School Credit for Home Work

by L. R. Alderman

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.