PROGRESS IN THE

HOUSEHOLD

BY

LUCY MAYNARD SALMON

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

1906

In 1897 the author of these sketches published a book entitled “Domestic Service.” It was an attempt to consider certain historical and economic aspects of a common occupation and its aim was to induce others to investigate by scientific processes a neglected field of inquiry. It distinctly disclaimed any and all attempts to square the circle by proposing a plan to do away with all difficulties in the present condition of household service.

The book was not one of “the six best sellers” of the season, it was never duplicated by a public library, and it never secured a lodgment at the Tabard Inn. A modest second edition, not yet exhausted, represents its present rating in the authors’ “Bradstreet’s.” The book was a disappointment to many housewives who had noted[vi] its appearance because they had hoped to find in it a sovereign remedy for all domestic ills. Instead of that they found only rather repellant footnotes, statistical tables, appendices, and bibliographies. “What connection,” they probably asked, “exists between the far-away fact that there is one domestic employee to every one hundred and fifty-six inhabitants in Oklahoma and the near-at-hand fact that there is a dearth of good cooks in Pantopia?” But Moses Coit Tyler, beatissima memoria, once instructed a class of college seniors about to begin the study of certain works in English literature that the initial step in all literary criticism was to find the author’s object and to judge him by his success in attaining that object; that an artist who intends to paint a landscape must be judged by his success in landscape painting, and not criticised because the landscape is not a figure piece. To the charge therefore that a book of three hundred odd pages contained no panacea with virtues attested by hundreds[vii] of housekeepers whose domestic ills had been cured by its application, the apologetic answer might be made that the writer professed to be only a seeker after facts, not a domestic physician,—she therefore craved judgment on the facts collected, not on the cure-all unsought and therefore unexploited.

But the author had secretly craved a hearing from the economists, although conscious that she was not one of the guild and therefore might be open to the charge of trespassing on the domain of others. She had also secretly hoped for a hearing from her fellow-workers in the field of history, although conscious that the proportion of history to economics in the book was in inverse ratio. Gaining admission to the salon, however, does not prevent the work of an amateur from being “skyed,” and “Domestic Service” was hung above the line. To the economists whose attention may have been called to the book, it doubtless seemed unreasonable that one who[viii] had apparently always been connected with work in history should meddle with economics; to the historians, it probably seemed apostasy to wander, even for a moment, from the path of history. Ergo mea apologia.

In September, 1887, I became associated with Vassar College with the understanding that I was to give instruction in history and economics. The work in history proved unexpectedly heavy and it was therefore necessary for me to defer taking up the work in economics until the following year. The same conditions existed for three successive years and I then definitely abandoned all thought of undertaking regular work in economics. But although unable to carry out all that had been expected, it seemed possible to make some compensation and therefore at the end of the first year an investigation of domestic service was planned. A series of schedules was drawn up and these were distributed to the members of two successive classes[ix] graduating from Vassar College. The publication of the results of the investigation was delayed in order to incorporate with them certain returns of the United States Census of 1890 and these were not available until late in the year, 1896.

A second explanation may be needed concerning the choice of the subject. A residence in several communities differing somewhat widely in geographical location and in industrial conditions had disclosed the fact that in every place the demand for capable household employees was greatly in excess of the supply, largely, it was commonly believed, because in each place the conditions were “peculiar.” These unusual and peculiar conditions were the competition of factories, the competition of shops, the loneliness of farm life, the loneliness of a great city, the inaccessibility of suburbs, the heat of the Western prairies, the dampness of the sea-shore, the life of a college town, and numerous variants of these general principles. All of the conditions[x] that most attract to a place other residents and all the conditions most favorable to other occupations seemed to be always attended with fatality in the case of domestic employees. But as the union of the seven colors of the rainbow forms white light, was it possible that all these peculiar conditions could be reduced to a single fundamental cause that should explain the discrepancy between demand and supply?

Another consideration in favor of selecting domestic service as a reasonable subject for investigation lay in the accessibility of the material. Every household, whether with or without domestic employees, could add its contribution to the inquiry. Moreover, in an age that collects everything from baggage tags and cigar ribbons to old china and old masters, could not a zeal for collecting be turned in the direction of collecting the hitherto untabulated experiences of different households?

But it is true that while the material was[xi] accessible, it was not on that account necessarily procurable, and the investigation was undertaken with some realization of the difficulties to be encountered. Yet if, deferring to the example of the British “Who’s Who,” carpentry, cabinet-making, mountaineering, gardening, spectroscopy, and animal chemistry are by some considered as recreations while to others they would imply tasks difficult of achievement, could not, for college women, this collection of material be classed as recreation, although to others it might seem a burdensome task?

It is possible that another element may more or less consciously have been a factor in determining the choice. College education is not even yet universally accepted as necessary and desirable for women. If Society should in a sense expect an apology from college women for having removed themselves from general society and passed four years in college halls, could not that apology take the form of making some[xii] small contribution to a domestic question even though those who rendered the quasi-apology did not altogether recognize its necessity?

Another consideration akin to this lies in the frequent assumption by Society that all women marry. Cold, enduring statistical tables, as well as observation, go to show that there is an error in this assumption, and when this fact is pointed out, Society, forgetting that there are some who would but cannot, and others who can but will not, attributes the discrepancy between theory and reality to college education for women. If a few college women could add something to our knowledge of how household affairs are conducted, would that contribution serve to atone for both voluntary and involuntary neglect of matrimony?

But an apology implies not only an explanation of the past but a promise for the future,—the erring one must err no more if absolution is to be given. The[xiii] economist may pardon the poacher, but he must poach no more. The historian may forgive the one who has wandered from the fold, but the wanderer must in future remain within the pale. Yet how shall the collector of experiences be diverted from his diversion of collecting? The collector of old mahogany depletes his bank account and turns his modest dwelling into a veritable second-hand shop, but still his pony chaise is tied before every farmhouse that has advertised an auction sale of household effects. The lawyer whose country estate produces green peas that yearly cost him five dollars a peck, cheerfully proclaims that it pays to be a gentleman farmer. The New York merchant hunts in Montana and charges up to profit and loss the expressage on the game secured. The luxuries of one are the necessities of another, the recreations of one are laborious occupations for his neighbor, a habit once formed holds its victim in an ever-tightening grasp. If then, in[xiv] spite of apology and all that it implies, the collector of experiences still accumulates much that to others may be of little practical benefit, if she still indulges in what her friends deem an extravagant luxury, if she still finds her recreation in what others may consider an onerous pursuit, if the habit once formed of connecting with the present the facts and experiences of the past cannot apparently be broken off, if at times she still poaches and still wanders, she will once more claim indulgence if perchance there be any to grant it. It has been in anticipation of this indulgence that these sketches are reprinted. If they seem slight, it is hoped that behind the shadow will be found the substance of a great, and still unsettled problem. The hope that lies still beyond is that the household may in time to come be recognized as a legitimate field for scientific investigation.

A lady recently called at the house of a friend who answered in person the ring at the door. With careworn expression and flurried manner she apologized for the confusion that apparently reigned in the house, saying:

“My parlor maid is upstairs ill,—not ill enough to go to the hospital, too ill to work, too far from home to go there, yet needing attention from me. My waitress is having a fit of the sulks, and I have sent her out to do an errand and get some fresh air. The cook is just now not on speaking terms with her husband,—the coachman,—and is seeking a divorce, so that one or the other must go. The footman came home drunk last night, and had to be discharged this morning. My house is at sixes and sevens, my husband lunched downtown, my mother has[4] taken the children and the nursery-maid home with her, guests arrive this evening, and I have spent the day in a vain search for help in the house. I belong to a club studying household economics, and have allowed it to turn a search-light on all my household affairs in the interests of society at large. I am now ready to call a halt, to refuse to have my domestic arrangements considered a hunting-ground for theorists, to pronounce all such clubs vain mockeries, snares, and delusions, inventions of the enemy for squandering time, and showing the bitter contrast between abstract theory and concrete reality. The only club I am interested in must provide on tap maids who never get ill or sulky, cooks without a temper, and coachmen and footmen of unimpeachable habits.”

It is possible that such conditions are not confined to “the uninhabited districts west of Schenectady,” and that elsewhere there may be despairing housekeepers ready to cry out against all serious study of domestic[5] questions, because such study has not yet had an immediate and practical bearing on the management of their individual households. It is, indeed, not improbable, for there is in every clime the tradition of a time when household helpers were abundant, competent, and cheap,—a golden age when harmony reigned in the household and domestic discord was unknown. Has this peaceful condition been rudely broken up by the meddlesome interference of domestic busy-bodies? Has progress been hindered by the club studying household economics, by the investigator seeking for facts, by the theorist trying to square the ideal with the real, and by students of social conditions anxious to explain the present by the past? Is the only remedy for present ills the suppression of all discussion, since discussion breeds contempt and unhappiness? Is the club to revert to Browning, the investigator to confine himself to the comparatively safe field of ancient history, the theorist to live in the future, and the[6] student of social conditions to content himself with flower missions and soup-kitchens? If it can be shown that conditions are worse than they have ever been before, and that discussion and investigation are responsible for this deterioration, then assuredly the club should change the field of its activity, and all discussion of the household affairs should cease.

But the immediate dissolution of the club studying household economics is not imminent. The premises on which its detractors base their criticisms are false, and hence the conclusions deduced from these premises are illogical and unreasonable. All literature goes to show that an ideal condition of domestic service exists and has existed only in the castles of Spain. And recent literature and recent legislation do show that some little progress has been made in the study of domestic service as an occupation, in spite of the fact that individual housekeepers still have and always will have trials and[7] perplexities that at times seem almost overwhelming. The Hudson empties its waters into the ocean, yet twice each day the mightier force of the ocean tide turns the current back upon itself,—in winter it bears upstream the moving mass of ice, and in summer it makes its overbalancing power felt almost to the very source of the great river.

The individual housekeeper feels only the force of the household current that bears her helpless to her destination,—she forgets the still stronger force of society that makes itself felt over and beyond that of the individual home.

In balancing the accounts of domestic service and in asking what has been accomplished in the past ten years in the direction of improvement, it must be frankly said at the outset that it is probably just as difficult to-day to secure good household employees as it was ten years ago,—perhaps even more difficult; that wages are[8] probably even higher than at that time; that the service rendered is no more efficient; that recommendations are no more reliable; that cooks still have tempers; that coachmen sometimes drink; that maids have “followers;” that nursery girls gossip in the parks with policemen; that new employees engaged fail to keep the engagement; that valuable china is broken, and that household supplies are wasted.

But if the work of these years has not borne immediate fruit, it has not been without results that will sometime come to fruition. These results are seen in the distinct, positive, and direct improvement in the literature of the subject; flippancy is giving place to seriousness in considering the relations of mistress and maid; historical and statistical investigations of the question have multiplied and become more thorough and elaborate; substantial facts are supplanting sentimentality and visionary theories in the discussions on the subject; a diagnosis of the case is being[9] made, and the prescription of a remedy is withheld while the examination is progressing; humble-mindedness and willingness to learn are now found where formerly there were absolute certainty and positiveness of conviction in dealing with the question; in a definite way an improvement in legislation has been made, disreputable methods of employment agencies have been exposed, social oases have been planted in desert places, and, in general, a concrete method of procedure has been substituted for polite abstractions and innocuous generalities. All this means that a long step forward has been taken within the past decade.

The great improvement in the character of the general literature of the subject is seen in the gradual disappearance of the fault-finding, the sentimental, the goody-goody magazine article, and the appearance in its place of genuine contributions to the subject, like those recently made to the “Atlantic Monthly” by Miss Jane Seymour[10] Klink and Miss Frances A. Kellor. Miss Jane Addams in “A Belated Industry”[1] has dealt most thoroughly with the economic phases of the subject, as has Mrs. Mary Roberts Smith in her admirable article on “Domestic Service; the Responsibility of Employers.”[2] Mr. Bolton Hall has set forth most vigorously the employee’s side of the case in “The Servant Class on the Farm and in the Slums;”[3] while a symposium on the subject by a group of men has recently discussed in an impartial manner many of the difficulties of the situation.

Pure literature also makes its contribution, and Mrs. Mary Hartwell Catherwood has recently given a charming picture of “A Convent Man-Servant.”[4] Nothing could prove more effectively the change in the attitude of the public mind toward the subject[11] than does the contrast presented between such a sketch, drawn with light and sympathetic pen, and that given in the satires of Dean Swift and of Defoe. The very absence of the figure of a domestic servant in the modern novel, and in current popular literature in every form, is in itself an indication of a changed attitude of the public mind toward the question as a whole. Figaro, and even Sam Weller, are almost as far removed from us as are the servants of Potiphar and of the Queen of Sheba.

The attitude of the daily press toward the subject of domestic service certainly leaves something yet to be desired,—the stock jests on the impertinent maid and the ignorant mistress, like those on the mother-in-law and the summer girl, die hard, but they will go in time.

The historical investigations of the subject have been few in number, but they have been of great value. Mr. Albert Matthews has placed all students of the subject under obligation to him by his exhaustive study,[12] “The Terms Hired Man and Help,”[5] as Mr. James D. Butler had previously done by his investigations on “British Convicts shipped to American Colonies,”[6] and Dr. Karl Frederick Geiser by his work on “Redemptioners and Indented Servants in the Colony and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”[7]

The public library is always first to create as well as to satisfy a demand for literature on subjects of general interest. It is therefore not surprising to find that the Providence Public Library as far back as 1893 issued a bibliography of all works and magazine articles on domestic service, which has been followed by the still more exhaustive reference-list published in 1898 on the general subject of domestic science; and that the Salem Public Library has a similar list. The New York State Library has published a comprehensive bibliography[13] of the whole subject of domestic economy, and it sends out, to all parts of the state, traveling libraries of the best volumes on the same subject,—the list of the volumes included being in itself an excellent guide to the study of household economics. But the greatest of all steps in advance has been made by those libraries that have changed the classification of works attempting to treat scientifically the subject of domestic service from the class of Domestic Economy to that of Economics proper. The change seems slight, but it is a recognition of the intimate relation that exists between domestic service and other forms of industry.

The statistician, like the librarian, is also quick to create as well as to respond to the demand for information of a serious nature, and this has been shown in the growing recognition of the importance of domestic service as a field for statistical research. Among the most thorough of these statistical investigations is that carried on by[14] Miss Isabel Eaton,—recently fellow of the College Settlements’ Association,—in regard to negro domestic service in the seventh ward of Philadelphia.[8] Miss Eaton has made an exhaustive study of one phase of the subject in a limited area, considering not only the number of negroes thus employed, but the methods of living, savings, and expenditures, amusements and recreations, length and quality of the service, conjugal condition, illiteracy, and health. The work has been done in a thoroughly scientific manner, and the results form an admirable presentation of negro service in a single ward of one city.

Similar thorough investigations of special aspects of the question have been carried on by Miss Mary W. Dewson and Miss Edith G. Fabens for the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union of Boston, and by Miss Gertrude Bigelow, fellow of the Association[15] of Collegiate Alumnæ, at the School of Housekeeping. They have collected statistics in regard to the hours of labor in domestic service, the social conditions of domestic service, household expenses, and the relative cost of home-cooked and of purchased food. The results of these investigations have been collected by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, and the reports based on them have been commented on by the press. Scientific information in regard to the subject has thus been widely circulated, and this must have been effective in changing somewhat the attitude of the public mind toward the subject as a whole. Mention must also be made of the “Twentieth Century Expense Book,” prepared by Miss Mary W. Dewson; its widespread use would be of service in affording opportunity for a comparative study of household expenses.

