be taken into Mr. Meade's employment for the afternoons. Again he called Joe to his office, and said to him, "Now, see here. You are going on with your regular subjects here in school, and in addition you are going to do some work down in Meade's garage. Mr. Meade is going to grade your work and send in his report to me. If you make good there it will help out your record here. You will get pay for your work, too. You have got it in you to make good, and I know you will. What do you think about it?" "I think it's bully!" exclaimed Joe.

JOE IN THE GARAGE, AUBURN, WASHINGTON

Joe had failed in his geometry, but as soon as he took the position at the garage his work in geometry improved. It was about Christmas that he began working, and at the time of the report several months later he was doing well in his mathematics. The credit he received from the garage counted toward his marks for high-school graduation. Mr. Meade, incidentally, was very much pleased with his part in the transaction, and sent in his reports with religious regularity.

Not only Joe, but some half dozen other boys in Mr. Todd's school at Auburn are now "farmed out" in this manner, and work downtown under regular contract. They are mostly boys who had lost interest in school, and were at the dropping-out stage. Mr. Todd's plan is similar to the one in use at Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Herbert M——, of Minnehaha, Washington, is such a busy boy at home that he does not have time to look at a book after he leaves school. This year, 1914, Mr. W. E. Dudley, the principal of the Minnehaha school, began to give credit for home work and allowed the credits obtained to be applied where most needed. The first month of school this year Herbert's arithmetic grade was below 65 per cent; his last month's grade in the same subject, without adding any credits, was above 95 per cent. At first Herbert needed his extra credits applied to his mathematics to obtain a passing grade. But for some cause his work in arithmetic has improved wonderfully.

If you care to get up at five o'clock and go through the day with Herbert it may open your eyes as to what an industrious boy of fifteen does at home. He is always up early, for before the day's work begins he milks two cows, feeds three "skim-milk" calves and eight head of cattle, pumps water for them, and feeds nine pigs. He is then ready for a hearty breakfast. One morning in March, Herbert and his father agreed that harrowing was more important than going to school. So he worked five hours, harrowing four and a half acres. Herbert did not lose credit at school, for his teacher approved of his morning's work, as he knew how important it was. He was at school before the one o'clock bell rang, had a game of ball with the boys, and was ready for his lessons of the afternoon. At four o'clock he hurried home, and this is what he did before he went to bed. First, he herded six cows for over an hour, milked two cows, fed his skim-milk calves, got in the wood, fed the chickens, gathered the eggs, cleaned two barns, fed the eight head of cattle, pumped water for them, fed the pigs, and turned the separator ten minutes.

While Herbert has had some trouble with his arithmetic he does fine work in composition. At the children's fair at Spokane in October, 1913, he won fifteen dollars in cash for the best essay on caring for a skim-milk calf, and a pair of scales as second prize for an essay on how to handle a farm separator. Here are Herbert's prizes for three years: In 1911 at the county fair at Vancouver, Washington, he got the second award, a diploma, on his farm exhibit; in 1912 as first prize on farm exhibit he won a trip to the fair at Puyallup; in 1913 at the Clarke County fair he received ten dollars' worth of garden seeds as second prize on farm exhibit, fifteen dollars in cash for judging dairy cattle, while together with his parents he won seventy-five dollars for the best adult farm exhibit; and at the children's state contest, 1913, he received the first prize, fifteen dollars, for the skim-milk calf essay.

A boy in one of the Portland, Oregon, schools had trouble with his spelling, getting a mark of only 4¹⁄₂ on a scale of 10. Soon after home credits were put into use by his teacher he came to her and anxiously inquired if he could help out his spelling grade with a good home record. The teacher graciously assured him that he could. The boy brought in each week one of the very best home record slips, and in some mysterious manner his spelling improved as his hours of work increased. He does not need his home record to help out his spelling grade now, for last month he received more than a passing mark, 7¹⁄₂ in his weak subject. The knowledge that there was help at hand relieved his nervousness, and gave him confidence.

V

HONORING LABOR

She ... worketh willingly with her hands ... and eateth not the bread of idleness. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Proverbs XXXI, 13, 27, 31.

We are still paying a heavy price for slave labor; for instance, the idea that it is undignified to cook has come down through the ages of slaveholding, and has got into some people's blood. The school by taking into account home tasks can make them seem worth while and thus dignify their doing. Many persons do not work because their ideals are made at school, and their heroes are those who did not win honor at labor, or, at least, the labor of these heroes is not emphasized.

In the case of Mary, the work she did at home transformed her from a heedless girl into a sympathetic helper. She had the idea that too many young people have, that it is more honorable to study algebra than to wash dishes or to cook a meal. The minute that she saw that they were considered equal she no longer held back from the home work, and when in a constructive frame of mind she not only did the home work but did her algebra too. There is not a normal American boy who shrinks from a piece of work because he thinks it is hard. On the contrary, he likes the man's job, and seeks out the hard things and tackles them. He avoids the things he thinks are not worth while. So it becomes a matter of the child's point of view whether he likes his work or not. Too often it is the case that the child never hears it suggested that there is any merit in home work within itself. He has the idea that he goes to school to get an education, and works at home because he has to. Many parents frankly tell their children that they should study well at school so they can make a living "without working."

When we give home work its proper recognition, and the child comes to understand that there are different degrees of efficiency and skill in doing it, the work will take on a new color. Many are the reports that have come in from parents in home credit districts saying, "There is nothing left for us to do in the way of chores. The children used to seem indifferent about the work, and did as little as they could. Now the boys get up before we do instead of waiting to be called, rush downstairs to make the fires, and go at the chores, while the girls go into the kitchen and start breakfast."

While youth is the time for play, yet children like to work too. Since we have had the school gardens in Portland we often find the playgrounds vacant, and the gardens near by well filled with children at work. We often hear that children should not have responsibilities; yet we find that the successful men of to-day are the ones that bore burdens early. A number of successful business men in Portland were recently talking together of their boyhood days, and each one said that he had had to assume a great deal of responsibility before he was twelve years old.

