The morning call., 1891-12-18
SERVICE VERSUS LABOR.

A few months ago an expert started q
cooking school in Oakland, to teach plain
and fancy cooking The school has been
very largely attended, and has doubtless
done no little good. Among the attendants
at classes have been schoolgirls anxious to
learn something of the great domestic art,
young ladies expecting some time to marry,
and experienced housekeepers DESTROYS of
absorbing new ideas. The curious fact is
reported, however, that not one woman or
girl has taken the course in order to qualify
herself for domestic service Tor hire.
This fact has considerable interest as
illustrating the unwllingness of girls and
women in this country to fit themselves
to enter domestic service or even to
enter such service at all, unless driven by
necessity to do so.
A great deal has been written on this SUBJ
ject, but usually to no purpose. II is sup
posed that American women object TO en-
tering domestic service because it is in
trinsically mental. and it is just now pop
liar fad to propose the ''elevating" of the
service by elevating the standard of those
engaged in ii, and to confer dignity upon
it by surrounding it with halo of senti-
ment in regard to itself. There should be
no necessity to DO this. Housework, cook
ing, the various household duties are essen
tial 10 human comfort and happiness; there
fore human beings should be able to per-
form them with no loss of dignity either
in their own estimation or in the esti-
nation of others. 1t is generally sup
posed that women shun this work because
they object to being called servants. This
is not SO much the case as it is that they
object to being servants. The dignity of
loh in no
cause this work is just what its name I'M
plies, service. and not labor. The average
man, when he employs labor, wants labor
the average woman demands service.
If Homework were trade. as type-set-
ting, bonnet making, shoe binding, are
trades, to be learned as such; if wages were
gr aduated by fixed scale, as are wages in
other trades; if the women who are now
'mistresses" of their "help" would con-
sent to become, instead, employers of this
labor. conceding to it certain rights, as men
concede the rights of their employees; make
provision for the most convenient perform
ance of its duties, and live up to their agree
ments as the male employer lives up to his,
a different class of lab0rers would enter this
fiel d, which, but for the degrading condi-
tons surrounding it, would be the favorite
field of labor of many women who now
avo id it.
But women are not. as rule. content to
allow such purely impersonal arrangements
to prevail in their households. The average
woman is intensely personal. She will rule
her own household, and this, naturally, in
cludes ruling the servant. AS a conse-
Quence, she is reduced to the necessity of
taking into her service ignorant, incapable
help, that, in reality, rules her with the all
persuading threat of leaving if not humored,
and there is constant strife between parlor
and kitchen.
As an outcome of this state of affairs we
have a whole literature on the subject
of the ordering Of the household, and the
management of servants, and the curious
spectacle of women getting together in
clubs and lotteries to discuss domestic econ
omy ana the servant question.
Fancy any male employer eagerly turning
the leaves of Common Sense in the Count
ing-room," to peruse advice as to the best
and most approved methods of managing
his clerks!