It was early recognized that some of the most difficult factors of the problem concerned the intelligence office, and investigations[16] on a somewhat limited scale were carried on in several cities; but, largely owing to political considerations, it was not deemed advisable to publish the results. The most thorough and systematic investigation undertaken in this direction has been that of Miss Frances A. Kellor, whose “Out of Work,” based on a study of more than seven hundred agencies, has laid bare the evils of the present system of securing new employees, as seen by employer, employee, and manager of the agency. A body of facts has thus been made available that must prove of the highest service in any attempt to cope with the notorious evils attending many agencies.

The state bureaus of labor have in several instances done valiant service to the cause through the official investigations carried on. As far back as 1872 the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor devoted four and a half pages of its annual report to domestic labor. But the first real investigation of the subject made by[17] a state bureau of labor was probably that undertaken by the Minnesota Bureau in 1890. This has been followed by special investigations in other states,—notably Kansas and Michigan,—and in Canada. Moreover, it must be remembered that many bureaus, while making no special investigation of domestic service, have incidentally considered the subject in connection with their investigations of general labor questions. Most of all is encouragement to be found in the comprehensive investigation recently carried on under the direction of the Industrial Commission.

These investigations enumerated have been of a severely scientific, statistical nature, and have been carried on by state or national organizations. But other studies no less important have been made by organizations of a purely private or of a semi-public character. Notable among these has been the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, several branches of which have been most active in making studies of[18] domestic service, both as a special field for investigation and also in connection with the larger subjects of home economics and domestic science. Students in colleges and universities have made special studies in the same field, and in some instances have made distinct contributions to the subject. This work has been of most value, however, in the indication it has given of a desire on the part of college-trained investigators to make domestic service a subject of serious consideration.

Domestic service has been until very recently a field untouched by the statistician and investigator. The studies already made show not so much what has been done as how much yet remains to be done. But the territory is already being occupied. Trained investigators are mapping out the field, workers are at hand, and in a few years we shall have a body of facts that will afford a sufficient basis for scientific deductions in regard to the condition of domestic service in the entire country.

[19]

Opinions may honestly differ as to whether it is advisable to substitute in schools and colleges subjects along the line of household affairs for other subjects more properly classed as liberal studies. But it is interesting to note how much has been done in this direction. Courses in household economics have been given in recent years in the state universities of Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin, as well as in the Leland Stanford Junior University, while Columbia University through Teachers College has offered similar work.

In many agricultural colleges, and in seminaries and academies like those in Auburndale, Massachusetts, and Painesville, Ohio, there are such courses in the curricula. On the other hand, there can be no question whatever as to the propriety and necessity of introducing, as has already been done, courses in domestic science into the great technical schools, such as Pratt, Drexel, and Armour institutes.

[20]

The School of Housekeeping established in Boston in 1897 under the auspices of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union went still further, in that it was not so much a technical school as a more truly genuine professional school for the training of experts in the great profession of housekeeping. The honorable record it made while an independent institution gives reason to believe that, now that it has been merged in Simmons College, it will go on to still greater achievements under the new conditions. The establishment of similar schools elsewhere has been much discussed, while in some places there have been sporadic efforts to establish classes in household training. Indeed, it must be said that in certain classes of fashionable schools it is at this moment the latest fad to have instruction in all household matters, quite is much as in art and music.

Study and investigations have led to organization, and the first association in the field was the National Household[21] Economic Association, formed in 1893, with branches in many states, some of which did admirable work.

The Lake Placid Conference that met first in 1899 is not strictly an organization, but an informal gathering of workers who have discussed the subject particularly on its scientific side, since the attendance has been largely made up of those interested in the educational and scientific side of household economics. Its proceedings give an admirable summary of the latest scientific discussions of the subject.

The most recent as well as the most important of all such organizations has been that of the Inter-Municipal Research Committee formed “for the purpose of studying existing phases of household work, to aid in securing fair conditions for employer and employee, and to place their relations on a sound business basis.” Much has already been accomplished by it, especially in the direction of investigating employment agencies, establishing a bureau of information,[22] and studying the conditions under which colored girls from the South are brought to the North to enter domestic service. Its programme for the future lays out a constantly enlarging sphere of activities.

All these investigations and educational measures have been undertaken in the belief that household employment has its economic side, like other forms of industry. The widespread recognition of this fact has been a most significant advance, since earlier discussions of the subject had considered only the ethical factors involved. But an interesting reversion to the more purely ethical consideration of the question has been seen in the various efforts to follow the injunction of Charles Reade: “Put yourself in his place.” A number of young women have entered domestic service in disguise, and from personal experience have narrated the life of a domestic employee. It may well be questioned whether the actual results reached are commensurate with the effort expended;—the experiment[23] has meant months of unnatural life and strained relationships, and in the end we probably know little more in regard to the condition of domestic employees than could be known by turning the inner light of our own consciousness on our own households and those of our acquaintances. But the experiment has been interesting as indicative of a determined effort to look at the subject from every point of view.

It is not surprising, in view of all the agitation of the question in our own country, to find that a similar interest has been aroused elsewhere. In Germany, that home of conservatism in all domestic affairs, an elaborate statistical investigation has been carried on by Dr. Oscar Stillich, and its results published in an exhaustive work entitled “The Status of Women Domestics in Berlin.”[9] Nor again is it surprising to find that neither official nor domestic Berlin has taken kindly to the investigation, since[24] bureaucracy has in it no place for private initiative, and the Kinder, Küchen, Kirchen theory of domestic life has resented what has been deemed unwarranted interference in private affairs. But it is a matter of congratulation that the author has been of undaunted courage, and that his work stands as a thoroughly scientific investigation, and therefore the most valuable contribution yet made in any country to the theory and condition of domestic service.

Two things of special encouragement must be noted. One is the changing attitude of domestic employees themselves toward their own occupation, and the other is the introduction of men into a field where it has always been held that by divine ordinance women ruled supreme.

The number of domestics who have shown any interest in the question is indeed, as yet, infinitesimal in comparison with the total number in the occupation, but five righteous men shall save the city. Here and there one is found who realizes that[25] domestic employees must be ready to help themselves if help is to come from others, that it is possible for them to improve the conditions of domestic service through their own efforts, that respect for any occupation comes, as those connected with it command respect for it, through their own attitude toward it. This is as yet realized by so few that no appreciable results can be seen with the naked eye, but the leaven is working.

A very welcome and appreciable change has come through the practical interest in the question shown by men. They have lectured and written on the subject, and have listened to the lectures on it given by women. This means that the subject is being recognized by them as worthy of study and discussion and as of importance to all—to men and to women alike—who are interested in the welfare of society. On its practical side also the interest of men is making itself felt. Chafing-dish courses have been opened for men, where they have[26] learned the preparation of the luxuries of the table, as the rough-and-ready experiences of camp-life in summer vacations and in military campaigns have taught them how to prepare the necessities of life. Young men in college and young men living in bachelors’ apartments are proud of their attainments in afternoon teas and chafing-dish suppers, while men trained as nurses learn the preparation of delicacies for the sick. It is true, indeed, that cooking-classes are but indirectly connected with domestic service, but everything that breaks down artificial barriers, and permits the free industrial entrance of both men and women into whatever occupation they prefer, is a direct gain to every line of work. Any one whose attention has been turned in the direction of securing household employees must constantly come in contact with the fact that there is a considerable number of men engaged in household employments for remuneration.

Does this enumeration of the progress of[27] the past ten years seem indeed like an Homeric catalogue of the ships? It may, yet the ships are bound for a definite haven, and must in time enter port.

If one lasting gain of these years has come to be an appreciation of the necessity of diagnosing the disease before prescribing a remedy, it must follow that the remedy prescribed fits the disease. Has it been shown as a result of exhaustive and exhausting investigation that the great barrier to the entrance of competent men and women into domestic employment is the social one,—it follows that efforts are being turned toward leveling this barrier. If we have learned that the loneliness of the life is in sharp contrast to the opportunity for comradeship presented in other industrial pursuits, we have thereby learned to ward against this loneliness by encouraging means of wholesome recreation. When scientific research has disclosed the plague spots in the employment agency and the intelligence office, restrictive legislation has[28] followed. If it has been found that the weak and the ignorant have been taken advantage of by the strong and the knowing, efforts for moral regeneration have been put forth. Since we have realized that in the household, as elsewhere, it is impossible for the blind to lead the blind, technical schools have offered instruction in household affairs to employers of household employees.

Yet when we look over the field still to be reclaimed in the interests of comfortable home life, more than enough causes for discouragement remain. Housekeepers still carry on their households in defiance of all business methods; ignorant women boast that they “have never so much as boiled an egg in their life,” and complain that their cooks will not stay with them; idle women spend their time in playing bridge, and wonder why their maids are discontented; men boast at their tables of their shrewdness in obtaining something for nothing, and cannot understand why[29] petty thieving goes on in their households; society receives the once, twice, and thrice divorced, but draws the social line at the cook and the butler; communities tolerate by the score the places where domestic employees, as others, can find recreation and amusement of every questionable kind, but the communities can yet be counted on one hand where they can obtain genuine, wholesome, attractive recreation; the church, with a few exceptions, is prone to close its doors, except for Sunday and midweek evening service, and to expend its efforts on fine music, with church suppers to foot the bills,—forgetting the poverty of interests in the lives of so many in the community.

But when all has been said, it must be felt that the balance shows much to the credit of domestic service,—a balance due to the capital invested in it through the study of conditions made by both men and women. In no country are these conditions so favorable as they are in America[30] to-day. England has its well-trained, obsequious butler, Germany has its police regulations of servants, France has its chef, Italy has hopeless machines who are “really servants.” America has none of these, but it has men and women who believe that if the future holds for us a solution of the problem it lies, not in the direction of reproducing on American soil the English flunkey, or in the introduction of German governmental control, or in increasing the number of French chefs who shall give us endless varieties of new soups and salads, or yet in crushing all interest in life out of the hearts and souls of those who serve us, as a pitiless fate seems to have done in Italy; but men and women who believe that the solution lies in the path of hard, toilsome investigation, to which students must come without prejudice and with a fearless acceptance of the results of such investigations.

In no country are the conditions of domestic service so hopeful as they are[31] to-day in America, and it is in large part due to our theory of education which has been in practical force for more than a generation. Men and women receive the same school, college, and university training, and this training enables women to order their households, on their mechanical side, in the same systematic way that the business enterprises of men are managed. The result of this is that matters pertaining to the household command the respect as well as the sentimental consideration of men, and that men and women are more and more becoming co-workers in all efforts to secure improvement. Each year the proportion of housekeepers with trained minds increases, and in the same proportion the number increases of housekeepers who make intelligent demands on their employees, who do not encourage poor service by tolerating it, who realize their responsibility to other households, and understand that “every irresponsible mistress makes life more difficult for every[32] other mistress and maid.” It is at least significant that this progress has been made in a country where the education of men and women is precisely the same, and that the least advance has been made in those which arrange a special curriculum for women and which profess to train girls and young women specially for domestic life. America holds that education means for women, as well as for men, intellectual training rather than the accumulation of information without it, and that the value of this is seen, in the case of women, in the intelligent study they are everywhere making of household affairs.

When the vital question in Italy was that of independence from Austria and of unity under an Italian government, Mazzini said, with a sublime appreciation of the principle involved, “Without a country and without liberty, we might perhaps produce some prophets of art, but no vital art. Therefore it was best for us to consecrate our lives to the solution of the[33] problem, ‘Are we to have a country?’” It is possible to have peace and contentment in individual households along with ignorance of the economic laws that govern the household, but there can be no radical reform in domestic service in this or any other country that does not recognize the inseparable connection between domestic service and all other forms of labor, and that does not make this fact its starting-point. If the difficulties in the present situation, which are all too evident, are to be overcome, it can only be by devoting our energies, as did Mazzini in Italy, not so much to temporizing in our households as rather to the slow methods of careful, patient investigation of the conditions without. The immediate gain to ourselves may be slight, but those who come after us may reap the benefits.

It is reported that a distinguished foreigner was once visiting a well-known woman’s college, and after listening to the explanation of the work carried on there, inquired of its president, “Pardon me, but how does this affect the chances of the young ladies?” Some years since several persons were speaking of the recent marriage of a college woman and the remark was made, “What a pity to have so fine an education wasted in keeping house!” Not long ago a college woman was discussing the education of women with a young German Ph.D., and found that her arguments in its favor were met by her opponent with the triumphant question, “But can these young women cook?”

These three incidents, which could be multiplied in kind indefinitely, are illustrations of the somewhat contradictory but current opinions regarding the mutual relations[38] of education and household affairs. It is apparently the common belief, first, that educated women never marry; second, that if they do marry, their education is wasted; third, that if such women marry and do not consider their education wasted in the household, the education received has at all events given evidence of nothing either useful or practical.

It is not surprising that the mental agility involved in reaching these somewhat diverse conclusions finds its parallel in the remedy usually proposed for alleviating so distressing a condition. If college women never marry, but find when they do marry that their education is wasted because they have not learned in college how to bake bread, then, it is argued, let us have compulsory teaching of domestic science in the public schools and send our daughters to private schools.

The beneficial results of the introduction of domestic science into the public schools would undoubtedly be very great, did any[39] one understand very clearly what is included under the head of domestic science, were any one at present prepared to teach it, and were it quite evident who should study it. At present these difficulties would seem to militate against the widespread introduction of this subject into our educational system.

If it is asked what is meant by domestic science, there is a temptation to make the irrelevant reply that historians, economists, political scientists, and sociologists are still attempting to delimit their respective fields, each claiming that its territory includes that preëmpted by the other three. It is as difficult to define the domain of domestic science as it is that of sociology. Does it include the architectural construction of a house? May it perhaps go back of the construction and include the selection of a site? Does it even involve the principles in the choice of a suitable residential city? Is it possible that behind this lies the question of selecting that state of the Union that is[40] most advantageous? If the problem is to be worked backwards, it must also be worked forwards, and it must be decided whether the interior decoration of a house comes within the jurisdiction of domestic science. Would this comprise instruction in wood-carving, pyrography, china painting, and basketry? But it seems reasonable to pass from the house itself to the activities carried on within it. Should these activities be separated into different classes, such as those pertaining to the care of the house, the preparation of food, the making of clothing, the physical care of children, the instruction of household helpers, the entertainment of guests, the training of husbands and wives? If this or any other classification is made, should domestic science consider one, all, or any combination of these classes?

But one of the tendencies of the time is toward intensive work, and the courses in domestic science should perhaps reflect that tendency. If so, should we not look for[41] courses to be offered in napkin embroidery, Hardanger work, and Mexican drawn work, in the preparation of wheatena, toast water, and flaxseed tea, in the making of cheese fondu, pineapple canapes, and ornamental frosting? Should not the mysteries of thin sauces, medium sauces, and thick sauces be elucidated? If on the other hand the opposite tendency is observable, should we not expect courses in the formal and informal entertainment of guests and the philosophy of a menu, even that of a bill of fare?

