The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-07-20
SERVANT GIRL QUESTION
Discussed by Mary E Spencer in
the St Louis Sunday Globe
Democrat,
Domestic Work Calls for Great
Discrimination. Judgment,
and Neatness.
No Kiad OF Work Should he More Hon
orabls. Mere beautiful or More
Highly Sought For.

Nrs, Stone, who. . few years ago wrote a
capital story called "Ons of Bsrrien's Nov
Ella" has turned our attention to another
subject, and 10 giving us such advice as We
much need and must heed concerning the
servant girl difficulty. She starts with the
radical position That the cause for disllking
domestic service 10 that girls arc not trained
10 tin fact, the service itself is the only
training q girl gets. So 1t comes about that
our homes are %eternaliy serving nc schools
for raw hands. If by chance We get a girl
to stay with us until fairly we'll educated
and useful, she marries to set VI a homo of
her own. Add to this Mrs. Stones next
proposition. that housekeeping Is IN It's ma
turs q most enjoyable occupation, ana You
arc on the road to 500 what nel
solution of. our trouble Will 90.
Housekeeping ought to be liked why
not? There ia nothing about the care OF a
beautiful home that is disagreeabls II
looked at comparatively. Will you select
some occupation that is inherently more
agreeable? Is the shopkeeper more hap
PLY situated? Is the milliner or the dress
maker az free from hard work and annoy
ances? Or. among men. what employnents
are essentially as delightful with variety!
These things must be looked at compara-
lively il We desire to understand them. Inc
real key to the dislike for Homework is that
il 10 degraded by Ignorance. 1t happens
that persons totally unframed can, IN a
way, become housekeepers, and can draw
1 as such. It is the dumping place for
Incompetence and greenness.
II follows naturally that Mrs. Stone
should take az her next point that house
keeping ,is an art-a more intricate art
than music" Capacity to perform must.
therefore, come either by training or from
hersdity. This is not disprovsd by the
fact that a great deal which passes for
housekeeping is p%erfunctory and brainless,
. mere mechanical effort to get work out of
quality is not considered. And SO it has
come about that ono must pay quite as
much for q drudge as for an artist. Let
this DO clearly understood, for in it lies the
difference in homes; where one is beautiful
another 10 no better than q shop where
prentices must obey some head, whereas
the average hired girl obeys no one. Her
chief thought is not of ability, but of lib
srty; not Of training. but Of rights.
''Our only hope lies in training. Domes-
tic work, we'll done, calls for great discrim-
nation, Judgment, resolution, neatness and
IN educated eye and hand. Our own child
rem are drilled in these deliberately from
bsbyhood mp, and are still careless and in
exact, the only quality being that these
failings in our young people have taken on
. certain artistic grace Whlon blinds us to
their h]einouspess. It is useless to mag
inc that capacity in Homework will be
easily acquired by a class whose fingers
lack all the delicacy and skill which come
from long practice, ana whose brains nave
never been awakened to the beauty OF sys-
tenn and thoroughness." we are able to
do things moro intelligently and artist
ically because OF our environment with an
atmosphere of culture. But all that the
hired girl can get from her associa ton
with refined families is an impulse to dress
showily and extravaRantly. Can any
scheme be devised which shall carry these
people to q deeper comprehension OF what
culture ia?
The logic Of Mrs. Stone along this line
will bear close examination. What can the
employers of America do better for the raw
material Of help than simply to leave it raw
and comparatively worthless! As matters
AZ, we have succeeded in making the one
most despised employment Il n adjunct or
oven incorporate part of our homes. The
sustenance of our home life, of our children
and ourselves, Is tangled with a method OF
work that is so detestable that the employe
gets out of it as soon as she can. On the
contrary it ought to be q TACT that no work
could be more honorable, more beautiful,
more highly sought for than that which is
associated with building homes. rearing
children and training souls as we'll as
bodies. And this can come about only by
involving helpers in the same general
powers Of training with the rest Of US. |
have recently given an account of a notable
English movement in this direction, Mrs.
Stone urges something different, and yet
something that may be held to be supple
mentRry. She holds that our help are
really not getting righteous compensation;
them is to bring about the custom of max
Ing the training of servants a well-paid and
reputable occupation, for which women of
intelligence and tact shall be employed, as
nurses are now we'll taught and trained to
the most intelligent exercise of duty. II
turesquelv satirized by Dickens. could, in
10 short a time, be elevated to a noble pro-
fession, why cannot the general help prob
lem be solved in the same way.
But how shall this training be brought
about? Clearly it ia impossible for the ma
jority Of housekeepers to control the de-
FAINT creatures who now order the house
hold. The free school system ought to be
20 readjusted that the very poorest shall
have such a share in it as will assist them
In Gaming a living. The school should
point directly toward the futute life work.
A writer in the Globe-l emocrat some time
ago urged that the SCI >ol should fit far
mers' children in kuowl, Age of such things
rs are to be handled and lsed on the farm,
shat is. soils, animals, insects. plants. In
the same way we shall never have a truly
practical public and common-s school system
until it opens the way directly for ~intelli-
gent entering upon homework. Mean
while it is urged that there are hundreds of
girls in orphan and other asylums that
might be grounded in the elements of do
mestic work. IF it could DO made the fad
for even one year for intelligent women t.
give an hour a week to their training work
We should be astonished at the result. liz
every one of oar eleemosynary institutions
there should be permanent arrangements
for a course in Homework. beginning al.
ways with the foundation."
have followed this st. Louis authores,
somewhat closely, because her MONOGRAPH
10 full of rich suggestiyeness. l can onl,