The importance of "percentages," "credits," "grades," or "standings" in the minds of school children, especially in the upper grammar classrooms, is surprising to a stranger. Even the drawing teacher is begged to give marks. "But there are the drawings, arranged in the order of their merit, on the screen. They can see which are the best!" No, they want a mark. "To raise our standings," they say.

WORK CREDITED AT SCHOOL, WESTON, OREGON

Of course, we all feel that "marks" in school have but a temporary purpose; that they are to furnish a motive to serve until a better motive can be substituted. Home work may be encouraged at first by the wish for "higher standings," or a prize, or a holiday; but many other influences are likely to come in to keep it up.

This is not the place to discuss the teaching without marks that is practiced in a few modern schools. In most schools the system of giving percentages is firmly established. The honoring of achievement in the schools, by marks or otherwise, has always been a great power in helping the school studies move along. But only part of the available energy has been used. There are vast reservoirs of power which may be put at the service of education and which as yet have scarcely been tapped.

I hope the giving of marks will never be the main consideration with those who follow the home credit idea, but rather the giving of honor. Too long have pupils' out-of-school industries been ignored at school as though they were something to be ashamed of. Whether we give formal credit or not, let us give honor at school for home work.

VI

HABIT-BUILDING

Habit second nature? Habit is ten times nature.

The Duke of Wellington.

Habits plus ideals make character. The establishing of right habits in youth can best be done by coöperation of parents and teachers. So far as we take habit-building as our aim, education becomes definite and concrete.

At the close of his famous chapter on "Habit," William James says:—

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habit, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar.... Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out.... Young people should know this truth in advance. The ignorance of it has probably engendered more discouragement and faint-heartedness in youths embarking on arduous careers than all other causes put together.

One habit that works for success is industry. How easy it is for a bright boy or girl to get through school without acquiring anything like a habit of being industrious, even in learning book lessons! If he is quick-minded, as he has only to keep up with the average child, he needs little or no work to give him a good standing in his class. The alert child often gains all required information by merely listening to the other pupils. Thus we often find failures among those bright pupils whom we expected to find successful, because they did not learn to dig and could do only what came easily. Most occupations demand more than an acquiring attitude of mind. They demand vigorous exertion, and the seeing to it that the thing is done. But how is there to be any assurance that the child is forming habits of industry if there is not coöperation? The child tells the parent that he has to prepare his lessons and so he gets out of work at home; he makes the plea that he is tired out by home tasks so that he may not be given hard work at school. So he misses the work habit entirely.

Politeness—a show of consideration for the rights and feelings of others—is partly a habit. Careful watching by parent and teacher is needed to establish this consideration as a permanent attitude of mind. It is with much pleasure that I note that many of the home credit cards bear the items, "Cheerfulness," "Kindness," "Politeness," "Keeping temper," "Doing before told," "Care of language," "Courtesy to parents," and the like. And it is with very great pleasure that I receive letters from parents and teachers saying that the attitude of the children in these things is becoming a habit.

ALGONA, WASHINGTON, GIRL, AGED 12, EARNING HOME CREDITS

Elizabeth G—— and her mother have a small blackboard in the kitchen and here they keep a record of all the work Elizabeth does

Neatness and personal care are habits that mean much to any one. Some grown people cannot help being neat. Others apparently cannot be neat no matter how much they try. Something is always wrong. It is a habit formed when young, perhaps before the age of twenty. In Mr. O'Reilly's list he included sleeping with window boards in, bathing, caring for the nails, brushing the hair, cleaning the teeth, and going to bed by nine o'clock. Personal care has been given a place on the Portland home credit record[2] which is now used in some of the schools. Algona, a home credit school about twenty miles from Seattle, uses the Portland personal care section, including bathing, brushing teeth, sleeping with open windows, going to bed before nine o'clock, and attending church or Sunday school. In looking over the first home credit slips that came in, the Algona principal found that Nettie, a girl of thirteen, had earned just 7 per cent out of the 100 per cent given for a perfect record in the personal division. She had earned more than the required two hundred and ten minutes for the week in the regular work department at a hard round of preparing meals, washing dishes, sweeping, feeding the poultry, scrubbing, and so forth. But Nettie had slept with her window closed, had not brushed her teeth, had not taken a bath, nor had she been in bed at the required hour. Nettie was obviously unhappy over the grade her card received in comparison with the grades of her schoolmates. Before the next report day she had in some way secured a toothbrush, that effective means of promoting civilization, and had made sufficient improvement in her personal care to secure 65 per cent. Her grade for the third week was 72 per cent, and for the fourth, 93 per cent. Her fourth week's report showed a hot bath, toothbrushing twice a day, window open every night, and that she was in bed before nine every night but two. What her reform will mean to the entire family it is interesting to conjecture.

"Be careful about that voice, Ella," directed a teacher. Ella arose at her place, a thin, stooping girl of about thirteen. She read her passage of the lesson in a voice scarcely audible to the visitor across the room. A few minutes later the visitor was looking over some home credit report slips. "Here is a girl who did not sleep with her windows open," she said. The teacher took the blank, studied it a minute, then replied, "This is the first time that child has brought in a home credit slip. Do you recall my reminding a little girl about her voice? That is the girl, and this card may explain her voice quality."

All the pupils except two in a little Washington town learned to sleep with their windows open. Upon inquiry it was found that one girl could not open her window, as it was made for admitting light only, being built solidly into the wall. In the case of the other child, the parents absolutely refused to endanger their daughter's health by letting her breathe night air, no matter how many faddists insisted that it was necessary!