The difficulties of the situation are comparable only to those of the Bellman who

But granting that some agreement could be reached as to the content of the term[42] domestic science, there would still remain the question as to how instruction in it could be given. We have learned in nearly every other department of education the extreme difficulty of teaching what we do not know, but we still cling to the superstition that it is possible to teach domestic science in private and public schools when the university has not as yet made the household the subject of scientific or economic investigation. The one or two notable exceptions to this statement do not invalidate its general truth.

The reasons are manifold why the university does not as yet investigate the household, although every other field of human knowledge and activity has apparently been taken into its libraries, its laboratories, and its workshops; but undoubtedly one of the weightiest is the survival of the tradition that affairs of the household concern only women, that women work always through instinct and intuition, and therefore that the household[43] is not a suitable field for scientific investigation. But with the breaking down of the artificial barriers between the interests of men and of women, it is found that the affairs of the household do concern every member of it. Modern investigations in psychology are showing that the mental processes of women are precisely the same as those of men. It therefore remains for the university to recognize that the household is worthy of investigation. That there is scope for such an inquiry would seem evident from the curriculum of an excellent school of domestic science, selected from among hundreds of other illustrations that might be given. Course I in Domestic Science places in conjunction lectures on food adulteration, bacteriology, furniture, decorations, textiles, and housekeeping in other lands—an enumeration not saved even by alphabetical arrangement.

But not only is there difficulty in deciding what should be included under the head of domestic science and how instruction in it[44] should be given, but a third difficulty lies in deciding who should be instructed in the subject. If it is said that all young women should receive such instruction, we are confronted by the fact that the young woman trained for domesticity takes up stenography and occupies a hall bedroom, or becomes a commercial traveler and spends her life in hotels and on railway trains; the girl taught sewing and cooking in the public school goes into the shop or the factory; the young woman who frankly acknowledges her engagement spends the time prior to her marriage in preparing her trousseau and in embroidering her initials on her household linen. The young woman who has prepared herself for the profession of law or of medicine decides to marry and goes into business partnership with her husband. It would seem as if all plans for teaching household economics in the college or in the public school with reference to preparing young women for their future careers as housekeepers must be futile until[45] the orbit of the matrimonial comet can be predicted.

Yet it must be recognized that college education has already done much for the household, and presumably for that somewhat vague field denominated “domestic science.”

The housekeeper finds herself in the same position as does the lawyer, the physician, and the clergyman. All are educated side by side throughout a college course. In a subsequent professional career, the lawyer forgets his Greek, the physician his history, and the clergyman his mathematics; but there remains with each one a precipitate of far more value than the original compound. The lawyer is no longer able to conjugate a verb in μι, but his Greek has given him an accuracy and precision of thought that, other things being equal, has placed him professionally far in advance of his untrained associates. The physician has forgotten the various steps in the development of cabinet government[46] in England, but his history has left him a ready sympathy in dealing with men and a vision into their future that will long outlive his knowledge of the facts of history. The clergyman can no longer demonstrate Sturm’s theorem or Horner’s method, but his mathematics has given him a clearness of reasoning that renders him an invincible opponent in all battles for the right. In all these cases the residuum of facts remaining from a college education is comparatively small. Knowledge that is not constantly used passes out of mind, yet, like the food assimilated by the physical body, it serves its purpose in the mental strength and energy gained through it. Indeed, it may be said that information becomes more and more the dross, and education the pure metal remaining from a general school or college training.

The embryo lawyer, the physician, the clergyman, have throughout a college course been pursuing parallel courses of training; it has given them little that they[47] can make of immediate use in the office or the study, but it has laid the foundation for that special research necessary in every profession. The professional school builds on the training of the college, and it not only gives the information necessary in a professional career, but it opens the door to the vast field of investigation which it is one of the aims of every professional man to explore.

Thus the housekeeper, forgetting her Latin, Greek, and mathematics, her French, German, and history, her biology, astronomy and economics, retains as the most valuable heritage of her education a training in habits of accuracy, observation, good judgment, and self-control that enables her to be the master of any unexpected situation that may arise. From the beginning of school life until the close of the college course the conditions surrounding the young man and the young woman are similar. Each has the benefit of all the information and the general educational[48] training the college can give. To each alike the three great professions of law, medicine, and theology open their doors and invite special study and investigation. But if the young woman, turning her back on these attractive fields of work, desires to study the household in a similar professional way, she finds it a terra incognita. She realizes that absolutely nothing has been done in any educational institution toward investigating its past history, its present conditions, or its future needs. It is said in another field that every lawyer owes a debt of gratitude to his profession which can be paid only by some personal contribution to the sum of knowledge in his profession. One of his aims, therefore, as is that of every professional man, is to leave the world richer in his own field through the investigation of its unexplored parts. Thus law, medicine, and theology grow by virtue of the accumulated wisdom of those engaged in their pursuit. But the housekeeper finds that housekeeping as[49] a profession has made no advances. It has not grown through the accumulated wisdom of past generations as have the so-called learned professions. Whatever advances it has made have come from impetus given it by other occupations through their own progress. Housekeeping affairs have been passive recipients of general progress, not active participants in it.

If, then, domestic science is to be made a subject of serious study and is to be accorded a permanent place in the school curriculum, if the household is to profit by the educational progress of the day, it can only be after the university has taken the initiative and has made all matters pertaining to the house and home a subject of scientific research.

[50]
[51]

In a Western city, somewhat addicted to the formation of literary clubs and reading-circles, is a company of women who meet for the study of history, closing the afternoon’s work with a discussion of current events. In alluding to these discussions, a member once said, “No matter what subject is introduced, we always drift off to the woman question.” The half-jesting remark has in it more of wisdom than of criticism. The so-called “woman question” is not, as was once popularly supposed, synonymous either with woman suffrage or with the higher education of woman—it is as broad and as deep as the thoughts and activities of woman. It was inevitable that for many years efforts should be made to open new occupations to women, to give them better preparation for their work, and to secure[54] fair remuneration for service well done. It was inevitable, because, however much some sociologists may wish it otherwise, the fact remains that woman is and must be to a certain extent a wage-earner. These efforts have been reasonably successful; almost every avenue of work is open to women, and almost every coveted opportunity for preparation is hers. The reaction, however, has come, and the pertinent question is being asked, “Why has so little been done to improve the work of woman in those fields which have always without question been considered legitimately hers?”

A glance at our periodical literature does indeed show unusual interest in all questions affecting domestic life. Economists are asking why the wages paid for domestic service are higher than those paid the average woman in other occupations, and why, in spite of this, the demand for household workers is greater than the supply. Philanthropists are puzzled to know why girls prefer to live in crowded tenement-houses[55] on the merest pittance rather than enjoy many of the comforts of home life as a household employee. Experienced housekeepers find life a burden when it becomes necessary to change the divinity who rules the kitchen or the nursery, and wonder why it is so difficult to secure efficient help. Educated women without homes who desire to learn the principles of domestic science can find no explanation for the fact that the United States with its hundreds of thousands of schools affords scarcely one where this subject can be studied as a serious profession as is law, medicine, or theology. None of these questions has been satisfactorily answered. The editor who discourses of “half-baked writers on political economy” settles one of them by saying that there is no reason whatever why women should dislike domestic service. But the autocratic assertion has not visibly increased the number of women desiring employment as house-servants. The benevolent individual who has not yet learned that[56] thousands of girls have neither mothers nor homes, blandly answers another of these questions by saying, “Let girls learn housekeeping at home.” The world at large cuts the gordian knot and says, “It is an unfortunate condition of affairs, but we cannot reform all evils at once.”

Before considering the relation that college women sustain to the general subject of domestic science, it must be noted that the subject is one of general interest.

It is of interest to all women, because so large a proportion of them marry and become actively engaged in housekeeping; the number of married women who do not keep house is possibly equaled by the number of unmarried women who do. Moreover, the majority of women whose primary occupation is not housekeeping are at various times called upon to spend a portion of their time in household duties. It is of interest to all men, whether they have a full appreciation of it or not, because all questions affecting the house and the[57] home are so inextricably bound up with all questions of life.

It must be assumed at the outset that there is a necessity for improvement in the conduct of household affairs. As the household is at present organized, the duties of the housekeeper are multifarious. The ideal housekeeper must have a knowledge of culinary affairs. Not only must she know how to make food palatable, but she must understand its nutritive and its economic value. She must be able to superintend the cutting and making of ordinary garments. She must understand the over-sight of her household employees; the details of marketing; the principles of laundry work; the keeping of household accounts; the care of the sick. She must know how to care for the house and all of its furniture, from attic to cellar. She must be master of all these special lines of work, and know a thousand and one things about the household not enumerated. She must not only be the housekeeper, but the homekeeper.[58] She must furnish her house with taste, and often at the same time with economy. She should understand the principles of the kindergarten, and not shrink from applying the fundamental ideas of ethics and psychology to the training of children. She must at all times be ready to perform her social obligations in the circle in which she moves.

It is generally assumed that the only preparation necessary to become proficient in these multiform tasks is found in the instinctive love of domestic life common to all women. But this of itself does not make a woman a successful housekeeper any more than a taste for medicine renders a young man a skillful surgeon, or a talent for law constitutes a learned jurist. There has been a growing recognition of this fact, but at the same time it is said that the home training of every girl ought to be sufficient. There are many reasons why this is not so. If we apply the principles to the case of girls who become household employees, it is seen to[59] be at fault. It is from the ranks below the so-called middle class, to use an invidious phrase, that the great army of household employees is recruited. It is impossible for a girl belonging to this class to go into a family whose social advantages have been greater than her own, and become at once an adept in the conventional forms of table service, an expert cook, or a good general houseworker. She has had neither the means, nor the opportunity, to gain even a knowledge of what duties will be required of her, to say nothing of knowing how to perform them. An incompetent mistress is unable to give the necessary instructions; a competent one has often neither the time nor the patience to undertake such training, and indeed it ought not to be expected of her any more than it is supposed that a banker who desires an expert accountant will teach the applicant the process of addition and subtraction.

If, on the other hand, it is assumed that the home training in domestic affairs is[60] sufficient for girls of the middle and upper classes, there is also danger of error. It is often quite as difficult to give regular instruction in the home in these matters as it is in the ordinary school branches. The Law School of the University of Michigan, after thirty years’ experience, said a few years since in regard to the previous reading of law: “It is not often that the student receives the needed assistance except in law schools. The active practitioner, engrossed with the care of business, cannot, or at least, as proved by experience, does not, furnish the students who place themselves in his charge the attention and assistance essential to give a correct direction to their reading, and to teach them to apply it usefully and aptly in their subsequent professional life.” This same principle too often applies in regard to housework, even when the teacher is the mother. The most competent mothers often have the most incompetent daughters—it is far more easy to do the work[61] than to teach another how to do it. Sometimes it is assumed that the daughter can learn, as the mother has learned, by the hard road of experience. It is, also, too often a question of how the blind shall lead the blind. Again, many girls are early left without homes, and thus deprived of the opportunity.

There are evidences of some appreciation of these facts. Cooking-schools spring up spasmodically, where in “ten easy lessons” the mysteries of theoretical and practical cooking are disclosed. Some of our fashionable boarding-schools, ever on the alert to foresee a public demand, announce courses in domestic science. Charity schools in our larger cities attempt to teach girls cooking and sewing in connection with arithmetic and grammar. The great interest in industrial education has had its influence. In some cities cooking and sewing have been made a part of the required work in all the public schools, not so much, however, from a desire to[62] teach these branches as from a belief that the hand as well as the brain needs training. New York is the home of the kitchen-garden, where the thought of the originator has been to teach the children of the poorer classes how to make their own homes brighter, rather than to train them to do housework for remuneration. In many of our large cities schools have been established to give domestic training, but this training, unfortunately, is often given more in name than in reality. All these forms of activity are indications of a desire to help lessen, wholly or in part, the widespread ignorance of domestic work and aversion to it.

Several reasons for this ignorance have already been suggested. Housework has always been classed in the category, not of skilled but of unskilled labor. Nor has it in every-day business life received that practical consideration which the ponderous volumes on the influence of woman would lead one to expect. Popular sentiment[63] has not yet demanded that when a woman marries she shall possess at least a theoretical if not a practical knowledge of household science; it is deemed sufficient if she acquire it after marriage at an enormous cost of time, patience, energy, sometimes even of domestic happiness. Nor has public opinion demanded that every woman who does not marry should have a general knowledge of domestic affairs; it is assumed that she has no use for such knowledge, either practically or as an accomplishment.

When popular opinion insists that every woman who marries shall have a practical familiarity with these subjects as strongly as it insists that every man who marries shall be able to provide a comfortable home for a wife; when public opinion insists that every woman, whether she marries or not, shall have an education so symmetrical that she can fulfill any duty which as an individual she may be called upon to perform, then will more serious efforts be made toward lessening this ignorance.

[64]

This lack of knowledge explains to a certain extent why so many are unwilling to perform household work. It is natural to dislike work that brings failure, to enjoy what brings success. The average girl who “hates to sew” and “hates to do housework” would often find pleasure in both did she but have systematic knowledge concerning the work. The city boarding-house, crowded with women who “can’t endure housekeeping,” is one product of this combination of ignorance and aversion. In New York City there are said to be but thirteen thousand families in individual houses. The rest of the population are crowded into tenements, rookeries, boarding-houses, flats, and hotels.

But there are other reasons besides ignorance that explain this aversion to household work. There is a well-founded belief that the majority of women dislike both manual labor and self-supporting labor, and this fact applies both to housekeeper and to housemaid. We have passed the[65] stage when it is permitted a man to say, “The world owes me a living.” We not only allow a woman to say this in effect, but we sometimes praise her for her womanliness in saying it. How often one hears the remark, “Her father has abundant means, it is unnecessary for her to support herself.” The average woman without family cares is self-supporting because dire necessity compels, not because honorable work is the birthright inheritance of every human being. Again, the mistress of the household constantly speaks of the routine work of the house as drudgery, and the houseworker, whose chief interest in it is one of dollars and cents, coins a still harsher term, and calls work a curse.

This ignorance and aversion are too widespread, and have existed too many centuries to be removed in a single generation, nor can we expect any one remedy to prove a panacea. But we may ask how far the efforts made have proved successful. The cooking-school is now in vogue, and doubtless[66] has done much to teach new ways of preparing food, but the cooking-school has the same relation to the general subject of household science that an evening class in arithmetic has to a college education. The mistress learns a few things in a general way, and the maid does not care to learn at all. It is ephemeral in its nature, and while it attracts public attention to the need of more thorough instruction on the subject, it is far from going to the root of the question, even of how to teach cooking. The same may be said in general of domestic economy in our fashionable schools. Sewing and cooking as taught in charity schools do apparently give practical help in teaching the children of the poor to assist in the care of their own homes; but this work, like that done in the public schools on the same lines, distinctly disclaims any desire to give technical information. In the public schools the object of instruction in sewing and cooking is purely an educational one, and it is an incidental result scarcely to be expected[67] when it leads girls to look upon housework as a means of support.

It has long been a belief with many, and one that it has been most difficult to give up, that schools for the training of domestic servants would do more than anything else to solve the domestic service problem, and thus indirectly provide for the overflow in shops and factories. In all of our large cities the experiment has apparently been faithfully tried. The theory has seemed unexceptionable, labor and expense have not been spared to carry it out, but the result has been, if not an utter failure, at least far from commensurate with the effort expended. In one school personally visited accommodations for twenty were found. When asked what was done in case there were more than twenty applicants for membership in the class, the superintendent replied that no such difficulty ever arose, as their numbers were never full. The answer was at least significant.

