The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-07-21
THE PROBLEM OF DOMESTIC HELP
BY LAURA c. HOLLOWAY.

BY LAURA C. HOLLOWAY.
 After all that has been said and done for the elevation of woman, the advance effort has not reached the most important problem of all-that of domestic help. To the inefficiency and unreliableness of servants gener- ally may be attributed the failure of women, as class, to feel mans inter- est in public affairs, and all attempts looking to the higher education or more liberal culture of the sex will be limited in their scope until the mighty question of domestic help is solved. The unreliableness and indifference of women who are doing the homework in the homes of the American people are appalling, and the remedying of the evil is of the most vital import ance. It is branch of our industry which remains in state of utter dis organization, and until it is placed upon practical business basis there will be no great advance made in the condition of women. Special training can be had by those who desire to be- come hospital nurses, dressmakers, milliners, telegraphers, typewriters, or even cooks; but there are no insti- tutions where raw hands may be con- verted into useful housemaids and home- servers.
 The work of reform is briskly pushed iii all other directions, but the do- mestic service of the country is in a wretched condition, and the problem of comfortable living confronts every class of our women to the exclusion of other thoughts and aims.
 The single woman who has sn in- come sufficient to secure home com- forts, does not have the home because of the bother and worry of servants; {; the young mother, with her two or three small children, is not willing to enter upon the manifold difficulties of housekeeping because of the fear of not being able to secure efficient help {; so the boarding house keeps them, and the influences of home-life are de- nied the young at time when they most need them.
 The responsibility for this state of affairs is not to be put upon either the one class or the other; it is not the fault of mistresses or of maids that things are as they are; it is the result of the present condition of life. We are living in the transition period, in an age of unequalled progress, and are suffering from the unrest and un- settled condition of the masses.
 The improvement of domestic ser- vice has not been reached, and no sys- tenn has been devised by which the same rules and requirements that con- trol other industries are made to gov ern this branch of work. We are at the mercy of the agencies and under the dominion of the ignorance and false pretences of system, which is no system at all.
 Candidates for situations are offered who are unprovided with any proof whatever of their fitness for the duties they assume, and employers are com- pelled to take into their homes women who are absolutely unknown to them, and to entrust the order of the house to the hands of total strangers. There is but one mode of redress, one prac- tical, common-sense course to be pur- sued. Training schools for domes- tics, where housekeepers shall be able to secure good servants, and from whence women will go into homes where they will have kind treatment and fair compensation, is the need of the hour. Through them will be reached the relief of housekeepers and the establishment of domestic service on practical business basis. When the work is systematized, and the rewards are commensurate with good service, then better class of women will SC into this line Of work. It is only because of its disorganization that it is so unpopular, and, on the other hand, 1t is because housekeepers have such poor material offered them, that some system cannot be devised. In we'll organized home the position of a trained servant is pleasant and advantageous. Work is never difficult to a thoroughly competent and disci- plined worker, and as soon as there are more good servants there will be an increase of desirable situations open to them. It is because of the