Some members of a church were discussing the problem of the spirit of incipient immorality that they felt was prevalent among children in the neighborhood. A home credit teacher showed the speakers a number of the first report cards she had received, which disclosed the fact that very few of the pupils under her care were ever in bed before nine o'clock. A few months later she took occasion to display again her pupils' home credit cards and with pride pointed out that almost every child was going to bed early, before nine o'clock. "It had grown to be a habit with the children to be up late," she said. "The immorality talked of was not yet in actual existence among the children, but through their outside evening associates was gradually working itself in. The children had only to be reminded in a substantial way that it was not only desirable for them physically to retire early, but that they were to receive recognition in their school standing for so doing, and they at once happily complied."

VII

THAT OTHER TEACHER AND THAT TEACHER'S LABORATORY

We are just beginning to discover that the rural school has a fine laboratory for practical educational purposes, in the neighborhood environment of the school. With the development of scientific agriculture and domestic arts in many of our modern country homes this laboratory is constantly improving.

Kansas State Agricultural College Bulletin, 1914.

There is a general idea among teachers that parents will not coöperate with them. This, I believe, is founded upon the assumption that because they cannot, as a usual thing, coöperate in textbook work they will not coöperate in other things. But both parents and teachers want the same results accomplished. If these are to be attained it means partnership work, the parent and that other parent, the teacher, working together; or one might say, the teacher, and that other teacher, the parent, working together.

I have been surprised to find to what extent parents will coöperate with teachers if given a chance. Mrs. Brown goes to the schoolhouse on a bleak afternoon. She is greeted warmly by the teacher, Miss Smith, and given an arithmetic text to follow while the class recites. The lesson is on decimal fractions. Now, Mrs. Brown didn't have decimal fractions during her school days, so the recitation is quite meaningless to her. She is glad when the class is over, and does not find time to visit school again that term. But if she is asked to prepare a luncheon for the picnic at the close of the year, or asked to assist in any social function at the schoolhouse, she spends her time for the school, and is glad to do it.

In Eugene, Oregon, several years ago I found that the women of the city were enthusiastic in aiding the schools. Thirty-two women gave up Monday afternoon to teaching the girls sewing, while the boys had military drill. At a social center meeting at Hover, Washington, the suggestion was made that it would be well if one of the mothers would come to the school building occasionally to help the girls with their sewing, as the eighth-grade pupils would have to take an examination in the subject in May. So many mothers volunteered to undertake the task that a schedule was made out whereby a sewing period could be had every afternoon, and no mother be on duty oftener than every two weeks.

At Myrtle Creek, Oregon, domestic art work is carried on in this way: the teacher gives instructions in the work that is to be done; in cooking, for instance, recipes are given, talked over, and written down. The girls then go home, and actually do the work, and make a report to the teacher. They must have the signatures of their mothers for all the work they do. This is managed with a home credit report card.

Mrs. E. H. Belknap, a progressive rural teacher near Jefferson, Oregon, said in a recent letter: "We learn how a cow can be fed and cared for, so as to produce the greatest amount of butter fat. That is well, but we regard it of far more value for the boy to go home, apply the knowledge learned, and produce the butter fat. He is now worth something to the world, and able to turn his education into dollars and cents at any time. The girl takes the book, and reads how to make butter. She goes home, tends the milk, churns, and makes the butter, learns how really to do the work. She has called the attention of the entire family to the amount and quality of her butter obtained from proper feeding and handling of the cow by the boy."

And yet it is said that nothing can be done in the small school in domestic science because there is no equipment. In every home there is ideal equipment if we mean the equipment the children are to use. If we are preparing for life, why not use the equipment we must use in life? Best of all, in using the home laboratory there is an immediate purpose. None of us can get much out of an exercise when it is done just for an exercise. There is the dinner to be cooked, the bed to be made, the ironing to be done; somebody must do it. And the dinner, the bed, and the ironing are to be put to the test by some one who sees real values. There is no doubt that one of the things schools most lack is purpose.

It might be said that to stimulate a child to want to do things is only half the problem. "If children do things without expert instruction they may do them wrong, and thus get a faulty habit." But I think more than half of the problem is solved when we create the desire to do a thing. The greatest fault of present-day education is that we constantly try to teach a child how to do a thing without his desiring to do it, or even knowing the reason for doing it. On the other hand, I once knew a country girl who had never seen a domestic science equipment, and who lived in a community where there was no one housekeeper especially noted; yet with her strong desire to be a fine housekeeper she learned something good from each neighbor, and for excellent results, and for economy of time and material, her daily practice would put the average domestic science teacher to disadvantage. However I am not arguing that domestic science should not be taught at school; I certainly believe it should. But I do claim that it is worth while, and is absolutely necessary, first to create the desire to do the things that are to be taught. To do things without a purpose is like trying to eat without an appetite.

A pamphlet published by the Kansas State Agricultural College on "School Credit for Home Work: The Laboratory of the Rural School," makes these practical points:—

Could there possibly be a more favorable condition for teaching Domestic Arts than in the rural school from which the girl goes every evening to a busy home where she is needed to take part in the actual work of housekeeping? It is here that the girl has a chance to put into actual practice the things she has learned at school. Here the home has the chance to realize immediately upon the investment it is making in the education of the girl. If sanitation, ventilation, sweeping and dusting, care of the sick, preparation of foods, care of milk, water supply and uses, bathing, care of health, sewing, proper clothing, etc., are taught in our schools, and if the laboratories are in the immediate neighborhood, and the girls and boys must go into them to stay overnight, they should be used. Likewise, the vegetable gardens at the homes should be made the experimental plots for the school, after the best seeds have been selected, best methods of preparing, fertilizing, and planting the soil, best-known methods of cultivation and maturing the crops, have been taught. The actual experimental work should be carried out in the home gardens by the boys and girls. Proper records can be kept, and the boys and girls will be anxious to get back into school, after the out-of-doors summer experiments, to compare reports, and renew another phase of their educational work.