In one city the Women’s Guild organized[68] cooking-classes with the thought of domestic service in mind. In a demonstration course where only ten cents a lesson was charged, the average attendance was never more than fifteen or sixteen, the greatest number ever attending being thirty-two. In a course of practical lessons in cooking, given at equally reasonable rates, the class numbered only four or five. One of the most efficient managers of such schools says after twenty-five years of experience that she is forced to believe that nothing in this line can be done. Similar testimony comes from a gentleman of wide practical knowledge of philanthropic work in New York City, and on the theoretical side from a lady widely known for her writings on economic subjects. Miss Mary Rankin Hollar has recently investigated one hundred schools and classes where domestic training is supposed to be given. She finds that less than ten per cent give systematic work, and only two have any maids in their classes.[10] In the light of[69] these and of similar facts the conclusion must be accepted that the question cannot, certainly at present, be settled by establishing training-schools for employees, no matter how thoroughly equipped or how reasonable in charges these schools may be. The conclusion seems to be that all these efforts, from fashionable cooking-school to charity kitchen-garden, have not been able to remove, scarcely to lessen, either ignorance or prejudice.

The average housekeeper does not yet know the best, the easiest, the most practical, or the most scientific way to manage her household affairs. Her work is often monotonous and wearisome, and must be so until its true place as a profession is acknowledged. The inexperienced housekeeper recognizes her own likeness only too faithfully drawn by Dickens in Bella and her struggles with “The Complete British Housewife.” If she desires instruction, she finds it impossible to secure it in a systematic way. Kind friends offer suggestions,[70] the cook-book gives hints, and the “Housekeepers’ Guide” bridges over a temporary difficulty. But this combination of instruction in regard to isolated facts in housekeeping is much like the attempt to learn a new language by memorizing words from the dictionary.

It is not strange that the novice still believes that housekeeping can be learned only by experience, nor, on the other hand, is it any more strange that in the effort to gain this experience she too often breaks down in health, or gives up the attempt and resorts to boarding. The cooking-school and the class in domestic economy, when taught in connection with a dozen other subjects, will not solve the question for her.

While the mistress is unskilled in work, the maid will be unwilling to work. Bridget does not suspect that she does not rise to the social position to which she aspires because her conversation is ungrammatical, perhaps even vulgar, her manner insolent,[71] her spirit rebellious, her dress untidy and devoid of taste. She attributes her ill success to the work in which she is engaged. The facts most obvious to her are that her mistress does not understand practical housework, yet is socially her superior. She at once draws the conclusion that house service is degrading. She tries to escape to other work less remunerative but more satisfactory, and if she is unsuccessful, returns to house-service, determined to secure every possible privilege. She will not spend even three months’ time, or pay a nominal sum to learn housework, as a trade or profession. The training-school for domestic servants is a failure because they will not attend it.

It is said that the only way to strike at the root of all these difficulties is to dignify labor; the practical question is, how this is to be accomplished. In the light of all that has been done to attain this end, and the reasons for the comparative failure which has followed, may we not say that one great[72] difficulty has been the fact that reform has begun at the wrong end? unless the chasm has been bridged between kitchen and parlor we cannot dignify labor in the kitchen alone. All true reform must begin at the top. This has been the experience of every great movement that has looked toward the improvement of mankind.

But what is the relation that college women bear to these problems of the household? They cannot revolutionize society, nor would they if they could. They cannot bring about any reform either in mistress or in maid. It may be answered truly that they can do but little. They are few in numbers—and they cannot assume the ability to settle questions with which previous generations of women have not been able to grapple. But are they justified in shielding themselves behind these excuses and in refusing to look the question squarely in the face? Women have proved themselves equal both mentally and physically[73] to a college course, but if their training does not lead them to assist in the discussion of some of these vexed questions pertaining to the welfare of society, it may seriously be asked whether the higher education of women is worth all that it has cost. A statement as to what college women are now doing may perhaps be of help in answering what can be done.

A few years since a carefully prepared paper read before the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, showed that of the 2619 women graduates of the fourteen colleges then represented in the association, thirty-eight per cent were married, thirty-six per cent were teaching, five per cent were engaged in other occupations and professions, and twenty per cent were “at home,” that is engaged in no occupation for remuneration. Those married and at home, to whom the subject of domestic science is presumably of most interest, form fifty-nine per cent of the whole number, while the forty-one per cent engaged in teaching and other occupations[74] are certainly not indifferent to it. With trained mind and a realization that opportunity has brought responsibility, most often in a position where domestic affairs are those most prominently before her, the woman who is a college graduate is especially well situated to turn her attention to this subject.

What can she do? She can prove, as she is proving, that her college education has not unfitted her for domestic pursuits. Before the college door was opened to them, the education of women was largely a matter of information and accomplishment. Within two generations systematic training has been substituted for the acquisition of information and the advantage of this change should be seen first in improved methods of domestic work. The college graduate who is married or who is at home can prove more effectually than any other class of graduates the practical utility of college education for women. She can prove how puerile is the assertion that the[75] average girl does not need a thorough course of technical study, because her household duties will not demand a knowledge of these subjects. The lawyer forgets his science, the business-man his classics, the theologian his mathematics, and the physician his metaphysics, yet each proves daily the value of these studies. So the college woman brings into every-day life, and may bring still more, the evidences of the advantage to her of a college course. She may go further, and show that resources within herself enable her to rise above much of the inevitable drudgery of household work, and thus overcome, in a measure, the common distaste for routine duties.

The college woman can do much by way of discussion. The love of study fostered by her college course shows itself after graduation in the formation of clubs and societies for literary work. There is scarcely a town that has not from one to a dozen, and there are few college women who have[76] not belonged to one or more. There is a tendency, too, for college women to organize among themselves select classes for the pursuit of favorite studies. All of these clubs are valuable up to a certain point in giving help through association, but in too many cases they seem examples of misdirected effort. Their great numbers show that women have time and interest to give to intellectual matters. Cannot college women divert a part of this zeal from the discussion, for example, of the tulip mania in Holland, into the channels of social and domestic science? No company of political economists will ever work out for women “the servant-girl problem,” or make possible for women to learn systematic housekeeping. The college woman can do something—not everything—by showing that these subjects deserve consideration; that their proper place on the programme of the women’s club is not the closing half-hour of informal conversation, but the post of honor as one of the chief subjects of thought[77] and study. But she need not wait for the movements of the literary club; she can herself organize a society whose sole purpose shall be the discussion of ways and means to lessen the friction in the ordinary household between mistress and maid, to remedy the scarcity of competent help, to relieve the overburdened housewife, a society which shall attempt to understand the “saleslady” situation, and to study the causes of the prejudice that still clings to household service as well as the means of removing it. She can help to show women that it is a matter of more vital interest to themselves and to society as a whole to discuss these topics than to seek after information that may not be worth the acquisition.

There is another phase of the question the thoughtful consideration of which the college woman can urge. She can at least make the attempt—her prospects of success may seem dubious—to bring before her sisters the subject of the wise expenditure of money. Women have bequeathed[78] fortunes for every object from the endowment of theological seminaries to the establishment of a hospital for invalid cats; they have multiplied buildings and apparatus that language and science might be taught according to the Presbyterian, the Baptist, or the Methodist creed. The college woman may at least suggest that a long-felt want has been that of a polytechnic, an institution where the college graduate can learn household science as a serious profession, as an advocate or physician studies the principles of law and medicine. Such an institution, requiring a college degree for admission, and providing in a two years’ course for instruction in sanitary science, physiology and hygiene, the care of the sick, cooking, marketing, the care of the house, sewing, the principles of the kindergarten, artistic house-furnishing, domestic economy, and such other subjects as belong distinctively to the care of the house and home, would certainly have for a few years a limited number of students. An examination,[79] however, of all that has been done and of the underlying principles leads to the conclusion that more could ultimately be done in this way than in any other to dignify that part of labor connected with domestic occupations. It would most certainly not do everything—no one thing could do that—but it would do much.

In a word, the relation of college women to the question of domestic science is first of all the duty of recognizing the importance of the subject itself, and of its special importance to them as college women; and second, a duty of examination, of discussion, of intelligent study, of appeal to public sentiment, of effort to secure at no distant day the establishment of a technical school of domestic science which shall in no sense be a substitute for collegiate and academic training, but shall be built upon such training as its most secure foundation. The present strain coming upon the majority of women is too great to be much longer borne. Relief must come, either in improved facilities[80] for individual work, or in coöperative enterprises. The home must be preserved, and at the same time household work must be reduced to a minimum. College women owe it to themselves and to society to do their part toward attaining this end.

A wholesome corrective for the impatience with which we are wont to regard the lack of progress made in regard to all matters which concern the house and home was found at a recent International Health Exposition held in New York City. In one section was arranged an old-time sick-room, presided over by Sairey Gamp. The clock on the mantel pointed to the hour of midnight, and the patient was presumably sleeping, but on a feather bed, under heavy comfortables, with thick draperies hanging about the large high-post bedstead. On a table by the bedside were the remedies administered,—paregoric, salts, castor-oil, goose-grease, and other tradition-honored medicines. Another table bore the remains of the patient’s supper,—fried ham, bread and butter, cucumbers, and milk. Sairey[84] herself reposed in an armchair, flanked, on one side, by the empty gin-bottle, and, on the other, by a pot of tea.

In a neighboring booth was found a motley collection of old-time remedies. It comprised elderberry flowers for pleurisy, honey for insomnia, hornet’s-nest tea for colds, baking-soda for the stomach and for bee-stings, cold potatoes for burns, and hot potatoes for ear-aches, cobwebs for hemorrhage, a cat’s skin for pneumonia, to be applied while the animal was still warm, and bags of camphor and assafœtida to be worn around the neck for protection against disease. All of these remedies are within the recollection of most persons who have not yet passed middle life.

These two booths were the text from which the silent sermon of comparison was preached by the eighty booths containing the educational exhibits of the training-schools for nurses and of many modern hospitals. The old-time sick-room has given place to one not only attractive to the[85] eye, but furnished with every scientific appliance for the prevention as well as for the cure of disease. In place of Mrs. Gamp is the trained nurse of to-day, attractive in dress, agreeable in manner, intelligent in mind, scientific in methods of work, a friend and a companion, as well as a staff and a dependence. The contrast could not be more world-wide. Yet the time required to revolutionize methods of caring for the sick has been scarcely more than thirty years. The exhibit shown of a ward in Bellevue Hospital, in 1872, is almost as far removed from a modern hospital ward of to-day as it is from Mrs. Gamp.

What is the explanation of the transformation of Mrs. Gamp into the trained nurse, and of the evolution of the modern hospital and the modern sick-chamber from the old-time crude, semi-barbarous methods of treatment?

The secret of it all lies in the one word,—investigation. Investigation is the product[86] of training, of education, of an eager and absorbing desire for knowledge, of minds open to conviction and ready to hold the judgment in suspense until it can be based on facts. The steps in the process of the evolution are equally clear. Given an investigating spirit, it follows that every investigator must work with singleness of purpose, in his search for facts, that is, for truth; and that this truth, when found, is to be held, not as a personal acquisition, but as a good to be shared with all. Thus progress is made, not through the individual efforts of isolated investigators, who are working along parallel lines, but it is made by geometrical progression, because each investigator is able to take, as a starting-point, the goal reached by his predecessor, and because he knows that he is coöperating with all other investigators to secure the same end. Everywhere to-day scientists appreciate the fact that progress in science is conditioned on scientific investigation. They also appreciate the fact that this progress[87] can be made only as each investigator shares in the results obtained by every other investigator. Every scientific discovery made by one scientist becomes the common property of all. In this apparently simple fact lies the explanation of the disappearance of Sairey Gamp.

“Martin Chuzzlewit” was published six years before the first part of “David Copperfield” was issued. But while Mrs. Gamp has become but a name, Dora Copperfield is still with us, and he would be a rash prophet who would venture to predict the times and the seasons that wait upon her going.

Why does Dora Copperfield still tarry? Again the explanation is not far to seek. The household has not yet become a field for investigation. It resents intrusion into its domain and regards investigators as Paul Prys. It is sensitive to criticism, and it considers a suggestion of change as an unwarrantable interference with its affairs, and as an attack on it by outsiders. It does[88] not take kindly to new ideas, and it often rejects them on a priori grounds, not because experiment has proved them wrong. Clothed in a mantle of virtue, it feels itself above criticism, because the home is of divine origin.

Yet although intuition and instinct have so long been made to play the part in the household that ought to be taken by scientific investigation, it is not unreasonable to believe that a change must in time come. It is not many years since illness was attributed to divine interposition, which to-day is known to be the result of impure water, defective drainage, insufficient nourishment, or lack of ventilation. We must in time, although the specific time cannot be predicted, come to believe that women’s minds have been given them to use, and that nowhere can they be used more effectively than in the organization and management of a household.

This comparison has been suggested, because the question is so often asked:[89] Why can we not have trained domestics as we have trained nurses? The answer must be that, in the present condition of affairs, the resemblance between nurses and domestics is only superficial. The trained nurse is the product, not of the family that has suffered from the lack of such trained service, but of the discovery by the medical profession that its labors must be ineffectual if orders are not carried out by those who understand the reasons why these orders are given. The more rapid the advance in scientific investigation made in the medical world, the more rapid the advance made in all grades of service connected with the medical profession. Pressure is exerted from above and works downwards. More and more the subject of health becomes one of the prevention, rather than of the cure, of ill health. The distance between physician and nurse and nurse and patient grows less as each understands better the function each has to perform in securing good health.

[90]

Some parts of the household have already been put on a scientific basis. It is to-day protected from impure water-supply, from defective drainage, from poisonous foods, from contagious diseases, but not through the efforts of the household itself. These benefits it has reaped through the labors of scientific experts who, through unwearied investigation, have discovered the means of preventing certain large classes of diseases. Sanitary engineering and sanitary chemistry have become professions through the work of scientific investigators. When housekeepers, through scientific investigation, have made a profession of housekeeping, then, and not till then, will trained service in the household be possible.

It is very easy to see why progress in the household has up to this time been so slow, and why it has, for the most part, been made through forces exerted from without rather than from within. But the Chinese wall that has so long surrounded it is giving way, and the signs of the times point to[91] another international exposition, when, side by side with Mrs. Gamp and the trained nurse, will be found Dora Copperfield and the new home,—the product of the trained minds of scientific investigators.

[92]
[93]

The cynic observed yesterday that the interests of womankind were confined to the three D’s—Dress, Disease, and Domestics. To-day the bicycle has become a formidable competitor of dress and promises to do its part toward settling some of the disputed questions in regard to the rival it has partially supplanted. Biology is wrestling with disease, and bids fair to be the victor. Domestics still hold the field, but if business methods are introduced into the household, as it seems inevitable will be the case, the interests of women will have passed on and upward from the three D’s to the three B’s, and the cynic will be forced to turn his attention from woman to a more fruitful field.

It is not indeed strange that the old conception of household service should have[96] yielded so slowly its place in the thoughts of women. The whole subject of economic theory of which it is but a part is itself a recent comer in the field of discussion; it was scarcely more than a century and a quarter ago that Adam Smith wrote his “Wealth of Nations” and gave a new direction to economic thought.

