Progress in the household

by Lucy Maynard Salmon

A third obstacle is the persistent belief that nothing can be done until this magic recipe has been discovered. If it is suggested that one measure of alleviation is to take a part of the work out of the household it is answered that it is useless to propose it because all work cannot be taken out of the household, because the plan would not work in the rural districts, because it would not meet the case in England, because it is expensive. Certainly all these are valid objections to considering the plan a sovereign remedy. But to refuse to try a remedy that may prove of benefit in some households because it will not work in all is quite the same as to refuse to administer a medicine in case of fever because it will not also cure consumption.

The preceding is illustrative of another difficulty that is implied in it—a fundamental ignorance on the part of many housekeepers of the processes of reasoning. This is illustrated by the reasoning that many go through with in discussing the question:

“Public laundries are in the hands of men whose standard of perfection in laundry-work is a smooth shirt-front and a stiff collar and cuff. This standard of perfection cannot be applied to the laundering of linen and children’s clothing. Therefore, table-linen and children’s clothing must be laundered in the house.”

“My mother’s cook received a part of her wages in lodging and board. My cook receives a part of her wages in lodging and board. Therefore, my daughter’s cook will receive a part of her wages in lodging and board.”

“Negro employees lodge out of the house at the South. White employees do not lodge out of the house in England. Therefore employees cannot lodge out of the house at the North.”

“Employees should be treated with consideration. My employees are treated with consideration. Therefore all employees are treated with consideration.”

“Some employees are incompetent. Good results cannot be secured with incompetent employees. Therefore good service is impossible.”

The only way of meeting this difficulty is found in the slow process of careful, systematic education. What many housekeepers need is not so much instruction in cooking or domestic sanitation as training in calculus and quaternions, Herodotus and Livy, logic and geology.

Still another hindrance is the tone of certainty and finality that characterizes all discussions concerning the household. It is a part of the religious belief of many persons that every woman has been foreordained by Providence to be a wife, mother, and housekeeper, and that any deviation from this fundamental law is an infringement on the designs of Providence. But some of us remember that scarcely more than fifty years ago Daniel Webster said in the United States Senate that slavery had been excluded from California and New Mexico by the law of nature, of physical geography, the law of the formation of the earth, and that he would not through the Wilmot Proviso take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature or to reënact the will of God. Many apparently believe, through the same specious reasoning, that to provide instruction in household affairs would be in a similar way to reaffirm an ordinance of nature.