In agriculture the fields, stock, buildings, etc., about the schoolhouse should be studied and used. These are the real agricultural laboratory. The real problems of actual farming are present, and the methods of work and the ways of handling the fields and the stock are the available resources of the school as a part of its actual laboratory. In this connection study the dairy cows, the feeding of cattle, hogs, and horses, types and breeds of farm horses, cattle, hogs, and sheep. In every community there are many opportunities for type studies—such as fields of alfalfa or wheat or corn; a dairy herd; valuable and well-bred horses; beef cattle; hogs or sheep; a silo, or types of farm machinery, and farm buildings.

It is natural for a child to want to assume home responsibilities, but there are many things that interfere unless a special effort is made. The school itself has been a great offender in weaning children from their homes and from natural living. This, of course, is not strange when we consider that the school started out to make lawyers and ministers, and not home-makers. Yet one of the great needs of the time is to make people home-loving, and to have those wholesome habits that come from sharing home responsibilities. Anything is worth while that will make the child once taste the joy of doing a useful thing well.

VIII

STELLA AND SADIE

Through ignorance ye did it.—Acts III, 17.

"Let the school go on just as it has. What business is it of the school to meddle with the home work? Of course most children do certain chores at home, but why confuse the work of the home with the work of the school?"

Have you heard this speech? I have heard it several times. Does justice demand that we know what pupils do outside of school? Must the teacher know home conditions in order to teach efficiently? I have in mind a true story that answers these questions and shows the injustice of teaching children when one knows little or nothing of their home life. I am sure most teachers have had similar experiences.

In a certain schoolroom in a certain town I noticed one day two girls in the same class sitting near each other. The contrast between them was so great that I became interested in them, and found out something of their history and circumstances. Stella, the younger one, eleven years old, was a perfect picture of rosy health. Her brown hair was beautiful and most becomingly arranged. Many women would have been delighted to wear such furs as she put on at the noon recess. Well dressed and well nourished, she had the look of one much loved at school and at home, one to whom life was all happiness.

Stella is the only child of wealthy and doting parents. If we should follow her home we should find a well-kept modern house, and we should see that the mother who greets her at the door is just such a mother as we should expect for such a girl. While the evening meal is being prepared, her mother sits beside her at the piano, and helps with her practice, and when the father comes in, the three sing together until dinner is announced. After dinner her mother helps her with her Least Common Multiple and Greatest Common Divisor. They all discuss her composition and then her mother asks her to read aloud, and reads to her. Promptly at nine o'clock she goes to bed in just the kind of room a little girl loves. The windows are opened to the proper width, the heat is turned off, she is kissed good-night, and is told, "Mother loves you, and Father will come in and kiss you when he comes home."

In the morning at seven o'clock she is called by a very gentle voice, and told it is time for Mother's angel to leave her dreams. Her mother helps her dress, and brushes and braids her hair. "What will Father's sweetheart have for breakfast this morning?" She will have grape-fruit and a poached egg on toast. After some fitting by the seamstress for a new dress to be added to her already full wardrobe, she is thoroughly inspected and is ready for school. She is given some flowers for the teacher, and is accompanied part way by her mother. She is early at school, her teacher kisses her, pats her cheeks, and Stella is ready for the lessons, the lessons her mother helped her with the evening before. There she is, happy, radiant!

Now let us go home with the other girl. Sadie is thirteen, but she looks much older notwithstanding her frail little figure. Did I say home? Be the judge. A few years ago her father and her aunt ran away together, leaving the mother with Sadie and two younger children. The broken-spirited mother died after the desertion, and the father and aunt returned, were married, and took possession of the house and the three children. They now have a baby a year old. The family live in a tumbledown house at the edge of the city. On entering the house Sadie receives no greeting from her stepmother-aunt, who is sitting by a dirty window reading. The child knows what work there is to do, and goes at it sullenly. After the meal, at which she scarcely has time to sit down, she has to do up the work, and then is sent on an errand. When she returns it is nine o'clock and she is hardly able to keep her eyes open. The Least Common Multiple and the Greatest Common Divisor are like Greek to her. After she has tried to study a few minutes, her stepmother disturbs her by throwing her brother's stockings into her lap to be mended. When this task is completed, and the potatoes are peeled for breakfast, she goes upstairs. She tenderly draws the covers about her sleeping brother and creeps into bed beside her little sister. Though she is very weary, her starved soul is comforted as she cuddles and kisses her sister before she drops to sleep.

In the night she awakens, and thinking Harry is again uncovered she slips over to his bed, like a little mother, and again adjusts the bedclothes. The baby awakens at five o'clock, and Sadie is called and told to make a fire and warm the milk. She then gets breakfast, does the kitchen work, spreads up the beds, sews a button on her brother's coat, braids her sister's hair, and is late at school.

She came in a few minutes late the morning I visited her room. The class was trying to make a record for punctuality, and had tied another room for first place until this morning when Sadie's lateness set them behind. The teacher was provoked and reproved Sadie. The pupils showed their scorn in many ways and said she was the cause of all but three of the tardy marks of the term. The teacher knew that the principal would ask her why she did not improve her tardy record. The pupils knew that their chances for a half-holiday were spoiled as long as "that Sadie Johnson" was in the room.

This morning especially the teacher wished to make a good showing because she wanted a place in a larger city and hoped that I would recommend her. Arithmetic was the first thing on the program. The principal had boasted of the work of his school in arithmetic. The work went beautifully, for Stella led off with a perfect recitation. The pride of the whole class was evident, the teacher was hopeful. But wanting to see the work of all the pupils, I asked several questions, and at last called upon Sadie. She didn't know, she stood abashed, and showed absolute lack of understanding of the subject. The principal was provoked. The teacher was plainly humiliated, and said in a tone that was low, but loud enough for Sadie and several of the children to hear, "The girl is not only lazy, but feeble-minded."

