Progress in the household

by Lucy Maynard Salmon

It is not surprising, in view of all the agitation of the question in our own country, to find that a similar interest has been aroused elsewhere. In Germany, that home of conservatism in all domestic affairs, an elaborate statistical investigation has been carried on by Dr. Oscar Stillich, and its results published in an exhaustive work entitled “The Status of Women Domestics in Berlin.”[9] Nor again is it surprising to find that neither official nor domestic Berlin has taken kindly to the investigation, since bureaucracy has in it no place for private initiative, and the Kinder, Küchen, Kirchen theory of domestic life has resented what has been deemed unwarranted interference in private affairs. But it is a matter of congratulation that the author has been of undaunted courage, and that his work stands as a thoroughly scientific investigation, and therefore the most valuable contribution yet made in any country to the theory and condition of domestic service.

Two things of special encouragement must be noted. One is the changing attitude of domestic employees themselves toward their own occupation, and the other is the introduction of men into a field where it has always been held that by divine ordinance women ruled supreme.

The number of domestics who have shown any interest in the question is indeed, as yet, infinitesimal in comparison with the total number in the occupation, but five righteous men shall save the city. Here and there one is found who realizes that domestic employees must be ready to help themselves if help is to come from others, that it is possible for them to improve the conditions of domestic service through their own efforts, that respect for any occupation comes, as those connected with it command respect for it, through their own attitude toward it. This is as yet realized by so few that no appreciable results can be seen with the naked eye, but the leaven is working.

A very welcome and appreciable change has come through the practical interest in the question shown by men. They have lectured and written on the subject, and have listened to the lectures on it given by women. This means that the subject is being recognized by them as worthy of study and discussion and as of importance to all—to men and to women alike—who are interested in the welfare of society. On its practical side also the interest of men is making itself felt. Chafing-dish courses have been opened for men, where they have learned the preparation of the luxuries of the table, as the rough-and-ready experiences of camp-life in summer vacations and in military campaigns have taught them how to prepare the necessities of life. Young men in college and young men living in bachelors’ apartments are proud of their attainments in afternoon teas and chafing-dish suppers, while men trained as nurses learn the preparation of delicacies for the sick. It is true, indeed, that cooking-classes are but indirectly connected with domestic service, but everything that breaks down artificial barriers, and permits the free industrial entrance of both men and women into whatever occupation they prefer, is a direct gain to every line of work. Any one whose attention has been turned in the direction of securing household employees must constantly come in contact with the fact that there is a considerable number of men engaged in household employments for remuneration.

Does this enumeration of the progress of the past ten years seem indeed like an Homeric catalogue of the ships? It may, yet the ships are bound for a definite haven, and must in time enter port.

If one lasting gain of these years has come to be an appreciation of the necessity of diagnosing the disease before prescribing a remedy, it must follow that the remedy prescribed fits the disease. Has it been shown as a result of exhaustive and exhausting investigation that the great barrier to the entrance of competent men and women into domestic employment is the social one,—it follows that efforts are being turned toward leveling this barrier. If we have learned that the loneliness of the life is in sharp contrast to the opportunity for comradeship presented in other industrial pursuits, we have thereby learned to ward against this loneliness by encouraging means of wholesome recreation. When scientific research has disclosed the plague spots in the employment agency and the intelligence office, restrictive legislation has followed. If it has been found that the weak and the ignorant have been taken advantage of by the strong and the knowing, efforts for moral regeneration have been put forth. Since we have realized that in the household, as elsewhere, it is impossible for the blind to lead the blind, technical schools have offered instruction in household affairs to employers of household employees.

Yet when we look over the field still to be reclaimed in the interests of comfortable home life, more than enough causes for discouragement remain. Housekeepers still carry on their households in defiance of all business methods; ignorant women boast that they “have never so much as boiled an egg in their life,” and complain that their cooks will not stay with them; idle women spend their time in playing bridge, and wonder why their maids are discontented; men boast at their tables of their shrewdness in obtaining something for nothing, and cannot understand why petty thieving goes on in their households; society receives the once, twice, and thrice divorced, but draws the social line at the cook and the butler; communities tolerate by the score the places where domestic employees, as others, can find recreation and amusement of every questionable kind, but the communities can yet be counted on one hand where they can obtain genuine, wholesome, attractive recreation; the church, with a few exceptions, is prone to close its doors, except for Sunday and midweek evening service, and to expend its efforts on fine music, with church suppers to foot the bills,—forgetting the poverty of interests in the lives of so many in the community.

But when all has been said, it must be felt that the balance shows much to the credit of domestic service,—a balance due to the capital invested in it through the study of conditions made by both men and women. In no country are these conditions so favorable as they are in America to-day. England has its well-trained, obsequious butler, Germany has its police regulations of servants, France has its chef, Italy has hopeless machines who are “really servants.” America has none of these, but it has men and women who believe that if the future holds for us a solution of the problem it lies, not in the direction of reproducing on American soil the English flunkey, or in the introduction of German governmental control, or in increasing the number of French chefs who shall give us endless varieties of new soups and salads, or yet in crushing all interest in life out of the hearts and souls of those who serve us, as a pitiless fate seems to have done in Italy; but men and women who believe that the solution lies in the path of hard, toilsome investigation, to which students must come without prejudice and with a fearless acceptance of the results of such investigations.

In no country are the conditions of domestic service so hopeful as they are to-day in America, and it is in large part due to our theory of education which has been in practical force for more than a generation. Men and women receive the same school, college, and university training, and this training enables women to order their households, on their mechanical side, in the same systematic way that the business enterprises of men are managed. The result of this is that matters pertaining to the household command the respect as well as the sentimental consideration of men, and that men and women are more and more becoming co-workers in all efforts to secure improvement. Each year the proportion of housekeepers with trained minds increases, and in the same proportion the number increases of housekeepers who make intelligent demands on their employees, who do not encourage poor service by tolerating it, who realize their responsibility to other households, and understand that “every irresponsible mistress makes life more difficult for every other mistress and maid.” It is at least significant that this progress has been made in a country where the education of men and women is precisely the same, and that the least advance has been made in those which arrange a special curriculum for women and which profess to train girls and young women specially for domestic life. America holds that education means for women, as well as for men, intellectual training rather than the accumulation of information without it, and that the value of this is seen, in the case of women, in the intelligent study they are everywhere making of household affairs.

When the vital question in Italy was that of independence from Austria and of unity under an Italian government, Mazzini said, with a sublime appreciation of the principle involved, “Without a country and without liberty, we might perhaps produce some prophets of art, but no vital art. Therefore it was best for us to consecrate our lives to the solution of the problem, ‘Are we to have a country?’” It is possible to have peace and contentment in individual households along with ignorance of the economic laws that govern the household, but there can be no radical reform in domestic service in this or any other country that does not recognize the inseparable connection between domestic service and all other forms of labor, and that does not make this fact its starting-point. If the difficulties in the present situation, which are all too evident, are to be overcome, it can only be by devoting our energies, as did Mazzini in Italy, not so much to temporizing in our households as rather to the slow methods of careful, patient investigation of the conditions without. The immediate gain to ourselves may be slight, but those who come after us may reap the benefits.