Progress in the household

by Lucy Maynard Salmon

This lack of knowledge explains to a certain extent why so many are unwilling to perform household work. It is natural to dislike work that brings failure, to enjoy what brings success. The average girl who “hates to sew” and “hates to do housework” would often find pleasure in both did she but have systematic knowledge concerning the work. The city boarding-house, crowded with women who “can’t endure housekeeping,” is one product of this combination of ignorance and aversion. In New York City there are said to be but thirteen thousand families in individual houses. The rest of the population are crowded into tenements, rookeries, boarding-houses, flats, and hotels.

But there are other reasons besides ignorance that explain this aversion to household work. There is a well-founded belief that the majority of women dislike both manual labor and self-supporting labor, and this fact applies both to housekeeper and to housemaid. We have passed the stage when it is permitted a man to say, “The world owes me a living.” We not only allow a woman to say this in effect, but we sometimes praise her for her womanliness in saying it. How often one hears the remark, “Her father has abundant means, it is unnecessary for her to support herself.” The average woman without family cares is self-supporting because dire necessity compels, not because honorable work is the birthright inheritance of every human being. Again, the mistress of the household constantly speaks of the routine work of the house as drudgery, and the houseworker, whose chief interest in it is one of dollars and cents, coins a still harsher term, and calls work a curse.

This ignorance and aversion are too widespread, and have existed too many centuries to be removed in a single generation, nor can we expect any one remedy to prove a panacea. But we may ask how far the efforts made have proved successful. The cooking-school is now in vogue, and doubtless has done much to teach new ways of preparing food, but the cooking-school has the same relation to the general subject of household science that an evening class in arithmetic has to a college education. The mistress learns a few things in a general way, and the maid does not care to learn at all. It is ephemeral in its nature, and while it attracts public attention to the need of more thorough instruction on the subject, it is far from going to the root of the question, even of how to teach cooking. The same may be said in general of domestic economy in our fashionable schools. Sewing and cooking as taught in charity schools do apparently give practical help in teaching the children of the poor to assist in the care of their own homes; but this work, like that done in the public schools on the same lines, distinctly disclaims any desire to give technical information. In the public schools the object of instruction in sewing and cooking is purely an educational one, and it is an incidental result scarcely to be expected when it leads girls to look upon housework as a means of support.

It has long been a belief with many, and one that it has been most difficult to give up, that schools for the training of domestic servants would do more than anything else to solve the domestic service problem, and thus indirectly provide for the overflow in shops and factories. In all of our large cities the experiment has apparently been faithfully tried. The theory has seemed unexceptionable, labor and expense have not been spared to carry it out, but the result has been, if not an utter failure, at least far from commensurate with the effort expended. In one school personally visited accommodations for twenty were found. When asked what was done in case there were more than twenty applicants for membership in the class, the superintendent replied that no such difficulty ever arose, as their numbers were never full. The answer was at least significant.

In one city the Women’s Guild organized cooking-classes with the thought of domestic service in mind. In a demonstration course where only ten cents a lesson was charged, the average attendance was never more than fifteen or sixteen, the greatest number ever attending being thirty-two. In a course of practical lessons in cooking, given at equally reasonable rates, the class numbered only four or five. One of the most efficient managers of such schools says after twenty-five years of experience that she is forced to believe that nothing in this line can be done. Similar testimony comes from a gentleman of wide practical knowledge of philanthropic work in New York City, and on the theoretical side from a lady widely known for her writings on economic subjects. Miss Mary Rankin Hollar has recently investigated one hundred schools and classes where domestic training is supposed to be given. She finds that less than ten per cent give systematic work, and only two have any maids in their classes.[10] In the light of these and of similar facts the conclusion must be accepted that the question cannot, certainly at present, be settled by establishing training-schools for employees, no matter how thoroughly equipped or how reasonable in charges these schools may be. The conclusion seems to be that all these efforts, from fashionable cooking-school to charity kitchen-garden, have not been able to remove, scarcely to lessen, either ignorance or prejudice.

The average housekeeper does not yet know the best, the easiest, the most practical, or the most scientific way to manage her household affairs. Her work is often monotonous and wearisome, and must be so until its true place as a profession is acknowledged. The inexperienced housekeeper recognizes her own likeness only too faithfully drawn by Dickens in Bella and her struggles with “The Complete British Housewife.” If she desires instruction, she finds it impossible to secure it in a systematic way. Kind friends offer suggestions, the cook-book gives hints, and the “Housekeepers’ Guide” bridges over a temporary difficulty. But this combination of instruction in regard to isolated facts in housekeeping is much like the attempt to learn a new language by memorizing words from the dictionary.

It is not strange that the novice still believes that housekeeping can be learned only by experience, nor, on the other hand, is it any more strange that in the effort to gain this experience she too often breaks down in health, or gives up the attempt and resorts to boarding. The cooking-school and the class in domestic economy, when taught in connection with a dozen other subjects, will not solve the question for her.

While the mistress is unskilled in work, the maid will be unwilling to work. Bridget does not suspect that she does not rise to the social position to which she aspires because her conversation is ungrammatical, perhaps even vulgar, her manner insolent, her spirit rebellious, her dress untidy and devoid of taste. She attributes her ill success to the work in which she is engaged. The facts most obvious to her are that her mistress does not understand practical housework, yet is socially her superior. She at once draws the conclusion that house service is degrading. She tries to escape to other work less remunerative but more satisfactory, and if she is unsuccessful, returns to house-service, determined to secure every possible privilege. She will not spend even three months’ time, or pay a nominal sum to learn housework, as a trade or profession. The training-school for domestic servants is a failure because they will not attend it.

It is said that the only way to strike at the root of all these difficulties is to dignify labor; the practical question is, how this is to be accomplished. In the light of all that has been done to attain this end, and the reasons for the comparative failure which has followed, may we not say that one great difficulty has been the fact that reform has begun at the wrong end? unless the chasm has been bridged between kitchen and parlor we cannot dignify labor in the kitchen alone. All true reform must begin at the top. This has been the experience of every great movement that has looked toward the improvement of mankind.

But what is the relation that college women bear to these problems of the household? They cannot revolutionize society, nor would they if they could. They cannot bring about any reform either in mistress or in maid. It may be answered truly that they can do but little. They are few in numbers—and they cannot assume the ability to settle questions with which previous generations of women have not been able to grapple. But are they justified in shielding themselves behind these excuses and in refusing to look the question squarely in the face? Women have proved themselves equal both mentally and physically to a college course, but if their training does not lead them to assist in the discussion of some of these vexed questions pertaining to the welfare of society, it may seriously be asked whether the higher education of women is worth all that it has cost. A statement as to what college women are now doing may perhaps be of help in answering what can be done.