So it was the whole term. Sadie was tortured each school day, condemned by the most powerful court in the world, her companions, led by her teacher. And the reason was that the teacher was teaching only the six-hour-a-day girl. One does not have to go to Turkey to see examples of injustice and cruelty. But let us not be too critical of the teacher. She is tender-hearted and sympathetic. She weeps over the heroines in books, and has latent longings to be of service in the world. In this case she did not know the conditions that made Sadie stupid. If she had been interested in the children's out-of-school work, and had had them tell her about it, she would have known that the frail little unkempt girl was compelled to do a woman's work at home besides trying to get her lessons. Then she would have seen the tragedy in the child's appealing glance and have understood her. Some people go through life without finding an opportunity to do justice, such as was this teacher's. In ministering to the soul-hunger of this little girl she might have given the service that she had dreamed of giving. It would have been the kind of service that is its own reward.

IX

A STORY AND LETTERS FROM TEACHERS

A Story From Nebraska, by Mrs. Sarah J. Hoagland

One spring found me in Nebraska teaching a school of German and Bohemian children, only two of whom spoke English. I boarded with a German family who lived about a mile from the school. In our walks to and from school I taught the children English. They and their father were born in Nebraska, but at first none of them could speak English so that I could understand it, although I understood some of their German.

The oldest boy—ten years old—lanky, with awkward gait, and fair, straight-standing hair, had a dogged, sullen look. It was a "home" look, especially when the father was around, but it left when he was trying to tell about birds or other interesting things. His telling me that he intended to work in town as soon as possible gave me a peep into his heart as regarded home. It was not a happy home. The father often drank, and at such times he was harsh and cruel. The mother was meek and subdued. She never had known how to do good housekeeping. She told me that when a girl in Germany, being large and strong, she had had to work in the fields instead of learning housework.

The farm was run down; the house was bare and unhomelike. The father's voice was often raised in upbraiding in "Low Dutch." He often had the children rounded up for punishment for starting fires or other mischief. The seven-year-old boy was more efficient, either in the home or out, than the ten-year-old boy. I noticed that he had a better head and intelligence. His efficiency was due to this, not to any better training.

The mother often cried over the brutality of the father to the oldest boy. I determined to study the situation, and I found a remedy. I learned that the father could do practically nothing in arithmetic. He had attended school for his confirmation—a little reading in German being the only apparent result. So I taught the boy arithmetic, and after I had worked with him two hours every night for several months, he could do addition better than his father. It was wonderful to see the pride and dawning respect on the father's face as the boy figured correctly the weight of many wagon-loads of grain lately taken to the elevator. I knew then that the unreasonable whipping would tend to stop. I seldom see a father unreasonable with a boy he can be proud of at school. So the sky was clear for a time.

But when the press of spring work came on and the father found he could not afford to employ help, he grew moody and was even savage again. He drank, and at times I was afraid of him myself. But I liked the mother. I knew she needed the board money for the children, and I wanted to see the case of the boy to a finish. So I stayed on. The lovely outdoor surroundings, too, made me want to stay. The orchard was beautiful—the finest in the neighborhood. The birds sang in a large maple at my window. This was a treat to a flat-dweller. Since then I have ever loved the country.

I often asked the mother what the father was saying to the oldest boy. I knew as far as the boy was concerned I could help the matter by influencing him. She said that the father was complaining that the boy was worthless as a worker. For one thing, he had milked and left the milk in the barnyard in order to play. The complaints kept pouring in on the patient mother. The father was working early and late to get abreast of the season's work. He forgot what sleep was, and grew thin and haggard and more and more savage.

I felt that only some distinct advance would have effect on either father or boy. I asked if the boy could drive a horse. He couldn't. He could not work a single piece of the machinery on the farm. That is most unusual in Nebraska, for the light soil can be worked by machinery which a boy can learn to run if he can also guide horses. The father would not teach the boy—had no patience with him. So the mother and I made our plans. She approached the father with the question of getting a team and machine for the boy. It happened to be a cornstalk cutter that was needed. The father consented, provided the mother would teach the boy! She had done such work, though she was not strong enough to do it this year.

But I saw her that Saturday toiling in the hot sun, walking up and down the rows, touching up the horses. The boy proved most apt. I soon saw him going up and down alone, still under his mother's eye, however. The boy seemed to grow two years in importance, self-reliance, and ambition in that day's work! This training was kept up out of school hours for some time, and the boy learned to work other machinery, the last thing a corn-planter.

As soon as the father realized what the boy was doing, he was a transformed man. The knowledge that he had a helper seemed to clear the atmosphere. Before this the boy had always kept out of the father's way. Now he forsook the mother! It was "Papa and me" from that time in his talk. This new attitude made it all the easier for the wife, for it was a relief from what had been her greatest trouble—having to stand between the two.

The father's pride and confidence in his son kept on growing. In many ways he was just a good-natured big giant, but he turned like a bear on anything that annoyed him.

I remember the first day the boy stayed out of school to work, how it seemed to me a deciding day in his life. I rarely like to see a child stay out of school, but that day I thought the industrial training much more important than anything I could teach the boy in those hours of school. He came regularly after the rush of work was over.

A School in Montana: Mrs. Hoagland's First Letter To the Author

Last September I heard your lecture on credit being given in school for home work. I have tried it lately after working the children up to grade. I started by getting acquainted with the homes, finding out what the children did and what they could do further. I made inquiries as to whether the children, in their play, left things around for the mother to pick up and so on. The spirit the work is done in counts, too, in credit given. The work must be done pleasantly and cheerfully; the mother must be asked for work; she is not to be hunting the child up to get him to do the work.

One little girl of eleven made bread from beginning to end, never having tried it entirely before. She has an overworked mother. In another home I found the two older children took charge of a teething baby while the mother, an ex-teacher and rather delicate, did the housework. The little girl, six years old, could do dishes and otherwise help the mother. In another home the boy has grown to be the pride of his father's heart by forcing the father back into the chair, when he was weary, and doing the chores himself.

One boy, his father told me two weeks ago, was growing as dependable as his brother five years older, and helped bring the cows, herd cattle from one field to another before and after school and on non-school days. There was much other work, light in itself, but wonderfully helpful to his father, that was taken charge of cheerfully.