As a result of these economic studies of the present century something has already been done to improve industrial conditions outside of the household. They have led to improved factory legislation, to better relations between employer and employee, to wide discussion of the principles on which business is conducted, but what has been accomplished has been brought about through an unrest and an agitation that have often brought disaster in their train.

From this general economic discussion the household has been in the main cut off, largely because it has been considered as belonging to the domain of sentiment rather than of business, because the household has[97] shrunk from all agitation and discussion of the questions with which it is immediately concerned, because it has refused to see that progress is conditioned on this agitation and discussion, because it has cried “Peace, peace, when there was no peace.” It is this very aloofness that constitutes to-day the most serious obstacle in the way of any improvement in domestic service—the failure on the part of men and women everywhere to recognize that the occupation is governed by economic law, that it is bound up inextricably with every other phase of the labor question, and that the initial step toward improvement must be the recognition of this fact. Housekeepers everywhere resent what they deem interference with their personal affairs; they betray an ill-concealed irritation when the economic side of the question is presented to them, and they believe, if their own household machinery runs smoothly, that no friction exists anywhere and that their own responsibility has ceased. Nothing to-day[98] is so characteristic of women as a class as their inability to assume an impersonal attitude toward any subject under discussion, while in methods of work they are prone to work from day to day and seldom plan for results to be reached years after a project has been set on foot.

This means that before any improvement in household affairs can come, the attitude of mind with which they are approached must undergo a radical change; both men and women must recognize the analogy between domestic service and other forms of labor, and must work, not for more competent cooks and parlor-maids in their individual households, not for any specific change for the better to-morrow, but for improvements in the system—improvements, the benefits of which will be reaped not by this but by subsequent generations. It is a fact from which we cannot escape that domestic service has been affected by historical and economic development, that it is to-day affected by economic conditions, that[99] it must in the future be in like manner affected by them. That we do not all see these facts does not in the least alter their existence. Nothing is so inexorable as law. Law works itself out whether recognized or not. If we accept the workings of the law and aid in its natural development, peace and harmony result; if we resist the action of law and struggle against it, we do not stay its progress but we injure ourselves as the bird that beats its wings against prison-bars. “Delhi is far,” said the old king of Delhi when told that an enemy had crossed his border. “Delhi is far,” he answered when told that the enemy was in sight. “Delhi is far,” he repeated when the enemy was at the gate. “Delhi is far,” he still repeated when the sword of the enemy was at his throat.

Yet certainly we may hope that another view is coming to prevail, and that housekeepers will not shrink from the storm and stress period that is the inevitable accompaniment of discussion of household affairs,[100] but will bring the courage of their convictions to bear on the discussion of the problem. It is indeed encouraging to find so many of them beginning their studies of household affairs, not with a proposal of remedies that may chance to meet the disease, but with a recognition of the existence of a great question to be investigated, with a determination to understand the problem.

What is the problem that is presented to the housekeeper? To have a healthy, happy, virtuous and useful household. What are some of the external conditions necessary to such a household? Palatable, nourishing food, regularity of meals, prompt and efficient service. With what tools has the young housekeeper heretofore been expected to grapple with the problem in her own home? Instinct, intuition, love of home, the cardinal virtues, especially meekness and humility, orthodox views in regard to the relation of the housekeeper to her home, and a belief that personal experience, however restricted, is an infallible guide.

[101]

What has been the result? Often disastrous failure, sometimes a measurable degree of success, always an unnecessary expenditure of time, money, and mental, physical, and spiritual energy. That most pathetic story in “Pratt Portraits,” “A New England Quack,” has had more than one counterpart in the household. The results of innocent quackery there may not always be so consciously pathetic, the effects may be more subtile, but they are none the less fatal. Dora Copperfield has been, unhappily for the race, no mere picture of the imagination.

The problem should not in itself be an insoluble one; a happy, well-ordered household ought to be the normal condition of every home. But to expect to secure this end with the means given a young housekeeper is often to expect the impossible. Behind the housekeeper is not only personal ignorance but all the force of tradition; she must face difficulties so deep-seated as to seem almost inherent and ineradicable.

[102]

One of the greatest of these difficulties is the belief that the subject is not worthy of consideration and that time and strength are wasted in discussing it. This attitude of mind is well illustrated by Lord Orrery’s “Remarks on the Life and Writings of Swift,” apropos of Swift’s “General Instructions to Servants.”[11] Lord Orrery may not indeed have been altogether free from malice and jealousy in penning these words, and he certainly showed himself deficient in a sense of humor, but whatever his motive, his comments on Swift’s work illustrate fairly well a belief still prevalent. “How much time,” Lord Orrery comments, “must have been employed in putting together such a work! What an intenseness of thought must have been bestowed upon the lowest and most slavish scenes of life!... A man of Swift’s genius ought constantly to have soared into higher regions. He ought to have looked upon persons of inferior abilities as children, whom nature had[103] appointed him to instruct, encourage, and improve. Superior talents seem to have been intended by Providence as public benefits; and the person who possesses such blessings is certainly answerable to heaven for those endowments which he enjoys above the rest of mankind. Let him jest with dignity, and let him be ironical upon useful subjects; leaving poor slaves to heat their porridge, or drink their small beer, in such vessels as they shall find proper.”[12]

Another great difficulty is the persistent refusal to consider domestic service as a question of general interest and a part of the labor question of the day. “What is needed,” an English critic remarks, “is an infallible recipe for securing a good £16 girl and for keeping her when secured.” But alas, who shall give an infallible recipe for accomplishing the impossible? Who shall lay down the principle that will make coal-miners contented with low wages and[104] long hours, that will make the employers of masons satisfied with bungling work that threatens life and limb, that will lull into ease a conscience aroused by the iniquities of the sweating system? Nothing can be more chimerical than to expect a perfect automatic adjustment of the household machinery while other parts of the industrial world are not in harmonious relation to each other.

A third obstacle is the persistent belief that nothing can be done until this magic recipe has been discovered. If it is suggested that one measure of alleviation is to take a part of the work out of the household it is answered that it is useless to propose it because all work cannot be taken out of the household, because the plan would not work in the rural districts, because it would not meet the case in England, because it is expensive. Certainly all these are valid objections to considering the plan a sovereign remedy. But to refuse to try a remedy that may prove of benefit in some households[105] because it will not work in all is quite the same as to refuse to administer a medicine in case of fever because it will not also cure consumption.

The preceding is illustrative of another difficulty that is implied in it—a fundamental ignorance on the part of many housekeepers of the processes of reasoning. This is illustrated by the reasoning that many go through with in discussing the question:

“Public laundries are in the hands of men whose standard of perfection in laundry-work is a smooth shirt-front and a stiff collar and cuff. This standard of perfection cannot be applied to the laundering of linen and children’s clothing. Therefore, table-linen and children’s clothing must be laundered in the house.”

“My mother’s cook received a part of her wages in lodging and board. My cook receives a part of her wages in lodging and board. Therefore, my daughter’s cook will receive a part of her wages in lodging and board.”

[106]

“Negro employees lodge out of the house at the South. White employees do not lodge out of the house in England. Therefore employees cannot lodge out of the house at the North.”

“Employees should be treated with consideration. My employees are treated with consideration. Therefore all employees are treated with consideration.”

“Some employees are incompetent. Good results cannot be secured with incompetent employees. Therefore good service is impossible.”

The only way of meeting this difficulty is found in the slow process of careful, systematic education. What many housekeepers need is not so much instruction in cooking or domestic sanitation as training in calculus and quaternions, Herodotus and Livy, logic and geology.

Still another hindrance is the tone of certainty and finality that characterizes all discussions concerning the household. It is a part of the religious belief of many persons[107] that every woman has been foreordained by Providence to be a wife, mother, and housekeeper, and that any deviation from this fundamental law is an infringement on the designs of Providence. But some of us remember that scarcely more than fifty years ago Daniel Webster said in the United States Senate that slavery had been excluded from California and New Mexico by the law of nature, of physical geography, the law of the formation of the earth, and that he would not through the Wilmot Proviso take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature or to reënact the will of God. Many apparently believe, through the same specious reasoning, that to provide instruction in household affairs would be in a similar way to reaffirm an ordinance of nature.

Not only does this tone of finality characterize the household when it is assumed that because the majority of women will always choose to be housekeepers, therefore all women must be housekeepers, but the[108] same tone of finality also characterizes methods in the household. It is interesting to read to-day the objections raised fifty years ago to the use of anesthetics in surgery; it was argued that since pain was sent by heaven, it was sacrilegious to use any means of alleviating it. It may be of equal interest fifty years hence to read the protests of our contemporaries against the present effort to combat instinct with science.

Another difficulty is the inherent proneness of Americans to look for results before establishing the conditions on which alone results are to be based. The nervous haste that characterizes us physically as a nation also characterizes us mentally. We seize eagerly suggestions and scorn the slow processes through which alone suggestions can be made realities; then comes the inevitable reaction and we drift into the fatalistic tendency to put up with evils rather than fight against them.

One other general difficulty is the assumption that any improvement in domestic[109] service must mean putting the domestic employee on a plane of absolute equality with the employer. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth than this. It is doubtful whether equality ever meant either in America or in France what the rhetorical phrases of the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man would on the surface seem to imply. Certainly to-day we interpret equality to mean that all persons should have the opportunity of making of themselves all that is possible; to jump at the conclusion that reform in domestic service means subscription to the literal interpretation of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence is to make an unwarranted assumption. If, however, we were to accept the doctrine of equality, it would be with an appreciation of what it involves. The establishment of social equality would sometimes mean the elevation of the employer to the natural social and moral position of the employee. Our present[110] social status is well characterized by the late Lawrence Oliphant in “The Tender Recollections of Irene Macgillicuddy,” where the heroine describes her mother, suddenly elevated in the social scale, as being very democratic toward all those who were socially above her and very aristocratic toward all those who were socially below her. It is specious, not genuine, democracy that to-day blocks the progress of improvement in domestic service.

These are general conditions that confront any and all attempts to put the household on a more reasonable basis. Not less serious are the specific economic conditions existing in the household. One of these is the truck system of wages.

In every other occupation the truck system has disappeared; formerly the teacher boarded around, the minister received an annual donation party, and the tailor and the carpenter shared the home of the master workman. The more recent attempt to pay employees in part in orders for household[111] supplies on an establishment kept by the head of a factory or a mill has met with the most bitter protest. The truck system of payment in general industry is antiquated and disadvantageous to both parties of the labor contract. But in the household it is accepted as one of the foreordained provisions of the household, and meets with neither protest nor objection.

That the difficulties in the way of substituting another method of payment are very great must be accepted by all, but to say that it is impossible to bring about a change before any attempt has been made is idle. Wherever negroes are employed the custom is almost universal for them to live in their own homes. In many families the experiment among white employees has been made successfully. It has been made on a somewhat extensive scale at the hotel at Saranac Inn, New York, where the employees lodge in a large house fitted up attractively with a dining-room that is used for dancing, while a billiard-room and[112] smoking-room are provided for the married men who board in the house with their wives. So far these experiments are only variations of the truck system; the negro employees sleep at home, but have their meals in the families of their employers; in Saranac Inn the boarding-house for employees is owned and managed by the proprietor of the hotel. But they are illustrations of the fact that in limited areas it has been found possible to take the employee out of the house of the employer as far as lodging is concerned. To accomplish this must be the first step toward any modification of the truck system. Fifty years ago the teacher who “boarded ’round” probably looked on the truck system as an inevitable accompaniment of the occupation. Teaching is being raised from an occupation to a profession and one of the elements in the change is the fact that wages have been put on a different plane.

Another economic difficulty that some persons have found lies in the fact that, as[113] has been said, the substitution of contract for status is at once the object and the method of modern civilization, and that domestic service owes nearly all of its difficulties to the fact that it is based on status. The reason why it has not been transferred to contract is because it is part of family life and no one has as yet shown how the family can be preserved as an institution if its members rest their relations on contract and not on status.

This may be true if the domestic employee is to be considered a part of the family. Yet just here is the anomaly and the fallacy of the objection. The domestic employee is not, and cannot be, a part of the family; she never in all her history has had more than a semblance of such a relationship and even that semblance has long since disappeared. The presence of the domestic employee in the family is not essential to the existence of the family; the domestic employee comes and goes, but the family remains. More than this, it must be[114] said that the presence of the domestic employee does something to destroy the integrity of the family life. Family life presupposes the existence of congenial tastes and sympathetic relationships. It argues nothing against domestic service as an occupation that those engaged in it are rarely those who would be chosen as life companions or even as temporary companions by those with whom the accident of occupation has thrown them.

Yet more than this must be said. The statement that family life cannot be preserved if its members rest their relations on contract ignores the fact that the tendency in family life is precisely in this direction. The wife has her allowance, sons and daughters are given their allowances, financial dealings between members of the same family are becoming more definite and even legal in their character, and the result is not the disintegration of the family as it passes from status to contract, but a greater freedom of the individual[115] members and therefore a more complex and perfect organization of the family relationships.

Another economic difficulty lies in the fact that so much of the service is largely personal in character, and that, therefore, payments are regulated by personal feelings and not by a recognized standard of payment. The result of this is the obnoxious system of fees—a system difficult to be done away with as long as employees expect to receive them. Fees could be abolished by the action of the employers, but as long as they prefer to have their employees paid by other persons—a practice that would be tolerated by no other class of employers—the initiative will not come from them. Fees could be abolished by the action of the individuals disposed to give them, but so long as men selfishly believe that money ought to purchase privileges that are not rights, the initiative will not come from them. Fees could be abolished by the concerted action of employees, but so long as[116] they are ignorant of economic principles and indifferent to the social results of the system, the initiative will not come from them. But one of the hopeful signs of the times is the recent statement that in Paris waiters are coming to appreciate the fact that fees ultimately must mean smaller wages, since employers not only refuse to pay their employees but demand a certain percentage of the fees received. The movement among the waiters to refuse fees and to insist on wages paid by employers is full of promise.

What, then, are the conditions under which improvement in domestic service is possible?

First of all must come that attitude of mind that is willing to recognize not only the impossibility of separating domestic service from other parts of the household life, but still more the impossibility of separating the economic conditions within the household from the economic conditions without, a willingness to give up a priori [117] reasoning in regard to domestic employments and to study the historical and economic development of the household. All superficial treatment of the question must fail of securing the desired results, and all treatment must be superficial that does not rest on the solid basis of economic history and theory.

Granted, then, the existence of economic conditions in the household, the method of procedure is the same as in all other fields of action. In medicine the first step is to diagnose the case; in law, to take evidence; in mathematics, to state the problem; in science, to marshal the facts. No set of a priori principles can be assumed in the household with the expectation that the household will conform to them. Investigation to-day stands at the door of every entrance into a new field and bars the way to any attempt to force a passage without its aid. The household has been slow to accept the inexorable fact that it must demolish its Chinese wall of exclusion and[118] throw open its facts to investigation, but this is the inevitable end.

Next to the household, the most conservative element in society is the school. Yet the school is already yielding to the spirit of the times. It has been pointed out in a recent number of the “Atlantic Monthly”[13] that the profession of teaching, starting with a definite and final code of principles of education, has clung tenaciously to it, and it is but to-day that the occupation is realizing that it can make progress only as progress is made in other fields, and that is through scientific investigation; only to-day is it coming to appreciate that all conclusions to be valid must be based on facts. Every occupation has passed through the same experience and the law of progress that governs all development will work itself out in the household. Minds open to conviction and trained to scientific investigation are the prerequisites for an improved condition in domestic service.

