The age-herald., 1901-10-13
Domestic Slfe and
 cAored Servants
BY ALFRED CECIL.

A problem of the greatest importance vexes tho soul of the housewife in all sections of the country, but most sorely In the great cities. l refer to the servant girl question.
 In speaking of this as a question of the greatest importance. I mean precisely what say. In the category of ills con- fronted by men battling for life the ser want girl does not loom up in the male horizon. But it is there all the same. With the wife, however, 1t not only looms up but seems to tower with men acing countenance The servant girl enl- ployed to preside at the kitchen fire and to prepare the breakfasts and dinners is a far more important parsonage than was the priestess attending the sacred al- tars of the Ephesiais. The man of bus- mess during the day may forget the cause of his ill-cooked breakfast, and worn out from the combat may not find refreshment in his untempting dinner. But an aggravation has set in which makes his spirit sore.
 The gentle wife solicitous of the well fare of her home watches her husbands temper spoil, her scheme of household economies destroyed, her supplies wasted, and all on account of the incompetent creature In the Kitchen She tries adver- Using. seeks those who advertise visits intelligence offices, pays higher wages. diminishes the labors of the kitchen, but without result. She knows full well that an ill-conducted kitchen destroys the rEace of household. It affects all the family and the staff of servants as well. Therefore I say 1t Is an important question.
 The domestic service when compared with other occupations into which young women go. is more profitable The house. maid receiving sixteen or eighten dollars. the cook receiving from twenty to thirty dollars, has more to show at the end of the year than any milliner, store attend ant. shop girl. telephone or telegraph operator The house servant receives not only good wages, but board and lodg- ing. She Is better cared for when i'll and males in any class of workers. But our American-born young women have an idea that domestic service Is menial and degrading. hence they prefer the shop and office.
 The cities have grown rapidly and the demand for labor has increased tremen- dously. Emigration from Ireland and Northern Europe has decreased so that it has almost stopped. The source of supply is inadequate to the demand.
 Another feature and an important one is that the servants employed do not re- tain their places as they once did and, consequently, those housekeepers who are competent to teach abstain from doing so for the reason that the woman who comes in ignorance departs as soon as she believes she has acquired suffi- cient knowledge of her craft to base demand for higher wages. And again, another feature, and one by far the more prevalent, the young wives of today are in blissful ignorance of the mysteries of the kitchen and of the culinary art.
 think the time will come when all our domestic help must be recruited from the colored people. The efficiency of the men as porters on sleeping cars has turned over to them ain entire branch of work. The women, if taught and trained as cooks would soon find employment in the thousands of households who need their services.
 believe one of the best educational in- stitutions that could be opened in every large city would be one devoted to train- ing young colored women to be cooks, laundresses, waitresses and chamber maids. It would prove blessing to the household and find labor for the thou- sands of honest, decent colored girls; and more than all, 1t would preserve thou sands of families from being dissolved by reason of the wastefulness, Incompetent cy and total wretchedness of an ineffi- cient corps of domestic help.