ing 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, 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.

DEFINITE SCHOOL CREDITS FOR HOME WORK

Since that time dozens of interesting printed record cards have been devised, yet many schools still use the simple plan of daily notes from the parent to the teacher. Daily or weekly reports are found more successful than less frequent ones. The lists of home tasks1 issued by various teachers and superintendents include everything "from plowing to washing the baby for breakfast." The incentives vary, too; some schools have a contest for credits, with prizes at the end of the year, but the large number give marks, usually totals of credits, to all the students. Some schools give holidays as rewards, some add a few credits to the study in which the child most needs credit (with the frequently observed result that the child works hard for real proficiency in that study) while others find it sufficient to mark home work as one study on the report card. One of our most successful Portland teachers merely issues the home work cards and receives them when filled, and registers the fact that they are filed in a record book, yet by her attitude of encouragement she has had most of her pupils doing home work faithfully for three years. The important thing seems to be the valuation put upon the children's out-of-school efforts by the teacher. Many boys are glad to get credit for household tasks, when the work is considered honorable and the other boys are doing it. "Every boy should know how to sew, just as every girl should know how to whittle.

1For complete home-credit plans see the author's book School Credit for Home Work, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., New York.

Every boy should know how to cook, just as every girl should know how to swim. Skill in the elemental arts is a form of what Henderson calls human wealth. All should participate."

Some cards made out for city schools give a large place to hygiene, to care of books, clothes, etc., to getting lessons on time, going to bed on time and going to school on time "without constant urging." Others give such urban tasks as "sweeping sidewalk," "driving delivery wagon," "carrying a paper route." Some schools encourage children to do the things that boy scouts and camp fire girls do.

Some of the high schools have very complete arrangements for home work as a part of the practice in manual training, agriculture, cooking, sewing, or the commercial studies, and take account of vacation work, too. Music lessons, under accredited teachers; and Bible study, tested by an examination given by the school, are credited in many high schools. The maximum credit allowed for industrial work is usually two units out of the fifteen or sixteen required for graduation.

THE SPREAD OF THE SCHOOL MANSE IDEA

BY GEORGE E. VINCENT, LL.D.,

President of the University of Minnesota.

The essentials for an efficient school are: (1) competent teachers, (2) expert supervision, (3) adequate housing and (4) proper equipment. In these four respects American rural schools. have been outclassed by town and city systems. Of late progress has been made toward improved education in the country districts. Consolidation solves admirably the problem of housing and equipment. The county-unit, the appointee superintendency and the supervisory corps offer hopeful prospects of a stimulating administration. Better salaries and higher requirements for certification are slowly drawing a more competent class of teachers into rural. service. One of the chief obstacles, however, to this movement is the absence, in country communities, of satisfactory living conditions for teachers. The problem of rural education will never be solved until this issue has been clearly recognized and squarely met.

The older countries of Europe have long recognized that the proper housing of teachers is as much a duty of school authorities as the provision of class rooms, laboratories and gymnasia. In Denmark every rural school has its teachers' house with kitchen garden and flower garden. The schoolmaster and his assistants live on the school grounds. The institution is not a place deserted for all but a few hours in the day; it is rather a permanent residence of community leaders. Little wonder that the Denmark1 schoolmaster holds his place year after year. It is not unusual for a principal to devote his whole life to one or two communities. Throughout Germany practically the same system prevails with the same results in educational efficiency and community leadership. In France every rural teacher is provided at public expense with living quarters. The same system is well established and is spreading in Sweden, Norway and Finland.

In various parts of the United States significant experiments in providing houses for teachers have been made. In Hawaii one1See Rural Denmark and Its Schools, Harold W. Foght, New York: The Macmillan Co., 1915.

third of the schools have cottages built at public expense. In the state of Washington notable progress has been made in furnishing living quarters for teachers. North Dakota has twenty-two schools equipped in this way. Mississippi, North Carolina, Illinois, Tennessee and Oklahoma have made promising experiments. In St. Louis County, Minnesota, twenty-five rural school teachers live, in groups of two and three, in cottages built and completely furnished at public expense.

A teachers' house or school manse is peculiarly necessary to the success of the consolidated rural school which, it is now agreed, is to be the typical country school of the future. There should be built, in connection with the consolidated school on the same grounds with the school building and heated by the same plant, a permanent house for the use of the teaching staff. This building should contain a wholly separate apartment for the principal and his family, living room and bed-rooms for the women teachers, laundry, kitchens, etc. It should be equipped with a view to providing in the community a model of tasteful and economical domestic furnishing and decoration. The rentals and other charges should be so regulated as to provide for the maintenance, insurance, repairs and renewals of equipment, but not for a sinking-fund. The house should be regarded as a part of the school plant and included in the regular bond issue for construction. A privately owned manse in Illinois is netting 8 per cent on an investment of $10,000.

The manse has a bearing in several ways upon the educational work of the school. Flowers and vegetable gardens are natural features of school premises which are also residence quarters. The domestic science work of the school can be connected in valuable ways with the practical problems of manse management. The cost accounting offers a capital example of bookkeeping. The use of the school as a community center is widened and its value enhanced. The school as an institution takes on a more vital character in the eyes of the countryside.

Most important of all is the effect upon the teacher. Comfortably heated, well-lighted quarters, comradeship with colleaguesand at the same time personal privacy-a satisfying, coöperatively managed table, independence of the petty family rivalries of a small community, a recognized institutional status, combine to attract to the consolidated rural school manse teachers of a type

which will put the country school abreast of the modern educational movement. It is futile to preach the gospel of sacrifice for the cause of rural education. There is no reason why rural teachers should be called upon to sacrifice themselves. They ought not to do it, and they will not do it. The school manse is not a fad, nor a luxury; it is a fundamental necessity.