St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1886-06-17
FREE TRAINING FOR SERVANT
GIRLS.

Amid these strikes and rumOrs of
strikes, it is refreshing to catch Gimp
SEES, here and there, of earnest efforts
to make the working people more
skilful, happier and better. Every
experiment along the line of industrial
education for boys and girls is a help
full factor in the solution of labor
troubles. One of the best of these is
the training school carried on by the
Young WOmen's Christian Association
in its new building on Berkeley street.
One wing is given up entirely to rooms
where girls can be taught cooking,
sewing, laundry work, and all branches
of domestic service. The culinary de-
partment is in charge of a graduate of
the Boston Cooking school, and the
whole is supervised by Mrs. Boyd, once
public school teacher. A tour through
the rooms show appliances for teach
ing everything in the most thorough
manner. The girls are divided into
two classes, one of which practises
cooking in the morning and laundry
work in the afternoon. The other class
makes beds, sweeps, dusts, washes
dishes, waits upon the table, ETC., in
the morning, and sews in the after
noon. They alternate in these duties
each week. The soul of every house
keeper would rejoice to take "A peep in
to the closets. Such order such clean
illness such spOtless shelves and shin
ing tins Girls who enter this training
school are given their board for three
months, and the openings for them in
pleasant families, ut good wages, are
double what can he filled. And yet,
trn nj ha IH-
ly be found who will avail themselves
of these privileges. The most serious
drawback to the success of this effort
is the yOuthfulness of the girls who
enter. None are taken under fifteen,
and few apply over seventeen. With
the best of training it can hardly be
expected that a girl in her teens will
have the maturity of judgment or even
the physical strength necessary to as
sumo the whole charge of the house
hold, after an experience of only three
months. The term of service ought to
be extended twice that period, and
some effort put forth to secure older
women. But ignorant, stupid servants
flock from Nova Scotia and the Pro-
vinces and hire out at once as cOmpe
tent cooks, laundresses and seamstres-
SEES knowing llll well GIdJ IHey CdH
get their three or four dollars week
without losing (O three months i'll be-
ing taught dizziness, neatness, order
and despatch. If hOusekeepers would
strike, refusing to employ unframed
servants, the efficiency of this institu-
ton would be largely increased. In
painful contrast to the industrial de-
partment is the general labor bureau
of the Association for women seeking
more "genteel" employment. Scores
and scores of cOpyists, stenOgraphers,
type writer's, and governesses wait
anxiOusly, week after week, fOro ffers
that rarely come, the association,
meanwhile, generously providing board
as low as two and half dollars per
week.
Fourteen girls in training for domes-
tic service, with fifty homes awaiting
their help, on one side of the equation,
and hundreds of empty hands clutch
ing eagerly at single protfer OF work
of different kind, upon the other.
Who will undertake TO reduce the
equation to equal terms ?-[Congrega-
tiOnalist.