The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-12
EnucArIoN AND COOKS.

In an address at Hampton Institute some days ago Booker Washington, re- ferring to the generally inefficient house servants and cooks in the South. gave his remedy which he says con- sists in educating and elevating the colored girls of the South. The New York Mail is not impressed with the remedy proposed, and thus comments:
 But if MT. Washington is able to produce that result with his reform, he can accomplish what no one else has done since the world began. We are very much afraid that his hope is vain. Domestic service declines in quality with the general rise of any people. The more their condition Is improved industrially and materially, the worse is the state of kitchen and only where the people are poor and miserable. Household servants are wretched in the United States. some what better in England, better still in Ireland, best of all, in Europe. In Italy and Spain. In India and China they are quite ideal
 The reason of this is that indus trial opportunity and profitable occu- women out of the necessity of doing menial service, whereas utter want of such general opportunities condemns them to it. Two domestic jobs for every person willing to undertake such service make every such servant dif- ficult and intractable. Two persons in competition for every such job makes those persons subservient ana submissive-makes them ideal ser vants," in a word.
 If MT. Washington could make a scientific cook. an orderly house. maid, a perfectly trained waitress out of every negro girl in the South, 1t Is doubtful if Southern white women's such trained servant who was still under the necessity of earning her living by household labor would want to go North. where she could get wages commensurate with her skill. Or else sne would be sought in marriage by some thrifty colored man able to main tain a nice house and home for her.
 It is tok be feared that the days of ideal domestic service in the South are gone. They belonged to the time as slaves. and when the most intelli- gent of them all could be trained to household work and held to It, willy nilly. As long as the world lasts. 1t is likely to be as it has been from time mmemorial-womenw will toll will ingly at the hardest household labor for the man they love and for their children, but nothing but the compul- sion of necessity will lead them to toll for another.
 The Mails conclusion that educating colored women renders them less efi- cient as cooks and house servants will be pretty generally endorsed in the South. An educated cook is an excep- ton down here and when one is found acting in that capacity she is gener- ally inferior to the old colored women who are yet to he found in many households. As a general proposition 1t may be stated that when a colored woman is educated she will not will ingly engage in menial service. In the old days the colored women were good cooks, not through fear of punishment but because that position relieved them largely or entirely from field work and they were glad of their advan- tages> and anxious to give satisfaction. When we see the kitchen supplied with competent educated colored cooks we shall be convinced of Washington's correctness, and not sooner.