Politeness--a show of consideration for the rights and feelings of others--is partly a habit. Careful watching by parent and teacher is needed to establish this consideration as a permanent attitude of mind. It is with much pleasure that I note that many of the home credit cards bear the items, "Cheerfulness," "Kindness," "Politeness," "Keeping temper," "Doing before told," "Care of language," "Courtesy to parents," and the like. And it is with very great pleasure that I receive letters from parents and teachers saying that the attitude of the children in these things is becoming a habit.
[Illustration: ALGONA, WASHINGTON, GIRL, AGED 12, EARNING HOME CREDITS
Elizabeth G---- and her mother have a small blackboard in the kitchen and here they keep a record of all the work Elizabeth does]
Neatness and personal care are habits that mean much to any one. Some grown people cannot help being neat. Others apparently cannot be neat no matter how much they try. Something is always wrong. It is a habit formed when young, perhaps before the age of twenty. In Mr. O'Reilly's list he included sleeping with window boards in, bathing, caring for the nails, brushing the hair, cleaning the teeth, and going to bed by nine o'clock. Personal care has been given a place on the Portland home credit record[2] which is now used in some of the schools. Algona, a home credit school about twenty miles from Seattle, uses the Portland personal care section, including bathing, brushing teeth, sleeping with open windows, going to bed before nine o'clock, and attending church or Sunday school. In looking over the first home credit slips that came in, the Algona principal found that Nettie, a girl of thirteen, had earned just 7 per cent out of the 100 per cent given for a perfect record in the personal division. She had earned more than the required two hundred and ten minutes for the week in the regular work department at a hard round of preparing meals, washing dishes, sweeping, feeding the poultry, scrubbing, and so forth. But Nettie had slept with her window closed, had not brushed her teeth, had not taken a bath, nor had she been in bed at the required hour. Nettie was obviously unhappy over the grade her card received in comparison with the grades of her schoolmates. Before the next report day she had in some way secured a toothbrush, that effective means of promoting civilization, and had made sufficient improvement in her personal care to secure 65 per cent. Her grade for the third week was 72 per cent, and for the fourth, 93 per cent. Her fourth week's report showed a hot bath, toothbrushing twice a day, window open every night, and that she was in bed before nine every night but two. What her reform will mean to the entire family it is interesting to conjecture.