[119]

Is it said that this discussion of the subject has dealt only with its economic phases and has ignored the ethical side? Alas, life is everywhere one long protest against a varying standard of ethics. Shall we separate the ethics of household service from the ethics of the shop, the ethics of the factory, the ethics of the professions? Shall we be governed by one code in the family, by another code in the church, by a third code in the school, and a fourth code in the state? Is the subject of ethics to be divided and pigeon-holed in compartments labeled “ethics for domestic service,” “ethics for skilled labor,” “ethics for unskilled labor,” “ethics for employers,” and “ethics for employees?” Who shall separate any question in economics, nay more, any question in life from its ethical phases? Who shall declare that the ethical code for one is not the ethical code for all?

It is said that every book is but the elaboration of a single idea. In a similar way all discussion of domestic service must have[120] its beginning and its end with the idea that no improvement is possible that is not inaugurated by that class in society that sees most clearly the economic as well as the ethical elements involved in it, and that work by the slow methods of careful, patient investigation is the only way by which its difficulties, all too evident, may be lessened, not for ourselves but for those who shall come after us.

To seek wisdom through a questionnaire is a time-honored expedient, while to give wisdom through questions has classic authority. It is therefore immaterial whether it is Experience or Inexperience that may be either seeking wisdom or that may have wisdom to bestow in this interlocution concerning a domestic problem that has already been involved to the n^th power.

What are the causes of our household troubles?

The causes are in part economic—a household system governed by the same economic laws that govern other industries, but resisting the action of these laws; in part social—the attempt to form a chemical compound of public and political democracy with private and social aristocracy; in part educational—the tradition that marriage acts as a solvent to change[124] every ignorant, inexperienced young woman into an accomplished housekeeper, and that, therefore, mental training is for her a work of supererogation; in part religious—the persistent maintenance of the belief that from the primeval chaos every woman has been foreordained to be a housekeeper, united with the rejection of the parallel belief that every man has been foreordained to be a tiller of the soil.

But the situation in regard to household help has never been so critical as it is at the present time.

This statement has been found in one form or another in all literature, sacred and profane, from the times of Abraham and Achilles to the story of the last college graduate who has entered domestic service in disguise.

Other countries do not have the same difficulty.

On the contrary, the difficulty is universal. It may vary somewhat in degree, but fundamentally the problem is the same[125] the world over. Moreover, in no country is there so intelligent an understanding of all its factors as in America, for in no other country is found so great a mass of material for a comprehensive study of the subject. Statistical investigations have been carried on through national, state, and private initiative, and the information asked for has, for the most part, been cheerfully given because of the widespread desire among household employers to coöperate in every way with those undertaking these investigations. Material of every kind, ranging from the scientific accumulations of bureaus of labor to the hysterical deductions of sentimental observers, is all at hand. In Berlin a young man who recently carried on a statistical inquiry in regard to domestic service was nearly mobbed for his presumption—so considered—in attempting to gather information that German housekeepers had guarded as sacredly as Tibet holds the Grand Lama.

[126]

When will our present household difficulty end?

The difficulty will end when every man is reasonable, when every woman is omniscient, when every child is obedient, when we discover the philosopher’s stone, when we drink of the Pierian spring, when we dig the treasure at the end of the rainbow, when we enter upon our inheritance in Spain, when the east meets the west.

Meantime?

Dismiss the cook from your attention for a moment and study the kitchen. Is the baking-table on the opposite side of the room from the baking-utensils, while the baking-materials are kept in the pantry? Does an inventory of the cooking-implements show one article for toasting and broiling, two battered saucepans for preparing a five-course dinner, and a soup-kettle with a cover that does not fit? Is the pump on the left-hand side of the sink? Is the sink three inches too low and in a dark corner where a blank wall is all that meets[127] the eye of the one who works before it? Does the waste-pipe from the ice-chest lead into a pan that must be emptied daily? Must the ashes from the range be carried out of doors every day? Is the range-coal too large and is the kindling-wood green? Does the oven-door refuse to shut tight and has the tea-kettle sprung a leak? Do the unprotected water-pipes freeze with zero weather? Does the chimney fail to draw? The results of these investigations may be the discovery that the household engineer has been expected to run his engine with insufficient fuel. What if the skillful engineer has made the same discovery?

Occupy for a week in winter the room of the cook. Does the temperature hover near the freezing-point, while the rest of the house is warm? Is the mattress of husks and are the pillows of hen’s feathers? Does a row of hooks take the place of a closet? Try the room for a week in midsummer. Is the temperature stifling hot? Do flies and mosquitoes find joy in the screenless[128] windows? Are the facilities for bathing a small bowl and a pitcher without a handle on the top of a triangular wash-stand? The two weeks’ vacation in an unknown part of your own home may lead to the traditional mauvais quart d’heure. What if the employee has spent a year under the protecting shelter of your roof?

Watch for a week the table conversation of your family and its guests. Count the number of times you hear the word “servant,” and remarks in regard to “household drudgery,” “menial service,” “knowing one’s place,” and “superiority to housework.” What if the household employee has also kept count?

Imagine that you can accept ten cents from a friend for doing an errand, half a dollar from a guest as he leaves the house and a dollar from another, and can flatter an unwelcome cousin in the hope of getting two dollars at his departure. Criticise mercilessly all of your friends after you have invited them to afternoon tea. Repeat[129] at table all the gossip retailed by officious busy-bodies. Your own self-respect will be lowered. What if moral deterioration takes place in the kitchen under the same conditions?

But what can I do?

Try putting all the laundry-work out of the house; take up the carpets, paint the floors, put down rugs and send these out of the house to be cleaned, or clean house with a vacuum cleaning-machine; reduce useless work and incidentally add to the attractiveness of your house by taking down portières and paying storage on half of the bric-à-brac; buy ice-cream and cake and all “extras” at the woman’s exchange. These additional expenses will materially reduce your subscriptions to half-orphan asylums and to vacation funds for the indigent. What if this course saves you from hotel existence and enables others to keep their homes intact and to pay for their own vacations?

Substitute praise for constant censure[130] and the principle of coöperation for that of “giving orders;” see that the daily paper is on the kitchen-table before it is a week old and that the magazines are promptly supplied; encourage the singing-class, the flower-bed, basket-making, bead-work, in-door evening games, and out-of-doors recreation; at least make the effort to give in some form a new and wholesome interest to lives that may have been repressed and mentally starved. Friends may smile and call the plan quixotic. What if it encourages self-respect in the employee and therefore respect for his work?

Consider the kitchen with its accompanying rooms in the light of an economic plant. Give the same careful attention to its arrangement and equipment that the owner of a manufacturing establishment gives to the fitting-up of a new factory with all the latest labor-saving contrivances and facilities for work; study the plumbing and the water-supply with the zest of a scientific investigator and select the cooking- and[131] baking-utensils with the interest of an artist. This course may curtail expenditures for the “den” and the relinquishment of the “cosy corner.” What if thereby your house and home gain in unity for employer as well as for employee?

Abandon the attempt to maintain a Waldorf-Astoria style of living on a fifteen-hundred-dollar salary; abandon it, if you have the income to maintain it, if in maintaining it you are putting temptation in the path of a weaker friend and neighbor. This may reduce your calling-list by two hundred names. What if you gain thereby peace of mind and a contented household?

Establish household settlements among the cottagers at Newport, in the vicinity of Central Park, on Riverside Drive, Commonwealth Avenue, Euclid Avenue, and the North Shore Drive. What if successful settlement work in these localities should enable the families of millionaires to bridge the impassable chasm that now separates the[132] dining-room from the butler’s pantry and the reception-room from the linen-closet?

Will these temporary devices remove all friction in the running of my household machinery?

No, they will probably not even lessen it. But these and similar expedients may be of benefit to you, inasmuch as they may help you to carry out the commendable advice of Charles Reade, “Put yourself in his place.” They may also be of benefit to your granddaughter in enabling her to be a member of that ideal trades-union—that between employer and employee.

[133]

Our kitchen is not that of a millionaire; it has not a tiled floor, enameled brick walls or glass shelves; it is not fitted with appliances for cooking by electricity or with automatic arrangements for bringing up coal and sending down ashes. It is a plain, ordinary kitchen, built new six years ago, and attached to an old house to take the place of the former basement kitchen. It was planned by the landlord and the carpenter for unknown tenants, and the general arrangement had to conform to the plan of a house built many years before. If, then, it has been possible, with these usual, every-day conditions to develop a kitchen that possesses convenience of arrangement and unity of purpose, it would seem that similar ends might be obtained in any kitchen, anywhere, by any person,[136] through use of the same means,—careful thought.

We are busy women who have learned, in other lines of work outside the household, the value of order and system, and when we began housekeeping we saw no reason why the application to the kitchen of the same principles that were used in arranging a study or a library should not produce the same ease and joy in the work of the household. If a library, to be of service to those who work in it, must have its books classified according to some clearly recognized principle, would not a kitchen gain in usefulness if some principles of classifying its utensils were employed? If a study-table demands every convenience for work, ought not a kitchen-table to be equally well equipped? If the student can work more effectively in a cool room than in one that is stifling hot, will not a cook produce better results if working in a well-ventilated room? If the librarian needs special equipment, does not the butler need appliances[137] adapted for his work? If the instructor needs the materials for investigation if his work is not to perish of dry rot, should not the houseworker have at hand all the materials needed if her work is to represent progress? If the parlor gains in attractiveness if its colors are harmonious, will not the kitchen gain if thought is given to appropriate decoration?

It was the affirmative answer to these and similar questions that led to the evolution of our kitchen from a state of unadorned newness to its present condition. An indulgent landlord provided a model range, a copper boiler, a porcelain-lined sink, and a double shelf; we have added the gas-stove, the instantaneous water-heater, the electric fan, two double shelves and all the utensils. Thus equipped, what does our kitchen represent?

To answer this question it is necessary to consider its general arrangement. The north side is filled by a window, the range, and the outside door. This with the adjacent[138] east side, we call “the cooking side.” Here are arranged boilers, sauce-pans, broilers, and all implements large or small needed for cooking.

The south side is filled by the door leading into the refrigerator-closet, the baking-table, and the door leading into the butler’s pantry. This we call the “baking side,” for here is the baking-table with its bins for flour and meal, its drawers for baking-spoons, knives and forks, and sliding shelves for baking and for bread-cutting. Above it are various small utensils needed in baking, together with spices, essences, and various condiments. A “kitchen indicator” showing articles needed from the grocer’s hangs at the left of the shelf, a peg at the end holds the household bills, and pegs at the right are for shears, scissors, a pin-cushion, and a cushion for needles used in preparing roasts.

The west side is the “cleaning side.” This side is our special pride and delight, for here on a corner shelf is our electric fan,[139] the drop-leaf table for drying dishes, the porcelain sink with its shining brass faucets, the nickel instantaneous water-heater, and our fine forty-gallon copper boiler. Here above the sink are collected the cleaning-brushes of various kinds, ammonia, borax, scouring-sand, and all cleaning preparations. The sink is set about three inches too low for comfortable use, a fault in sinks almost universal, and to remedy this defect a rack was evolved from four nickel towel-bars joined by connecting metal plates. Lack of wall space required that the shelf on this side of the room should be shared equally between the preparations for cleaning and the kitchen library, while the basket for newspapers and magazines occupies the end of the cleaning-table. But does not cleanliness of mind accompany cleanliness of material equipment?

The outside entry to the kitchen serves, in default of other place, as a cleaning-closet. Here are kept brooms, dusters, scrubbing-brushes, polishing-brushes, dusting-mops[140] and cleaning-mops. Here also, easy of access, is kept the garbage-pail,—three times each week emptied by the city garbage collector and three times each week scrubbed with hot soap-suds.

This is our kitchen as regards its ground plan and its exterior aspect. But the student of history always looks behind the external surface and studies the record; hence our kitchen records a belief in a few principles that seem fundamental in a household.

The first principle is that a kitchen should be absolutely sanitary in all its appointments. This means not only filtered cistern water, a still for distilling water, a porcelain-lined sink, and an abundance of hot water, but it means an absence of cubby-holes and cupboards where articles may be tucked away and accumulate dirt. Everything is in the open, every part of the kitchen is kept spotlessly clean, and we have never seen a rat or a water-bug about the house.

A second belief recorded by our kitchen[141] is that of unity of plan. If the artist places before all else in importance the composition of his picture, if the author believes that his book should be the elaboration of a single idea, if the engineer knows that every part of his engine fits by design into every other part, it would seem clear that the application of the same principle is essential in the household. If the kitchen is to sustain an organic relationship to the other parts of the house it must represent in the arrangement of all its details the same idea of unity of composition that is expressed in a painting, of unity of development that gives life to a book, of unity of design that makes the perfect engine.

A third idea represented in our kitchen is that it must be equipped with every labor-saving device and with every convenience for work, if satisfactory results are to be secured. The first thought of the manufacturer is for the equipment of his manufacturing plant with every modern appliance. Can a perfect product come from imperfect,[142] inadequate means of work in the household? The application of this principle has of necessity involved many experiments,—inventions will not work, or good ones are superseded by better ones, or a new need arises and must be met. Every week sees some article discarded because an improvement on it has been found. In the city of twenty-two thousand inhabitants in which we live automobiles have been used six years and approximately three hundred are now owned there and in the vicinity, but not one can be found of a pattern prior to that of three years ago. If an automobile must be disposed of because it is not of the most recent model, does it seem unreasonable to cast aside a twenty-five cent eggbeater that chafes the hands, a pineapple-snipper that wastes the fruit, an unsightly broken sauce-pan, and a patent water-cooler that will not cool the water?

But man does not live by bread alone, and a kitchen may be sanitary in all its arrangements, it may represent unity of[143] plan, it may have every modern convenience, and yet it may lack the essential of attractiveness. The arts and crafts movement has not yet reached the kitchen, and it is thus almost impossible to secure cooking-utensils of good artistic design and color. But the second-hand store will often furnish a piece of good pottery, brass, or copper that may be utilized in the kitchen and serve the added purpose of increasing its attractiveness.

Yet a kitchen may illustrate all of these principles and still lack those subtle features that establish, unconsciously, some connection between it and its predecessors in other times and in other places. If the theory of evolution has taught us not only in science but in art and in politics and in everything connected with our daily life to look behind the surface and to seek the origins of things, if it has taught us ever to look for the relationship between the present and the past, surely the kitchen must not be excluded from this process of[144] thought. Apparently the work performed there each day has neither connection with the past nor outlook into the future, yet this is but a superficial aspect of the situation. The kitchen of to-day with gas-range and instantaneous water-heater is the direct heir of the kitchen of yesterday with coal-range and copper boiler, and of that of the day-before-yesterday, with open fire and cauldron. An attempt to maintain this connection with the past is sought through the photographs on the walls. Two views of early colonial kitchens give historic continuity with the past, a photograph of the interior of a Dutch kitchen gives a touch of that cosmopolitanism that makes the whole world akin, while that of a famous hotel in New York City places us by prophetic fiction in the class of millionaires.

Such is our kitchen. “Does it pay?” It has paid us.