One child's father had a hired man. The boy did but little. He is eight years old and large. While visiting there, I saw his father bringing in coal. I told the boy he would find it necessary to look up work if he cared for credit. His mother visited school shortly after this; I was telling her of the idea and she said she now understood why Bennie had started to clear the table several times, and so on. We had a very happy laugh over it. The boy hunts the eggs, gets in the wood and coal, makes the mash for the chickens, and helps wash the dishes.

Another child, aged thirteen, has to do much outside work, so she feels good over getting credit for it. It is a kind of pay that makes her days pleasanter. I believe each child richly deserves the credit I have given. The results have been to make the tie between the parents and myself stronger, and I am asked to come back next year. I have seen a gladder, prouder light in the parents' eyes concerning their children. It has helped to make our school in some respects without a superior in the county, according to the county superintendent's own word. A member of the board says the children never have made such progress since the school was built, and all say these children never have made as much progress before. They are learning, as far as I can teach them, the honor of labor and the beauty of being useful, willing, and dependable. I have had a hard battle to wage here for good, thorough work and application, but the right has won.

I enclose a report that shows the kinds of work the children are in the habit of doing.

I am the teacher who spoke to you about the new oats being brought into the dryland country. It is now being introduced into another part of Montana where my homestead is. You will perhaps remember me.

Very sincerely,
Mrs. S. J. Hoagland.

A Letter from Mrs. E. H. Belknap, Marion County, Oregon

I believe intensely in an education that teaches the boy or girl not only how the book says to do a thing, but how, by actual experience and practice, that thing is best worked out and brought to perfection....

In this district we have used home credits for two years. First, in order to make this a success, the teacher must believe in it, and must be a worker. We have given credits for everything from plowing to washing the baby for breakfast. As a result we have the little girls dressing their own hair for school, the older ones cooking breakfast, washing, ironing, etc. The boys plow, milk, clean stables, cut wood, feed horses, do all kinds of work for credits; doing it, they have become interested in it, and before they knew it a habit has been formed of doing things at the right time in the right way. It is truly wonderful what these children do. Some of them walk three or four miles, and still earn hundreds of credits in a week. Some of my girls milk as many as eight cows twice a day, and the boys plow and harrow acres of ground. They do the work gladly, too.

Monday mornings we give out blanks to be filled out, signed by parents, and returned the following Monday morning. We always go over the cards carefully. I call the names aloud, and the pupils report quickly. If extra work has been accomplished I always try to praise the effort. It is a happy hour when the reports are rendered.

At first we agreed that when any pupil earned six hundred or more credits he should be entitled to a holiday. Thousands of credits have been earned, but no one has asked for the holiday! Frequently, when the pupil has been ill, or forced to miss a day, he has asked that the credits be applied to blot out the absent marks, and this has always been granted.

PART TWO

I

ILLUSTRATIVE HOME CREDIT PLANS

Upon the demonstration of the success of the home credit plan in the Spring Valley School I began to hear of other Oregon schools that had taken it up and were carrying it on successfully. During the school year 1913-14, three hundred and twenty-five teachers in Oregon and in Washington were giving school credit for home work, while the scheme had been adopted by some schools in other States.

For the aid of those who may contemplate its use, the outlines of several plans that have been instituted are printed here, together with excerpts of letters we have received, and cards made out by pupils. These reports come from teachers who have used the scheme successfully in various forms. The daily report plans are given first, and the letters are arranged according to the frequency of the report from the home to the school.

It will be noted that some teachers use a card that is supposed to last for a whole year, being returned to the teacher monthly as school cards are often returned to the parent monthly; others have cards that are marked daily, and last for only a week. Some teachers use a contest plan of awards like Mr. O'Reilly's; others add credits to the average obtained in school subjects; and others do both. The first user of the parent-signed report, Mr. O'Reilly, used no cards, but had the children write little notes with lists of their labors every day for their parents to sign. A bulletin from the Kansas Agricultural College suggests that pupils should furnish the reports themselves over their own signatures.[4] The only record of failure we have was in a school where monthly report cards were used, and no definite scheme of duties was laid down,—merely so many minutes of unspecified labor. I find that children are more interested when their performance of particular duties is recorded.

I should never advise the wholesale adoption of any one plan, but I would suggest that superintendents and teachers adapt plans to the needs of their districts. Several schools have been reported where an enthusiastic principal has put the plan into operation throughout his school, regardless of the ideas of his teachers. I find that teachers never feel inspiration in a work that they do not want to undertake. Therefore, it would be my suggestion that under no circumstances should a teacher be asked to use home credits unless she herself desires it.

DAILY REPORTS

The following is the method which Mr. A. I. O'Reilly originated at the Spring Valley School, in 1911-12:—

Rules of the Contest

1. No pupil is obliged to enter the contest.

2. Any pupil entering is free to quit at any time, but if any one quits without good cause, all credits he or she may have earned will be forfeited.

3. Parent or guardian must send an itemized list (with signature affixed) to the teacher each morning. This list must contain a record of the work each child has done daily.

4. Each day the teacher will issue a credit voucher to the pupil. This voucher will state the total number of minutes due the pupil each day for home work.

5. At the close of the contest pupils will return vouchers to the teacher, the six pupils who have earned the greatest amount of time, per the vouchers, receiving awards.

6. Contest closes when term of school closes.

7. Once each month the names of the six pupils who are in the lead will be published in the county papers.

8. Ten per cent credit will be added to final examination results of all pupils (except eighth graders) who enter and continue in the contest.

9. When a pupil has credits to the amount of one day earned, by surrender of the credits, and by proper application to the teacher, he or she may be granted a holiday, provided that not more than one holiday may be granted to a pupil each month.

10. Forfeitures—dropping out of contest without cause, all credits due; unexcused absence, all credits due; unexcused tardiness, 25 per cent of all credits due; less than 90 per cent in deportment for one month, 10 per cent of all credits due.

11. Awards—the three having the highest credits, $3 each; the three having second highest, $2 each. Awards to be placed in a savings bank to the credit of the pupils winning them. Funds for awards furnished by the school district board out of the general fund.

