National opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1865-1874, 1874-01-16
Cooperative Housekeeping.

COOPERATIVE Housekeeping.
Mrs. Z. M. King has paper in the
Contemporary ReVie,v, wherein she
solves the domestic Servant CUES.
tion," and other growing puzzles Of So
ciety in two words, namely, "Co.opera-
tive housekeeping" The miseries Of
mistress and servants grow, she claims,
from the false position each holds in
the eyes of the other. The servant
complains that she is deprived of lib.
erty that the mistress cannot in con-
science concede, and each misunder-
stands. Either servants must become
bona flde slaves, or mistresses must be
prepared to do oil service themselves,
or, finally, the whole system OF domes-
tic service must be altered and re-
formed. The first is impossible. The
second will be conceded equally i'm
possible. The reform lies in making
servants free workers, and its method
in "not making the home of the en-
ployer the home also of the employed"
For the present isolated homes and sep.
arate establishments must be substitu-
ted system OF cooperative house.
keeping, with such division of labor
as shall make the servant entirely indie.
pendent of the will of her employer
during q certain part of every day.
Mrs. King wishes to begin with two
large buildings, costing from eco, 900
to ESQ, 900 each, one for families having
incomes ranging from G100 to G50O,
and another whence houseworkers for
the former may be taken. The confed.
Grated families are to be served for a
certain number of hours daily by one
set of workers, then by another, the
servants being nobody's servants when
their hours are over. This it is claimed
will of itself insure a better class of
servants by putting employment within
the reach of good women who can spare
half day from their homes, and by in
viting q higher grade of women who
will no longer be debarred from enter
ing service by the petty domestic
tyranny of an isolated household. But
better service is to be further insured
by training.
Domestic work cannot be organized
in the homes of to-day. The amateur
worker, whom her husband will not
have othel than an amateur, is in the
absurd position of directing profess
Fsionals. A professional cook is the pro.
duct of life's study, and skilled
houseworker is both born and made a
houseworker. Schools will not meet
the difficulty. There can be no
schools of cookery where there are no
dinners to be eaten. and no schools for
homework where there are no house,
holds" Two bars to the organization
of domestic labor have been that men
wish to get the chief part of their
housekeeping done for nothing, and
that homes have not heretofore been
associated. The first view arises from
the fallacy that comfort and luxury, the
ends of wealth, are not as direct an end
as wealth. The association of homes
is without prejudice to such as do not
wish to be associated, and in effect none
of their business, for it affords the only
way of giving technical instruction in
domestic work, each apprentice doing
what she can do without loss or waste
until she has learned to do more. The
expense of the best mechanical appli-
ances, too heavy for many private
house, can be met in the buildings of
the association. Sanitary wants can be
more thoroughly met.
Mrs. King accepts the fact of grow
ing class separation as mere step in
the higher development to be helped
forward rather than wept over, and par
ticularizes the social life of women
which she is trying to organize on
self-sustaining basis. AS to children,
too, she claims the confederate home
offers a solution of the question of
their education. The home will be a
nursery, kindergarten, and school
room, the division of labor applying in
greater or less degree to all having
charge of children. The nurses will be
ladies skilled to certain degree in
medicine, and fitted to be companions
OF guides to mothers. The children re-
main in the home and the visiting
methers become social circle of their
own. The care will be of the best, and
while the child has its education no
mother loses her wages. For govern
ment, the representative republican
form, each room holder having vote,
which he or his wife may give. The ac-
knowledged danger is that when wo-
mems work is organized, men will take
it as they have taken everything that
can be done away from "home." The
organization must come, and with it
freedom or degradation for woman. The
safeguards are 4: first, the nature of do
nestle work and second, the associa-
ted home itself, wherein men will learn
their duties in respect of woman's needs
and rights.