[145]

It is the day of the illustrated edition, and even more the day of the illustrator. Happy is the author to whom is accorded the honor of an illustrated edition of his latest book. Still happier is he whose facile, practiced pen is called into requisition to illustrate the works of the great artists found in our monthly magazines. Unhappy is the one whose book no artist, even if gifted with imagination, can illustrate, and whose name no publishing house has ever entered on its card catalogue of pen illustrators of artistic sketches. But more fortunate times may await the unillustratable and non-illustrating author. A changing phraseology reflects a new rapprochement between author and artist and a breaking-down of the barriers that once confined each within definite limits. There are even indications that the present positions of author and[148] artist may be reversed and that the non-illustrating author may become quite independent of the previously necessary artist. “Pen pictures,” “sketches in black and white,” “pastels in prose,” all indicate the possibilities open to the author of combining with his own vocation that of the artist whose existence thus becomes unnecessary to his own. Nay more, the unillustratable author may take heart, for as the skillful acrobat learns the feat of walking on his hands, so the literary trickster may achieve the paradox of illustrating works that cannot be illustrated.

This theory has been the result of contemplating on the one hand the impossibility of illustrating a modest book dealing with statistics and equally prosaic facts and of noting on the other hand the popular demand that every book shall be illustrated. How shall man attain unto the unattainable?

A reminiscent mood led the author to blow the dust from the top of her last book, written ten years ago and not yet, unhappily,[149] out of its second edition, and to turn over its half-forgotten pages. She found a passing interest in recalling her conclusions as they were laid bare on the pages of the book, but undreamed-of pleasures took form and shape as she remembered the circumstances under which each page had been written. Nay more, there opened out the vision of the unattainable illustrated edition. A series of pictures passed before her, far more interesting than the book they illustrated, and thus a prosaic work attained a place in that desirable class in which are found all books whose text seems only as a pretext for the artist’s brush.

The first picture was that of the receipt of a letter written in reply to a humble request for information in regard to the number of maids employed in the household, the length of time they had been employed, and similar facts obvious to one’s friends and neighbors. The letter was written on Tiffany’s finest stationery, it bore a crest and a coat of arms so undecipherable[150] as to be a guarantee of its high aristocratic lineage, and its perfume was that of Araby the Blest. But the letter was written in the third person and the information it conveyed was not that which had been sought but the unexpected statement that the inquiry was impertinent and under no consideration whatever could be answered. Alas, the questioner had known that her questions would demand time and thought, but what artist, save the author, could depict the abyss into which the questioner was hurled by the epithet “impertinent?”

The second picture also had a letter in the foreground. The quest for information had led to an appeal to the only authority known to the questioner, but it was to an authority of world-wide reputation, and the unknown questioner hesitated long. Would the great man heed the appeal, even if the questioner could justify herself in making it? But the die was cast and the result was a long, kindly, painstaking letter not only[151] giving in detail all the information sought but also suggesting similar by-paths to be explored. “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

The third picture was that of a woman’s club. The writer had never belonged to a woman’s club, save for a brief period of nominal connection with one, and it had been with much trepidation that she had accepted an invitation to read a paper before one of these organizations. But she wrote an article in which she attempted to show by means of all the facts and arguments at her command that the establishment of training-schools for domestic employees would not and could not remedy household ills. She valiantly read the paper and at the close of the hour one of the company thanked her heartily “for advocating the establishment of training-schools for servants.” Was it the woman, or the club?

The fourth picture is of a large corner room, with low ceiling, facing south and[152] west. Its long table is covered with papers, reports, schedules, and census publications, and here, from early morning until late at night, during the hottest weeks of the early summer, the occupant of the room attempted to work out some of the economic laws governing domestic service. Her fellow occupants of the large building were the numerous maids engaged in cleaning it. Their work also was difficult, but morning tea tided over the time between breakfast and dinner, and work for the day closed at four o’clock. How would an artist portray the question that came each night—what would be the effect of an eight-hour day on economic investigation?

The fifth picture is one of a small room opening on an air-shaft, in a New York hotel. The occupant had arrived late, the hotel was crowded, and no other room was available. But it was not the smallness of the room, or the single window opening on the air-shaft that gave the occupant a chill on a July night,—it was the folding-bed.[153] Her traveling-bag contained a new work on economic history, having a chapter on domestic service, and turning on all the electric lights, she read until daylight, never since quite sure whether it was devotion to history or craven fear of the deadly folding-bed.

The sixth picture is one of a railway carriage in provincial France. The American traveler, in search of information, had attempted to learn from her chance companion in the carriage somewhat of domestic service in France. Much valuable information was politely given, and then the tables were turned. But the interest of the French lady was centred, not in the status of domestic service in America, but in the personal status of her new acquaintance. That she was traveling alone might be accepted, though certainly to be deprecated. But what artist shall show forth the amazement on the face of the French lady when she heard the affirmative answer to her question, “But surely it is not possible that[154] Madame will find no one at the station to meet her?”

The seventh picture is a series of dissolving views that suggest the portrait of a lady standing with her back to the onlooker and gazing at her own face reflected in a mirror opposite. A few months after the book was published, its author, attracted by the title of an article, purchased a new review to while away a railway journey. She read the article—and pondered. It seemed strangely familiar and soon she realized that it was in effect one of the chapters in her own book. It had not even suffered “a sea-change into something rich and strange,” for the illustrations used were the same that the first author had collected from the experiences of her personal friends, and to every one she could have attached a name, as presumably the second author could not do. The second in the series of dissolving views is of a correspondence with a gentleman who had given a course of lectures on domestic service in[155] a remote city. The author of the book had expressed a desire to sit at the feet of Gamaliel and at length secured the loan of the manuscript from which the lectures were given. Probably a sea-change was not to be looked for in an interior city, and the author of the book rejoiced to find so much community of interest with the author of the lectures. The third in the series of dissolving views was of a certain bibliography. It had appeared in the first number of a new report on household affairs and the author was interested in it as a probable illustration of thought transference. Here was the title of a book she had consulted in the Bibliothèque Nationale and that presumably was not to be found in American libraries. Here was the title of a curious book she had picked up when “bouquinering” on the Quai Voltaire and had added to her private library. This was the title of another curious book found in a great university library,—interesting, but of little value. This was the line-long title of a[156] collection of technical German laws found in Saxony. Here was the title of an old book that had been valued as a family heritage, but of no special importance to any one else. The compiler of the so-called “books of reference” had overlooked the sub-title in the book—“full titles of works referred to in the text”—and had not realized that the use of the word “bibliography” had been demanded by the exigencies of type. To recommend for use as a working bibliography a list of “full titles of works referred to in the text,”—was it perhaps donning an evening dress when starting for the golf-links?

The dissolving views have given the author the greatest pleasure of all the illustrations of the book. There is a favorite jest concerning books that have been read only by the author and the proof-reader. It is indeed true that for the most part an author writes a book to please himself, not to gain readers. But there is a secret joy if two birds can be brought down with the[157] same stone and a reader, other than the proof-reader, be found. The purchase of a book does not necessarily imply that the book is read,—public libraries add the latest new books, private libraries are interested in first editions, and authors buy presentation copies for their friends. But none of these purchasers guarantee that the book purchased will be read. Was it not a cause for open rejoicing that not only one but three readers had been found, and more than that, that these three readers had not only been non-combatants, but had agreed so entirely with the views of the author?

The pleasures of a visit to Europe are often as is the square of the distance from the time of the visit. With the passage of the years, oblivion overtakes the moments when we agonized over the question whether the fee expected by the guide was a shilling or a pound, and the hours when we gazed at the fireless grate; but with each recurring year the realities stand out with greater[158] and growing vividness. Does not the flight of time bring to us all the realization that the real work of our hand is not the one that can be bought at the counter, but the unpurchasable illustrated edition?

[159]

Few persons whose attention is attracted by the modest sign of the Woman’s Exchange, now found in nearly all our large cities, realize that a new competitor has appeared in the industrial market. Few even of those who have assisted in organizing and carrying on such exchanges know that they have been instrumental in introducing a new factor into economic problems. Yet in spite of unpretentious rooms and unconcern as to economic questions, the Woman’s Exchange has already had an appreciable effect on economic conditions, and must in future play a still more important part.

[162]

The history of these organizations belongs, however, to a history of philanthropic work rather than to that of economics. The first Woman’s Exchange, the “Ladies’ Depository Association” of Philadelphia, established in 1833, was founded by persons “who labored earnestly to arouse in the community an interest in the hard and often bitter struggle to which educated, refined women are so frequently exposed when financial reverses compel them to rely upon their own exertions for a support.”[15] In its foundation and its management it was controlled entirely by philanthropic motives; it was to enable women “who had seen better days,” and suffered more from the prejudices of society in regard to woman’s work than from actual poverty, “to dispose of their work without being exposed to the often rough handling of shopkeepers, or to the then mortifying admission of their fancied humiliating condition.” The second[163] exchange, the “New Brunswick, New Jersey, Ladies’ Depository,” founded in 1856, also was purely charitable in its motives, and it restricted its privileges to those who had been in affluent circumstances but were suddenly forced to become self-supporting. The first two exchanges were the product of a generation in which charities of every kind were largely regulated by sympathy alone, and it was twenty years before similar organizations were formed elsewhere. In 1878 the “New York Woman’s Exchange” was begun, and it added a new idea. Its aim was “beneficence, rather than charity,” and it undertook “to train women unaccustomed to work to compete with skilled laborers and those already trained, and to sell the result of their industries.”[16] It came at a time when the organization of charities was first being attempted, and the principle was being slowly evolved that the best way to help an individual is to help him to help himself. Its aim and its management[164] show the influence of the present generation in its study of philanthropy as a social and economic question.

Since 1878, the year which may be taken as the beginning of the period of the Woman’s Exchange, nearly one hundred exchanges have been organized, all, with scarcely an exception, growing out of philanthropic motives, but philanthropy governed by the principles of the present day. The statement of the object of the exchange presented in their constitutions and annual reports will make this clear:

The object of the Woman’s Exchange is thus seen to be charity, not charity pure and simple, but charity having a double end in view. The first and most important aim is the direction into remunerative channels of the work of “gentlewomen suddenly reduced to abject penury,” with the secondary aim of encouraging “the principle of[167] self-help in the minds of girls and women, who in the future, if necessary, will be helpful and not helpless when misfortune comes.” In carrying out its object, the exchange receives under specified conditions all articles coming under the three general classes of domestic work, needle-work, and art-work.

The domestic department includes all forms of food that can be prepared by the consigners in their own homes and sold through the exchange. These articles form a dozen different classes and comprise more than two hundred and fifty varieties. They include every form of bread, pastry, cake, small cakes, cookies, cold meats, salads, soups, special and fancy desserts, preserves, jellies, jams, pickles, sauces, and delicacies for the sick.[17] In the department of needle-work nearly a hundred different articles are enumerated by the different exchanges, and the number is practically without[168] limit, since it includes every form of plain and fancy sewing. The art department is for the special encouragement of decorative art, and its possibilities as well as actual achievements are very great. These three departments are found in all the exchanges, but each exchange, according to its locality and the consequent needs of the community, adds its own special line of work. A few receive scientific and literary work, others arrange for cleaning and mending lace, re-covering furniture, the care of fine bric-à-brac, writing and copying, the preparation of lunches for travelers and picnic parties, and a few take orders for shopping. All the exchanges have connected with them an order department, which is considered an especially satisfactory and remunerative part of their work.

In fulfilling its aim, the exchange thus enters as a competitor into the industrial field, though without consideration on its own part of this side of its work; and it is as an economic factor, rather than as[169] a charitable organization, that it is considered in this chapter. The place it has already won in this field is shown by the fact that there are now in operation about seventy-five exchanges, a few in small places in thinly settled localities having been abandoned, and these are scattered through twenty-three states and the District of Columbia. A few of them are carried on by private enterprise, and make no public report, and several organizations have as yet made no statement of their financial condition. Sixty-six of them, however, receive work from nearly sixteen thousand consigners, to whom they paid last year, according to their last annual reports, a total amount of more than $400,000. The following table shows the amount paid consigners by the ten largest Exchanges:

It is of interest also to note the total amount paid to consigners by different exchanges since their organization.

The following table will show this:

The Woman’s Exchange regarded as an[171] economic factor must be considered in three aspects: (1) As a business enterprise; (2) from the point of view of the producer; (3) from the standpoint of the consumer.

Viewed purely as a business enterprise, the exchange is a failure. Having charity to a particular class as its object pure and simple, no other result could be expected. Aside from the few private exchanges that have been started as business ventures, but two or three are self-supporting. That at New Orleans has been self-supporting from its organization, and it has been one of the best organized and most successful of all the associations. Some of the organizations go so far as to say that self-support has never been an object with them.[18] In the great majority of the exchanges a commission of ten per cent is charged on all[172] goods sold, but this sum is inadequate to meet current expenses. The exchange, therefore, relies for its support upon private contributions and the ordinary means adopted by other benevolent organizations for increasing their revenues.

The treasurers’ reports show that part of the funds at command have been derived from charity balls, calico balls, rose shows, chrysanthemum shows, flower festivals, baseball benefits, picnics, excursions, concerts, bazars, lectures, readings, Valentine’s Day cotillon suppers, concert suppers, club entertainments, carnivals, kermesses, sale of cook-books, flower-seeds, and Jenness-Miller goods, and in some instances from raffles.

This fact alone separates the exchange from other business enterprises. Having no capital to invest, it must pursue a hand-to-mouth policy, and employ means for increasing its resources which would never be considered by other business houses. In a few cases where exchanges own their[173] buildings and sublet parts of them, or where they are able to maintain a profitable lunch department, it is possible more nearly to make both ends meet. Under other circumstances the exchange becomes poorer as its business increases, and there is a fresh demand for subscriptions and entertainments to meet current expenses. It is true that the exchange does not wish to be considered a business enterprise and be judged by ordinary business rules, but the fact that it enters the business field as a competitor with other enterprises makes it inevitable that it be judged as a business house, and not as a charitable organization. The persistence with which different exchanges iterate and reiterate the statement that their object is charity “to needy gentlewomen,” and not financial return, is evidence of a consciousness of their present ambiguous position. As long as the exchange undertakes business activities, it cannot escape judgment by business principles.

[174]

The exchange has from the first hampered itself with many hard and pernicious conditions. The requirement is universal that all consignments shall be made by women. Valuable industrial competition is thus shut out, and the exclusion of men from the exchange is as unreasonable as the exclusion of women from competition in other occupations. There are many household articles, the product of inventive and artistic talent, which are the handiwork of men and should find place in the exchange.

The second restriction found in the majority of exchanges is that no consignments shall be received except from women who state that they are dependent for entire or partial support on the sale of the articles offered. Some of the early exchanges made at first the additional requirement that the work offered should be by women who had formerly been in affluent circumstances but were rendered self-supporting by changes of circumstances. The latter requirement has now been abolished, and[175] in a few of the more recently organized exchanges, especially in the exchange departments of the Woman’s Educational and Industrial Unions, the requirement of the necessity of self-support has been abandoned. Some exchanges also modify this condition so far as to state that all the proceeds of sales made for those not dependent on their own exertions for support must be appropriated to charitable purposes, and at least one exchange apologizes for accepting articles from young girls who had the necessaries, though not the luxuries, of life, on the ground that since these girls give the results of their work to charity, the exchange is teaching them a valuable lesson.

