The Canadian Girl at Work: A Book of Vocational Guidance

by Lady Marjory MacMurchy Willison

We should be careful then to know how a girl should equip herself for the home employments. If she will look back to chapter five, "What Every Girl Needs to Know," she will find that in order to develop into a young woman able to meet the problems, work, responsibilities and joys of life, she should know how to keep herself and other people well. To keep herself well, she should understand the values of food and how to prepare food; she should know how to dress, which includes knowing how to make and mend clothes; and she should know how to rest. In order to keep other people well, she must know what food should be given to babies, to people at work, both men and women, and to old people. She should also be able to judge whether they are properly clothed and cared for. If possible, every girl should have some knowledge of nursing. She may not be a trained nurse, but she should have some of the knowledge and skill of the trained nurse.

One of the finest of the home employments is this great work of caring for people and keeping them well. One of the functions of a home is to preserve the health of its inmates.

Fortunately, any girl who wants to learn the art and science of home making may learn at home or in school, or she may go to special classes where all these domestic subjects are taught. There is hardly any study which is more delightful, because one has the pleasure of working with one's hands as well as studying. A girl who is a good cook, and knows how to cut out clothes and sew them, has a good part of the knowledge of the home-maker.

What else does the girl need to know before she can feel that she is properly trained to have charge of a home? The girl should be prepared to find that home-making requires a varied and very interesting training. The best home-maker needs a thorough knowledge of household accounting. The business girl understands that the factory, the store and the office can not be managed successfully unless the manager understands all about the bookkeeping of his business, for the books of the business should show the exact condition of the enterprise. The home is not a business and yet it requires some knowledge of business.

Much of her own happiness and usefulness and the happiness and usefulness of others will depend on her knowledge and ability to handle an income. She should read the best books and magazines on household management. If the girl has no books of her own she should ask for advice and help at the public library.

The home maker has many interests and an endless variety of duties. She needs to study—and if need be to take some action to try to control—the sources of food supply for her household. She must decide what manufacturing work should be done in the house. Are bread and cake to be baked at home? What preserving and canning are to be undertaken? How much clothing is to be made in the house, either with or without help? In every case the decision has to be made according to individual requirements. It may pay one home maker to bake her own bread; in the case of another, her time and strength may be needed in other ways. The problems of mending, and of taking proper care of household furnishings, are part of the duty of the home maker. She should also be an expert buyer, and should be able to judge of the quality and price of fabrics and of their suitability. If she employs a houseworker, she must be able to plan the work of her helper. It is important that the home maker should be fair to everyone whom she employs. Wages, hours, food and shelter, treatment and standing, should all be of the best character that she can give. The very nature of a home is based on right human relations. Nothing that is unjust or unkind should be tolerated in the management of the home or its relationships. The home is not managed for profit, but for human well-being. This fact alone places the work of the home maker among the first and best employments.

By far the most important function of the home is the care and training of children. No girl or woman can have too great a talent, or too careful a training, or too fine a personality, to devote all she has to the care of little children. It is a very wrong thing for anyone to undertake ignorantly, or to fail to be interested in, the best care of the health and feeding of infants and their early training. All girls who have had anything to do with the care of babies know how very delightful babies are, and how worth while it is to take care of them and to win their affection.

The twentieth century girl has to deal with two aspects of home-making, one of which is an old aspect revived, while the other is a principle new in its application to the work of the home. We have been taught by the stern necessity of the Great War the importance of the food supply of the world and the household. Every woman who is a home maker should have, if possible, a small garden in which to grow vegetables. Even if she lives in an apartment, she may arrange to have a garden allotment in co-operation with others. Gardening is one of the oldest of the home maker's employments.

The principle which is new in its application to the work of the home is co-operation. So far home makers have carried on their affairs independently, each woman very largely by herself. Suppose a group of ten women, practical, experienced home makers, with sufficient business sense to recognize fair business dealing, were to decide to arrange for some of their home making work in partnership. A great deal of the household buying of coal, bread, flour, canned goods (when buying canned goods is advisable), sugar, and other groceries, meat, poultry, butter, eggs, etc., might be carried on to great advantage in partnership. Canning, preserving and baking might be undertaken by one or two of the members of the group, or a professional worker might be engaged to do this work for the ten members. The actual expenses should be shared fairly and a considerable saving would be effected when the output was distributed amongst the members. In the same way, the co-operative group might arrange for household help. One skilled houseworker might assist with the work of three or four households. Washing, ironing, cleaning, dusting, mending, dressmaking, sewing, shopping, and the care of the telephone, could be carried on either partly or wholly by members of the group in return for other service, or by paid helpers who in every case should be reliable experts.

The principle on which successful co-operative work is based is the forming of a small group of well-known and trusted individuals to carry on work either in production, or buying and selling, or in both, with the sharing of expenses and the elimination of commission and secondary profits. Co-operation is admirably adapted to the work of home-making. The girls of the twentieth century, with courage, cleverness and enterprise, may bring a new blessing to the work of the home through the use of co-operation.