It has already been said that “educational forces do not push from the bottom, they pull from the top.” When a strong educational force exerted from the top shall have pulled the household and all questions connected with it out of the slough of stagnation in which it has been for so long a time, then, and not till then, will training schools for domestic employees be successful. Progress in every other field of human activity has been made only through investigation and the widespread diffusion of the results of such investigation; on similar investigations rests the only hope of making progress in household affairs.
CHAPTER XVI
CONCLUSION
Any study of the subject of domestic service must lead to the conclusion that household service and household employments do not occupy an isolated position; that while they may be indifferent to the political, industrial, and social changes constantly occurring, they cannot by virtue of this indifference remain unaffected by them; that the inventions of the past hundred years have revolutionized household employments, and that the present generation must adapt itself to these new conditions; that while a century ago domestic service had no competitors as an occupation for women, it now has hundreds; that the personnel in the domestic service of America has been transformed through industrial, political, and social revolutions; that it has been affected by the democratic tendencies of the age and by the commercial and educational development of the country; that because of these constantly recurring changes in the conditions surrounding domestic service the questions connected with it vary from year to year; that it is governed by the same general economic laws as are all other employments, and that it has developed within itself other economic laws peculiar to it; that the increasing wealth and luxury of the country are introducing new complications into a problem already far from simple; that both employer and employee are heirs of conditions which their ancestors could not control, and that they are surrounded by difficulties which no person single-handed and alone can hope successfully to overcome.
It has been seen that many of these difficulties arise from the failure to recognize domestic service as a part of the great industrial questions of the day. It is not so recognized because economic writers have not as yet discussed the subject, and because those who come in daily contact with it overlook its economic side. The housekeeper who completes her round of morning shopping by a visit to an employment bureau where she engages a new cook regards that and her other business transactions all in the same light; she has both in shopping and in securing a cook been guided solely by her taste, her necessities, and her bank account. The economist must include domestic service in his discussions of the labor question, and the housekeeper must differentiate the various parts of her housekeeping duties before improvement is possible.
It must also be recognized that another difficulty has been the natural conservatism of many women—a conservatism arising from the isolated, home-centred lives many housekeepers lead, and that prevents that intellectual hospitality which is the presager of all true progress. The typical housekeeper, like the Turk, is a born fatalist; because things are as they are, they must always have been so and they must continue so to be. Many persons take pride in being “old-time housekeepers” and look with disfavor on any change. “That plan might succeed in some families, but it would not in mine” is for many others the final settlement of the question. This lack of mental elasticity and the dislike of taking the initiative in any movement must be another obstacle in the way of immediate improvement.
It has also been seen that other causes partially explain the difficulty—the love of ease and pleasure, the attempt to keep up appearances, a pretentious manner of living, the frequent desire of both employers and employees to get everything for nothing, the willingness of mistresses to find maids who will do their work half right and of maids to find mistresses who will treat them half right, the endeavor to get “the largest expenditure of woman for the smallest expenditure of money,” a natural tendency among women toward aristocracy and a dislike of everything savoring of social democracy.
Some of the difficulty arises from conditions to be expected in a country comparatively new and possessing great possibilities of wealth. The growing luxury among the middle classes not only creates a demand for more employees but it also increases the requisitions upon those rendering service. Those who have lately acquired riches make increasing demands upon their employees, and they must become accustomed to their riches before these demands will be modified. Bishop Potter has said, “Luxury has its decent limits, and we in this land are in danger in many directions of overstepping those limits.”[329] Persons with moderate means are the greatest sufferers from this thoughtless transgression of the bounds of luxury. The remedy lies in such education of the wealthy classes, especially where wealth has been suddenly acquired, as will give a more practical knowledge of general and household economics, a realization of the ethical as well as of the economic principle involved in paying high wages for poor service and abnormally high wages for good service, such an education as will result in greater simplicity in manner of living because it will be governed by ethical, economic, and hygienic principles.
It is true that in thousands of households no difficulty in regard to domestic service exists, but this fact does not relieve those in charge of such households from further responsibility in the matter. A political club recently formed to secure better municipal government in Montreal took as its watchword, “Every man is individually responsible for just so much evil as his efforts might prevent.”[330] In a similar way the responsibility of the employer does not end with his own household, but he is responsible for as much evil in the general condition of domestic service as he could have prevented by his investigation and discussion of the subject.
The first result of this investigation, discussion, and action must be the attempt to remove from domestic service the social stigma attached to it. During the feudal period every occupation was inferior socially to that of warfare; physicians were leeches, clergymen were held in disrepute, bankers were usurers, and merchants and traders were tolerated only because they could furnish the ready money necessary for military campaigns—social position belonged only to the profession of arms. The substitution of higher ideals for those of feudalism and the spread of democratic ideas have removed the social ban from every occupation except domestic service. Industrial and social evolution point to its ultimate removal from this employment as has been the case in others.