The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1889-06-21
w. C. T.. u.

HOuflSiilDR, UOt StiifluidlluS, lOOO3 Il Nv
is strengthened, especially if it be well
served. Let the same man return to an
ill-cooked supper, find that Bridget has
left, the wife, unused to homework, in
cross and hungry, the linen soiled, silver
and glass sticky. Alas! How bright to
him shines out the light that is not the
light of home, but one which is ever ready
to tempt, and nine times in ten he will re-
turn to it. The world blames the wife.
Yes, but the world is not always right
in this case very wrong, for back of the
wife stands a mountain of misery which
she alone can never remove, namely. the
domestic help trouble, which is growing to
be a trouble indeed.
We nave degraded the service, if not the
science, and so lost for it, at the present
must have ere the American housekeeper
is released from the heavy strain which is
now creating invalids all over our land.
Invalids? Aye. daily from our midst
martyrs silently drop out, victims to the
crying need of reform in this direction, be-
cause of this and because of our many i'll
conducted homes. | think that we all forci-
bly, realize the need of a thorough domestic
occasioned only because of the question
which arises, necessarily, of just how
to best br ing this about. Learning as we
must from other and successful reform
movements we obtain the clue: Organiza-
ton upon a broad national basis. Surely
the problem is worth the endeavor to solve
it by a society devoted to its interests
alone.
In all great movements we must level
up, not down." and so the keynote to our
work is the elevation of domestic service,
and that is our object, to be accomplished
through such an organization as VIC desire
to establish, with the idea of winning to
it by protection, education and training a
more intelligent class of workers, such as
it used to command. American girls are
the class we need, but how to win them?
Oar circulars outline a plan to be perfected
through a council of women which We de-
sire to call together in the interests of our
step. The fortunate, or the wealthy few,
have not yet felt the growing need of def
uite, decided national action upon domes-
tic service reform, but the many, especially
- l@-1oo &c - o1aro% IN p
out in despair, "what is to become of our
kitchens?!" as they watch the tide of popu-
lar opinion and sentiment which daily
grow more danay from house service. The
cities have been drawing their best supply
from the country. Generally these have
consisted of the American-born children of
foreign parents, who in many ways have
capably filled the places left vacant years
ago by the genuine American girls. But
these new daughters of our soil are quick
to learn and are rapidly following the ex-
ample set and are leaving homework for
other trades. l know this to be broadly
true in our own section. where for ten
years l have studied this problem, feeling
that a solution must be reached if we
would save the American home and moth
er. Through inquiry and travel find it
to be also true in most sections all over
our country.
A French writer has said that "a we'll
governed stomach is a great part of liber-
ty,'' and certainly a well-regulated kitchen
must be. In the fight for a clear brain Of
our temperance men and women | have so
often longed to send in my appeal for the
poor, dyspeptic martyr, subject to raw
Gretchen's or careless Bridget's cooking,
and also for the man who marries a girl
just from school, ignorant, untaught in
that which is one of the most vitality i'm
portant things tina. she should know
domestic service. Dependent upon her
kitchen force, however incompetent, for
the management of the household econo-
my, can she create a true home? Believ-
ing thoroughly in the higher education of
women, in the ballot based upon an 6duc0-
ti0ndl and not a SEXUAL distinction, and
equal pay for equal work, with woman's
right to enter all fields of usefulness, l
yet also most firmly believe that house,
work, home making and home keeping is
cur truest sphere and should present the
broadest field for honorable ~self-support,
and that until we have perfected our OWL,
God-given kingdom, we invite criticism
when we leave it for the outside world.
Until we nave removed the social ostracism
from the domestic service and opened the
way through training schools and other
methods for its elevation, WI are robbing
Helen Campbcll's "Prisoners of Poverty
of an easier bread winning, and a happier,
more comfortable life. But in order to do
this we must be broad and liberal in our
views and protect mistress and maid alike.
4 one sided reform can never be q right or
a prosperous one.
In a private letter to myself Helen
Campbell says in reference to our work
s'There is not a word of your letter that
does not appeal to me in many ways, and
| am in absolute sympathy with your pur-
poses as embodied in your circular. will
certainly help in every way that | can by
pen and in person." In reply to a letter
from myself, asking if we might use her