The step from washing play dishes at school to washing real dishes at home is easily taken, and children are delighted to take it.  Here again the school and home may—­indeed must, for best results—­work together.  Some schools are giving school credit for home work along domestic lines.  That there are complex elements entering into the successful working out of such a plan one must admit.  A school giving credit for work it does not see may put a premium upon quantity rather than quality.  The teacher who asks her little pupils to wash the home dishes according to school methods may encounter adverse comment from certain parents who are quick to resent outside “management.”  Nevertheless, home practice in accordance with school theory is the ideal of any cooeperative education in the mechanics of housekeeping; therefore some scheme must be worked out whereby the girls will practice at home, and, having learned to do by doing, will continue to do in the families where their doing will be a help.

Let us consider for a moment the present condition of the school-credit-for-home-work idea.  Schemes are being worked out in various places, under one or the other of the following plans.

Plan I (often known as the Massachusetts plan).  Each pupil, with the advice of his teacher and the consent of his parents, selects some one definite piece of work to do at home regularly, under direction of the school and with some study at school of the practical problems involved.  School credit depends upon approval by the teacher on the occasion of a visit of inspection to the home.

Plan II (sometimes called the Oregon plan).  This is more directly concerned with the cultivation of a helpful spirit than with perfect technique or broad knowledge.  No attempt is made to correlate home and school work.  Credit is given merely for the fact that the dishes were washed, the table set, or the baby bathed, the fact being properly certified by the parent.  Whether the work was acceptably done or not rests entirely with the parent.  In the carrying out of the latter plan blanks are usually issued to be filled out and handed in once a week or once a month.  Each task carries a certain value in school credit.

That either of these plans possesses certain weaknesses doubtless even their makers would admit.  But they are at least opening wedges.  A plan might be worked out whereby little girls are taught one household task at a time, through their play housekeeping, after which credit may be given for satisfactory performance of the task at home.  Later another household duty may be taught, and put into practice, with credit, at home, thus building up a body of known duties for which the little house-helper has been duly trained.  For its highest efficiency such a plan would require more than consent on the part of mothers.  Its success would depend upon cooeperative leadership and its value upon the acceptance, for school credit, of only that work done in conformity with school ideals.