Household Organization

by Florence Caddy

Good taste has no false shame; so we need not add the vexations of concealment to the accumulation of cares we have heaped upon our houses, till they are so encumbered with impedimenta of all kinds that our whole strength is taken to keep them in order, and the household machine has to move through such a mass of difficulties that it is like a loaded carriage lumbering through a Turkish road. Why should we add these things to life?

We are daily bringing mechanism to greater perfection, and it is our own fault that we do not make it perform for our houses what Manchester has made it do for our looms, and render ourselves mistresses in reality, instead of merely in name, of our own households.

If we had to go back to the old flint-and-tinderbox days, when it was an hour's hard work in the dark to strike a light, when gas was unknown, when water was not laid on, when all bread must be made at home, all stockings knitted; when there was no such thing as a ready made shirt, much less gowns and polonaises; no perambulators, nor washing machines;—we should not heap upon ourselves superfluous work in the thoughtless way we do at present, and then leave all to the attention of the most careless and irresponsible members of the community.

In a small family there is less work to be done; in a large one there are more hands to do the work, and many hands make light labour.

We would have no mistress of a family a household drudge, while her daughters lounge over fancy-work or a novel; but we would ease her hands, and uphold her in her true position of administratrix, mainspring, guiding star of the home.

Modern educational pressure causes too many of us to indulge our children, and release them from every personal duty. They must have time and quiet for their studies, and so they are allowed to become selfish, and to think that everything must give way to their mental improvement. Whereas we should train them to give as little trouble as possible; and by good management, or by sacrifices, such as getting up earlier, to do at least the extra work appertaining to their individual enjoyment. Why should they, for instance, require hot water brought to their rooms several times a day? Their grandparents used cold, and it was better for them. Why must girls have their hair brushed and braided for them? Why must their lost gloves be found for them, and their wardrobes tidily arranged for them to throw into confusion in their hurry?

Boys, especially, are so seldom trained to habits of consideration, that a young man in a house gives at least twice the trouble that his father does. Boys ring bells with intense heedlessness of its being some one's journey—oftener four journeys—to answer them. They make their boots unnecessarily dirty, and their other clothes also; while the extra baths on football days, and the cleansing of the white garments, make many mothers wish the noble game were not so popular; and to sweep up the dirt the boys bring into a house often constitutes the chief work of a housemaid. We do not expect boys to mend their clothes, but they should be made to put them away, and to keep their books, papers, and toys in their proper places, and to take care of their own pets.

We excuse young men from doing these things, instead of smoking or novel-reading through the whole of their spare time, on the plea that they work at money-making, forgetting that they do so for themselves, and not, like their father, for the family benefit. We might reform these things materially, and remove much of the self-indulgence which causes what has been truly called "the shame of mixed luxury and misery over our native land." If we all habitually gave less trouble, we should require fewer servants to wait upon us.

There is a scarcity of good working servants, while the governess market is largely over-stocked. How many thousand of the poorest subjects of our Queen are now sinking, sick with hope deferred, into despondence, hating the present, dreading the future.

And yet on all hands we hear our lady friends say, "We must all wait upon ourselves now." The impossibility of finding the average of three servants for every house in London being now recognized. Why need there be three servants to every house, when servants are the greatest drain to the fortune of a family, worse even than the dress and society of its lady members, or than the tobacco of the men?