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