: Progress in the household by Salmon Lucy Maynard - Home economics

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RECENT PROGRESS IN THE STUDY OF DOMESTIC SERVICE

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 Klink and Miss Frances A. Kellor. Miss Jane Addams in "A Belated Industry" 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." 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;" 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." Nothing could prove more effectively the change in the attitude of the public mind toward the subject 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, "The Terms Hired Man and Help," as Mr. James D. Butler had previously done by his investigations on "British Convicts shipped to American Colonies," and Dr. Karl Frederick Geiser by his work on "Redemptioners and Indented Servants in the Colony and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

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