3. The heaviest work, such as carrying coal, scrubbing pavements, washing, etc., to be arranged for if this is asked, with a consequent deduction in the wages.
4. No livery if there is feeling against it.
5. The privilege of seeing friends in a better part of the house than the kitchen, and security from any espionage during such time, whether the visitors are male or female. This to be accompanied by reasonable restrictions as to hours, and with the condition that work is not to be neglected.
6. Such a manner of speaking to and of the server as shall show that there is no contempt for housework, and that it is actually as respectable as other occupations.
Were such a schedule as this printed, framed, and hung in every kitchen in the land, and its provisions honestly met, household revolution and anarchy would cease, and the whole question settle itself quietly and once for all. And this in spite of a thousand inherent difficulties known to every housekeeper, but which would prove self-adjusting so soon as it was learned that service had found a rational basis. At present, with the majority of mistresses, it is simply unending struggle to get the most out of the unwilling and grudging server, hopelessly unreasonable and giving warning on faintest provocation. Yet these very women, turning to factory life, where fixed and inexorable law rules with no appeal, submit at once and become often skilled and capable workers. It is certain that domestic service must learn organization as every other form of industry has learned it, and that mistresses must submit to something of the same training that is needed by the maid. Nor need it be feared that putting such service on a strictly business basis will destroy such kindliness as now helps to make the relation less intolerable. On the contrary, with justice the foundation and a rigorous fulfilment of duty on both sides will come a far closer tie than exists save in rarest instances, and homes will regain a quality long ago vanished from our midst. Such training will be the first step toward the co-operation which must be the ultimate solution of many social problems.
It has failed in many earlier attempts because personal justice was lacking; but even one generation of sustained effort to simplify conditions would insure not only a different ideal for those who think at all, but the birth of something better for every child of the Republic.
For the individual standing alone, hampered by many cares and distracted over the whole household problem, action may seem impossible. But if the most rational members of a community would band together, send prejudice and tradition to the winds, and make a new declaration of independence for the worker, it is certain that the tide would turn and a new order begin. Till such united, concerted action can be brought about there is small hope of reform, and it can come only through women. Dismiss sentiment. Learn to look at the thing as a trade in which each seeks her own advantage, and in which each gains the more clearly these advantages are defined. It is a hard relation. It demands every power that woman can bring to bear upon it. It is an education of the highest faculties she owns. It means a double battle, for it is with ourselves that the fight begins. Liberty can only come through personal struggle. It is easy to die for it, but to live for it, to deserve it, to defend it forever is another and a harder matter. Still harder is it to know its full meaning and what it is that makes the battle worth fighting. Union to such ends will be slow, but it must come:—
“Freedom is growth and not creation:
One man suffers, one man is free.
One brain forges a constitution,
But how shall the million souls be won?
Freedom is more than a revolution—
He is not free who is free alone.”
Is this the word of a dreamer whose imagination holds the only work of reconstruction, and whose hands are powerless to make the dream reality? On the contrary, many years of experience in which few of the usual troubles were encountered, added to that of others who had thought out the problem for themselves, have demonstrated that reform is possible. Precisely such conditions as are here specified have been in practical operation for many years. The homes in which they have ruled have had the unfailing devotion of those who served, and the experiment has ceased to come under that head, and demonstrated that order and peace and quiet mastery of the day’s work may still be American possessions. Count this imperfect presentation then as established fact for a few, and ask why it is not possible to make it so for the many.