List of duties with minutes credit allowed for each

While it is sometimes more convenient to have printed record slips, it is not necessary. Mr. O'Reilly carried on the grading by having each child write out his home credit work on ordinary tablet paper. The great majority of home credit schools have used the plan in 1914 without any printing whatever. It affords the children practice in written expression.

I give here two sample slips brought in by Mr. O'Reilly's pupils in the first home credit contest in the United States.

Tora Mortensen

Jan. 31, 1912.

(Signed) Mrs. Emma Savage.

La Vern Holdredge

(Signed) Mrs. Holdredge.

Superintendent A. R. Mack, of Holton, Kansas, has issued the following plan for daily reports and the issue of credit vouchers monthly, in bulletin form. Notice that the pupil who is paid in money, or in any other way, for home work receives no credit. This card gives a very desirable emphasis to manners and personal care:—

Rules

1. No pupil is obliged to enter contest.

2. Any pupil entering is free to quit at any time, but if any one quits without good cause, all credits he or she may have earned will be forfeited.

3. Parent or guardian must send daily to the teacher an itemized list with signature attached; this list must contain the record of the work each child has done daily.

4. At the end of each week the teacher may read the number of credits due the pupil for that week. At the end of each month the teacher shall issue a credit voucher to the pupil giving the total number of credits due to the pupil up to date, for home work.

5. The pupil in each grade making the highest number of credits each month will receive an added credit of 10 per cent of all credits due.

6. The school shall be divided into two divisions. The boy and the girl in each division in each building receiving the highest number of credits at the end of each half-year shall be awarded a suitable medal.

7. The boy and the girl in each division in each building receiving the second highest number of credits shall at their own option be awarded a medal or an additional 10 per cent of credits already due.

8. Ten per cent credit will be added to final examination results of all pupils who enter this contest before November 1, and continue in it until the end of the year. Those entering school after November 1 must enter contest before January 1, in order to receive examination credit.

9. Pupils entering the contest before November 1 or January 1 will be given credit not only on final examination grades, but on monthly examination grades.

10. In case a pupil enters the contest after November 1 or January 1, credits for home work will apply on monthly examination grades only.

The following schedule has been adopted:

Grades of 95 to 100, additional credit of half the amount between the grade and 100.

Grades of 90 to 95, a credit of 3 is given.

Grades of 85 to 90, a credit of 2 is given.

Grades of 80 to 85, a credit of 1 is given.

Below 80, no credit.

11. Any pupil in the first three grades earning 600 credits during a given month may have a quarter holiday. Pupils in the fourth grade must make 700 credits; pupils in the fifth grade must make 800 credits; pupils in the sixth grade must make 900 credits; pupils in the seventh and eighth grades must make 1000 credits for a quarter holiday.

All holidays are at the discretion of the teacher; provided, that the pupil may not have more than one quarter holiday in any 20 days, and provided, that the teacher thinks that it will not interfere with school work.

In case deportment is below 90 per cent, the holiday will be refused.

12. Forfeitures—

(a) Dropping out of contest without cause forfeits all credits due.

(b) Unexcused absence forfeits all credits due.

(c) Tardiness forfeits 25 per cent of all credits due.

(d) Less than 90 per cent in deportment in one month forfeits 10 per cent of all credits due.

(e) Loss of temper forfeits 5 credits.

(f) Bad table manners forfeit 5 credits.

(g) Impoliteness to elders forfeits 5 credits.

(h) Bad language at home forfeits 5 credits.

(i) Discourtesy to parents forfeits 10 credits.

(j) Unnecessarily soiling clothes forfeits 5 credits.

(k) Unnecessarily tearing clothes forfeits 5 credits.

(l) Report cards kept home 3 days forfeits 5 per cent credits and an additional 5 credits for each succeeding day.

(m) Forgetting books forfeits 5 credits per book.

13. Once each month the names of the six pupils who are in the lead will be published in the Holton papers.

14. A pupil who receives compensation for work done, whether he is paid in money or in any other way, shall receive no school credit for such work.

Credit Slip for Primary to Third Grades, inclusive

Credit Slip for Fourth to Eighth Grades, inclusive

General Rule

For unlisted work credit will be given. One credit will be given for every two minutes' work.

Mr. N. V. Rowe, the teacher at St. John, Whitman County, Washington, describes a novel plan:—

At first I used a credit card arranged after the order of a meal ticket. The plan was to have the card hold credits enough for one school day of 360 minutes, arranged by 5's, 10's, 15's, 20's, 25's, and 30's. The idea is all right were it amplified so as to include a school week. The teacher has a punch, and punches or cancels credits as presented. I found this took too many cards for each pupil. Some brought in as high as 360 minutes in credits each day, and even more than that in some cases. At present I am using a plan similar to a grocer's manifolding or duplicating book where totals are forwarded each day. This saves time and in some ways is better than the ticket plan.

The results have certainly justified the effort here. (1) It lessens tardiness; (2) it enlists the attention of parents quicker than anything else; (3) it stimulates to better work in school; (4) it creates a wholesome rivalry. I have heard the following objections to it: It requires too much time of a teacher already very busy; and pupils get a holiday when they ought to be at their studies. These objections are weak. The plan certainly has a sound pedagogic principle for its foundation.

The children get but one holiday a month. In case a pupil is ill or necessarily absent for a day, it is very convenient to allow that as a holiday. This helps the attendance record wonderfully, and is perfectly legitimate, so far as I can see. We have been doing that way all the present year. Bear in mind, we allow such as a holiday only when one has not been allowed already for that particular month. In the register I mark the initial "H" wherever a holiday is granted, and in this way I keep tab.

At Burnt Ridge, near Alpha, Washington, in Mrs. Venona E. Toman's school, a postal-card photograph is given as a little reward of merit for each 1000 credits earned. Five credits are taken off for coming to school with neck and ears not clean. One hundred and twenty credits are given to the child who washes, starches, and irons her school clothes for the week. Practicing music and studying lessons get ten credits for half an hour; but hard work, like sawing wood and making a garden, gets one credit for each two minutes.

