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