School Credit for Home Work

Abstract

When I was a young high school principal in McMinnville, Oregon, I found in my class a girl whom I shall call She was a healthy, happy-go-lucky, careless girl, who did very little work at school and still less at home. She spent her after-school hours on the streets, and in going to the post office and to see the train come in. I wondered what kind of a mother Mary had and what kind of a home she had. I wished that I might talk with Mary's mother, but as I had no solution for the Mary problem I did not go to see her. One day as I was going home, the teacher with whom I was walking said to me, There is the mother of your Mary. I turned back and crossed the street that I might see Mary's mother. A glimpse at her told me the whole story. She looked weary, overworked, discouraged. I did not speak to her, for I had nothing to say. After she had passed by I found myself growing indignant, and then thoughtful; then I became excited, for I felt that I was in the presence of a real problem that had not been solved. Maybe I could find the solution! I knew that the working out of it was worth while. Here was Mary, missing her life's opportunity by her hard-hearted indifference to her mother; and here was I, supposed to be helping Mary, but limited by tradition to helping her with such things as quadric equations, the Punic wars, and the nebular hypothesis! What was I to do?