The principle is a pernicious one, and is never recognized in other enterprises. Just as long as society asks concerning any article “Does the maker need money?” and not “Is it the best that can be made for the price?” just so long a premium is put on mediocre work. It is a question never[176] asked in other kinds of business; the best article is sought, regardless of personal considerations, and it is at least an open question whether in the end the interests of the individuals to be benefited by employment are not thus best served. If the same principle were applied to the legal and medical professions, society would be deprived of the services of many whose help is necessary for the preservation of its best interests. The application of the same principle elsewhere would cause every producer to withdraw from the industrial field as soon as he had gained a competence. The result would often be that as soon as an individual had reached great skill in producing an article, he would be forced to step aside and yield his place to others.

Moreover, society has a right to demand the best that every individual can give it; and just as long as the exchange persistently denies itself and its patrons the benefit of the best work wherever it is[177] found, regardless of money considerations, just so long it will fail to secure the best economic results. It does not indeed concern itself with these results, but it cannot thereby escape them.

But aside from the injurious economic effects in thus limiting production, it places the whole idea of work on a wrong basis. It assumes that work for women is a misfortune, not the birthright inheritance of every individual, and that therefore they are to work for remuneration only when compelled by dire necessity. Moreover, every individual has the same right to work that he has to life itself, and to shut out the rich and the well-to-do from the privilege is as unfair to the individual as it is to society. Indeed, it may be assumed that the members of this class are, as a rule, better qualified for work than are other classes, since wealth has brought opportunities in the direction of education and special training, and society loses in the same proportion as it deprives itself of their services. It is true[178] also that the higher the standard set in any department of work, the greater the improvement in the work of all workers in the same field.

But not only does the exchange deprive itself of positive good in thus refusing to accept the best wherever it is found, regardless of money considerations—it puts upon itself the positive burden of enforcing a questionable condition. “Necessity for self-support” is a relative term; and when the responsibility of the decision is put on the consigner, the danger is incurred on the one side of shutting out from the privilege of the exchange many who are unduly conscientious, and on the other side of encouraging deceit in regard to their necessities on the part of the less scrupulous. The exchange must be ever on the alert to guard against imposition and fraud; and however much it may disclaim the idea, it must to a certain extent make itself the judge of its consigners’ necessities. When this alternative is forced upon it, it must perform a task[179] difficult in proportion to its delicacy, and one that would be resented in the business world as an unwarranted intrusion into private affairs.[19] The exchange by the use of these methods prejudices itself in a business way in the eyes of many who would be valuable consigners.

[180]

A third restriction that has fettered the exchange has been the geographical limitation imposed by many organizations. Many receive no consignments from outside the state, some New England exchanges limit consignments to that section, a few restrict consignments to residents of the city, and others, while having consigners in all parts of the country, congratulate themselves, as does one association, that “two thirds of the proportion of money paid out goes to the ladies of this city.” Still another exchange, on the Pacific coast, complains bitterly of the fact that articles have been sent to it by persons outside the state, and not dependent on their own labors for support, “but who would speculate upon the charitable spirit of the public,” and its president’s report recommends that it “prohibit exhibits from the East altogether.” This restriction undoubtedly grows out of the idea that the exchange is a dispenser of charity and should therefore aid first its own friends and neighbors. It is a spirit akin to that[181] which in mediæval and even in modern times has resented the entrance of new workers into any occupation or community. But it must again be insisted that while the exchange is theoretically only a benevolent association, it is practically a business house, and as such must be judged by business principles. The most successful business firm that should adopt the policy of purchasing its supplies only within the state or city would soon find its trade decreasing, while for a new house to adopt the policy would be suicidal. Even the present high protective tariff is not so absolutely prohibitory as is this provision of many of the exchanges. Aside from other disadvantages, the plan prevents the infusion of new ideas so necessary to healthy growth, and it renders almost impossible that market criticism which secures the best industrial results. It is in distinct violation of that principle of commercial comity between states which led the framers of the Constitution to prohibit both import and export duties on all goods exchanged[182] between the states, and to that extent is out of harmony with the recognized policy of the country regarding interstate exchange of commodities.

A fourth economic difficulty is the fact that the exchange has no capital. It does simply a commission business, and it is a recipient of whatever goods are sent it which reach a certain standard; its attitude is therefore negative rather than positive. Its consigners are obliged to purchase their own materials in small quantities in retail markets, and therefore to place a higher price on their articles than would be the case could the materials be purchased by or through a central office. This lack of capital and its passive attitude prevent the exchange from keeping its finger on the pulse of the market; there is no connection between supply and demand, and no way of establishing such connection. This difficulty, which is encountered in all business enterprises, is multiplied by the number of the consigners. The exchange refuses to[183] accept articles if they do not reach a fixed standard, but not because the market is glutted. The loss accruing from an overstocked market, it is true, falls immediately on the consigners rather than on the exchange, but the exchange suffers directly through the loss of the commission retained on all goods sold, and indirectly in acquiring the reputation as a business house of keeping in stock articles not in demand and of failing to supply the market with others that are.

The exchange as a business enterprise is also open to other criticisms. It is not self-supporting, and therefore gives a partial support to women who have come into competition with women not receiving the assistance of the exchange. The well-meant charity is thus instrumental in keeping at a low rate the earnings of women who do not receive such partial support. Many women are too much the victims of prejudice and false pride to come out openly as wage-earners, and to these the exchange[184] gives its assistance, to the disadvantage of those who struggle on unaided by it. It has employed “gentlewomen” in its salaried positions, and by this restriction practically carried out, though not embodied in its rules, it has deprived itself of the services of some who would have been of valuable assistance through the business experience and executive ability they could have brought to bear on this work. It has required that all its consigners shall be known by number and not by name, thus allying itself, as regards one custom, with penal and reformatory institutions. The exchange by its limitations has encouraged the idea that women can work by stealth without being guilty of moral cowardice, and it has fostered the spirit that carries lunches in music-rolls, calls for laundry-work only after dark, and does not receive as boarders or lodgers wage-earning women. It has countenanced a fictitious social aristocracy by referring so uniformly to its consigners as “needy gentlewomen.” It[185] has said in effect, “work for remuneration is honorable for all men; work for remuneration is honorable for women only when necessity compels it.”

But while the exchange is open to serious criticism from a business point of view, it has accomplished much and has in it still greater possibilities. It has set a high standard for work, and insisted that this standard should be reached by every consigner not only once or generally, but invariably. It has maintained this standard in the face of hostile criticism and the feeling that a charitable organization ought to accept poor work if those presenting it are in need of money. It has shown that success in work cannot be attained by a simple desire for it or need of it pecuniarily. It has taught that accuracy, scientific knowledge, artistic training, habits of observation, good judgment, courage and perseverance are better staffs in reaching success than reliance upon haphazard methods and the compliments of flattering[186] friends. It has raised the standard of decorative and artistic needle-work by incorporating into its rules a refusal to accept calico patchwork, wax, leather, hair, feather rice, spatter, splinter, and cardboard work.

It has taught many women that a model recipe for cake is not “A few eggs, a little milk, a lump of butter, a pinch of salt, sweetening to taste, flour enough to thicken; give a good beating and bake according to judgment.” More than all this, it has pointed out to women a means of support that can be carried on within their own homes, and is perfectly compatible with other work necessarily performed there. It has in effect opened up a new occupation to women, in that it has taught them that their accomplishments may become of pecuniary value, and a talent for the more prosaic domestic duties be turned into a fine art and made remunerative. It has enabled many women who have a taste for household employments in their various forms to take up such occupations as a business, when[187] they would otherwise have drifted into other occupations for which they have had no inclination. The exchange thus assumes a not unimportant place in the history of woman’s occupations. The factory system of manufactures transferred the labor of many women from the home of the producer to the business establishment of a corporation. The anti-slavery agitation and the founding of Mount Holyoke Seminary and Oberlin College gave women a more prominent place as teachers and in the professions. The Civil War opened the doors of mercantile pursuits. It has been through the Woman’s Exchange that women have been taught that a means of support lies open to them at their own doors; and thus the exchange has done something to relieve the pressure in over-crowded occupations.

The advantage that has been taken of this new idea is widespread. The sixteen thousand consigners on the books of the exchange are but a part of the still larger[188] number of women who are turning to practical advantage their tastes for sewing and cooking in all of their various forms. Before the opening of the exchange, as still, indeed, women seeking remunerative employment were forced to go into one of the four great occupations open to women—work in factories, teaching, domestic service, and work in shops. But it has been impossible for all women desiring occupation to find it in these four great classes of employment. Many desire employment, but are forced to carry it on in their own homes; others have no taste whatever for any of the lines of work mentioned; and conditions under which many kinds of work are performed render other occupations obnoxious to others; still others prefer work which gives greater opportunity for the exercise of individual taste and ingenuity than do some of these occupations. Such women have found through the exchange a means of support and opportunity for work which they could not find elsewhere. They[189] are learning that society is coming to respect more the woman who supports herself by making good bread, cakes, and preserves than the woman who teaches school indifferently, gives poor elocutionary performances, or becomes a mere mechanical contrivance in a shop or factory. They are finding that the stamp of approval is ultimately to be put on the way work is done rather than on the occupation itself. Thus it is that hundreds of women from Maine to Texas and California are obtaining for themselves and others partial or entire support by making and offering for sale, either through business houses or private orders, cake, bread, preserved fruit, salads, desserts, and an innumerable number of special articles, in addition to the products of artistic needle-work and decorative art-work. Not only are these articles found in the large cities, but in country villages many women are engaged in such work and often find a ready sale for it without the trouble and expense of sending[190] it to the city markets. In one village of only five hundred inhabitants one young woman makes and sells daily thirty loaves of bread. In a small Eastern village another bakes and sells daily from thirty to a hundred loaves of bread according to the season, and cake and pastry in the same proportion.

The demand for work of this kind is as yet limited, and therefore the net profits are in most cases small; yet in some instances a fair competence has been secured. One person in a country town has made a hand-some living by making chicken salad which has been sold in New York City. Another has cleared four hundred dollars each season by making preserves and jellies on private orders. A third has built up a large business, employing from three to five assistants, in making cake. Still another, living near a Southern city, has built up “an exceedingly remunerative business” by selling to city grocers pickles, preserves, cakes and pies. One cause given for her[191] success has been the fact that “she has allowed no imperfect goods to be sold; everything has been the best, whether she has gained or lost on it.” A fifth has netted one thousand dollars a year by preparing mince-meat and making pies of every description; and a sixth has, with the assistance of two daughters, netted yearly one thousand five hundred dollars above all expenses, except rent, in preparing fancy lunch dishes on shortest notice and dishes for invalids. Still one more began by borrowing a barrel of flour, and now has a salesroom where she sells daily from eighty to a hundred dozen Parker House rolls, in addition to bread made in every conceivable way, from every kind of grain. More moderate incomes are made by others in putting up pure fruit juices and shrubs, in preparing fresh sweet herbs, in making Saratoga potatoes, and consommé in the form of jelly ready to melt and serve. So successful have been these ventures that some of those engaging in them have acquired not only[192] a financial profit, but a wide reputation for the superiority of their goods. In some instances the articles made are included in the catalogue of goods sold by the leading dealers in fine groceries in New York City.

These illustrations have been taken from the single department of domestic work; similar ones could be given from the class of plain and fancy needle-work and decorative art work. Surely it is better for the individual and better for society that these persons should turn to useful account their various talents, rather than attempt to enter many of the overcrowded occupations and do work for which they have neither talent nor inclination.

But not only is the exchange directly and indirectly of value to producers, it is of equal importance to consumers. It simplifies many housekeeping problems in families where there is more work than can be performed by one domestic employee and not enough for two, by making it possible to purchase for the table and other[193] household purposes many articles made out of the house of the consumer. In a similar way it is of assistance in all families who do “light housekeeping.” It also enables them to purchase articles ready for use which have been made under the most favorable conditions. A specific example of this is seen in the preparation of fruit for winter use. This is at present done in the family of each consumer, but the canning in cities, by individual families, of fruit, often in an over-ripe or a half-ripe condition, is as anomalous as would be the making to-day of dairy products in the same localities. The canning factory has come into existence to meet the demand, but the canning factory cannot meet the needs of private families, since the great perfection as regards results is secured only when articles are handled in small quantities. If all fruits could be preserved in the localities where they are produced, the consumer would gain not only in securing a better article than can now be produced[194] after shipment, but the cost would ultimately be lessened, since fruit could be thus preserved at less expense than when it is shipped to cities and there sold at a price including cost of transportation and high rents. Ripe fruit demands the most speedy and therefore the most expensive modes of transportation; preserved fruits can be shipped at leisure, by inexpensive methods. The consumer must also be indirectly benefited as well as the producer, from the fact that such a policy would prevent a glut in the market of such perishable articles and the consequent discouragement on the part of the producer, sometimes ending in a resolution to grow no more fruit for market, owing to the loss entailed. What is true of the purchase of fruit thus prepared is true also of numerous other articles. Scores of articles such as boned turkey, calf’s-foot jelly, chicken jelly, chicken broth, chicken croquettes and chicken salad, pressed veal, mince-meat, bouillon, plum pudding and many[195] miscellaneous articles could be thus produced under more advantageous conditions than at present. Moreover, many abandoned farms could be utilized as fruit farms, or for other purposes, which are now too remote from shipping centres to permit the transportation of ripe fruit, but could be made of use through the exchange.

Another advantage gained by the consumers is that they are thus able to take advantage of specialized labor. This, again, is evident in the domestic department. The consumer is usually obliged to depend on the skill of a single cook or baker, while through the exchange the works of many producers are placed side by side in competition, and thus in the end the highest standard is secured. For both producer and consumer, therefore, the exchange is of advantage in thus affording an avenue for specialized work. It thus makes possible to a certain extent the division of labor which has been but partially accomplished in the household.

[196]

Another field of work open to the exchange is in becoming a medium for the exchange of workers as well as of work—of affording a means of communication between workers in different lines or between the producer and consumer. Very much of the work now done in the house by those living there could be done to better advantage by those coming in from outside. Special skill in arranging rooms, hanging pictures, preparing for lunches, teas, or other social entertainments, repairing furniture and wardrobes, fine laundry-work, special table-service, etc., could be performed for housekeepers by those who retain their own homes and yet are able and anxious to give a few hours daily to outside work. The exchange, through a bureau of information, could accomplish much for both those wishing work and those wishing workers, as well as in a business way for itself. In many ways, it is thus seen, the exchange is in harmony with the economic and industrial development of the time. As[197] far as this is true it has in it the elements of permanence. Wherever it runs at right angles to present economic tendencies, it must be open to criticism and also contain in itself the germs of subsequent failure.

If all idea of charity per se could be eliminated from the exchange, if the word “gentlewoman” could be dropped from the pages of its reports, the by-law limiting consigners to self-supporting women stricken out, its consigners known by name instead of by number, and the idea abandoned that it is to help women to help themselves only “when misfortune comes;” if it could cease to be supported by donations, kermesses, charity balls, and miscellaneous entertainments; if it could refuse to constitute itself a judge of its consigners’ necessities; if the name could be changed to Household Exchange, or one signifying the character of the goods sold rather than the nature of the makers; if, in other words, the Woman’s Exchange could be put on a purely business basis and become self-supporting,[198] it would cease to be what it now is, “a palliative for the ills of the few,” and become what it aims to be, “a curative for the sufferings of the many.”