L. R. Alderman

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.