The following is an excerpt from a letter from the Burnt Ridge teacher:—

I have the children keep their own records, telling them that I want them to learn to do their own business. Then their mothers look over and sign their reports. Without one exception the parents are pleased with the plan. The mothers tell me that the children hurry to get all done they possibly can before school time, as they want their credits to increase. One mother said there was more trouble now between her two girls because neither one wanted help than there was before when they wanted help. I require that the work be done cheerfully. One mother said she believed her daughters sang about their work many times when they did not feel a bit like it. I notice myself, and others tell me that it is making a difference in the homes. I think this one of the best features that has been added to the school work. It teaches independence, thoughtfulness, and thrift.

MORNING AND EVENING RECORD, WEEKLY REPORT

Marion County, Oregon, uses a card issued by Superintendent W. M. Smith, which provides for a record of daily morning and evening home tasks, and a weekly report.

This county forms an object lesson in the correct presentation of a subject of this kind. Superintendent Smith first picked out a teacher that he knew had initiative and was able to carry her people with her. He explained the matter to her in detail and kept in close touch with her work. Her success was so pronounced that he thought that it was not necessary to make much effort to extend the plan into the surrounding districts; he knew it would spread of itself. And it did; like a prairie fire, he found it leaping over districts and catching in others, until now it is widely used in the county. The card is the result of much experience and a few conferences with some of Mr. Smith's best people.

Notice that honesty of record is emphasized; also observe the details of dairy work and the care of horses:—

Home Credit Blank
School........... Dis't No..... Teacher...............
Name........................... Age.......... Grade.....
Object: To secure the cooperation of the Home and the School

Reasonable credit may be given for other work. When the answer is Yes or No as
in 8 and 9, etc., write 1 for yes and leave blank for no.
Parent:—As one who insists upon absolute honesty being taught, my signature
below certifies that to the best of my knowledge this report is correct.

.....................Parent.

Oscar. L. Dunlap, principal of the school at Salem Heights, Marion County, gives the following explanation of the way home credits were recognized in his school the first year:—

The first month we gave cash prizes; then this was abandoned and we allowed 20 per cent to be added to each of any two subjects, and 10 per cent to any one subject in the monthly tests. We give twelve questions (answer any ten) and those having 20 per cent allowance need answer only eight questions, and so on. In my room the pupils work harder to earn the 20 per cent allowance than they did to earn the cash prizes; for in this way every one receives a prize. Some think this is a wrong way to give rewards. I was myself in doubt at first; but my pupils have actually worked harder during the past two months than during the six months before we adopted this plan.

DAILY RECORDS, WEEKLY REPORTS

In Spokane County, Washington, one hundred and thirteen teachers have used home credits during the school year of 1913-14. Superintendent E. G. McFarland became interested in the work that one of his rural teachers started on home credits at the opening of the schools in the fall of 1913. Mr. McFarland obtained what information he could on the subject, and then worked out a plan. This made provision for a daily record for five days, and a weekly report. At his institute he presented the project to his teachers, and in January some eighty-one began the work. Others soon followed.

O. H. BENSON POTATO CLUB, MORAN, SPOKANE COUNTY, WASHINGTON

The members are receiving school credits for club work carried out regularly. The president is "talking potatoes" to the members of the club

The Spokane Chamber of Commerce sent out a story of Spokane County's home credits to eight hundred and fifty of its correspondents in the United States and Canada. For a while the superintendent's office was flooded with letters of inquiry relative to the plan. This shows the great interest taken everywhere in any movement calculated to better the child's school and home relationship.

At a parent-teachers' meeting in Spokane a committee was appointed to assist the principal of one of the schools in keeping the children off the streets. At that time it was arranged that credit at school should be given to all children off the streets after six o'clock, and to those who did not go to evening parties.

Below is the Spokane County plan.

Bulletin for Teachers: Home Credits

The following are the rules and reward offered for home work. This work is to be done during the school week. No one is compelled to enter this contest and the pupil may drop out at any time.

All work must be voluntary on the part of the pupil. Parents are requested not to sign papers for pupils if the work is not voluntarily and cheerfully done.

The rewards for this work are:—

One half-holiday each month to the child who has earned one hundred or more home credits, and has not been absent or tardy for the month; also

5 per cent will be added to his final examination. The pupil who earns one hundred or more credits each month but fails in perfect attendance will have the 5 per cent added to his final examination.

In addition, the board of directors may offer a prize to the pupil in each grade who shall have the greatest amount of home credits, and shall be neither absent nor tardy during the term, or from the adoption of these rules.

List of Home Credits

E. G. Mcfarland,
County Superintendent of Schools.

The following statement is made by Superintendent McFarland as to the effect home credits had on attendance in 1913-14:—

We attribute the increase in our attendance this year in the schools of Spokane County, outside the city of Spokane, largely to the Home Credit System and our certificates for perfect attendance. While the enrollment was 108 less than last year, yet our attendance was 16,712 days more. At the present rate of 16 cents per day, the pupils earned for the county, from the State appropriation, nearly $2700 more than last year. With the same enrollment as last year the increase of apportionment would have reached approximately $6000.

The credit slip for the school week provides for a daily record of "chores or work done" from Monday to Friday inclusive. It does not contain a stated list of duties; the blanks are to be filled in by the child. The list of home credits is furnished each district, but the teacher uses her judgment in allowing credit for any chore peculiar to her locality. On page 92 is given one of these blanks with the work itemized. Note the evidence of cooperation between Jessie and her mother. On the mornings when Jessie gets the breakfast her mother dresses the baby, and vice versa.

Home Credit Work
Dist. No.......
Name, Jessie Jones. Age 12. Grade 6th.

(Signed) Mrs. Mary A. Jones,
Parent's Signature.