The Servant Girl Problem. 



1!V MARTHA BOUTELLE SNOW. 



The heated discussion which this question has lateh' aroused 

 seems, undoubtedly, quite needless to many, who regard it as a 

 very simple matter. Simple it may seem to the uninitiated, but. 

 as a recent writer says, "it is as momentous as that of capital and 

 labor and as complicated as that of individualism and socialism." 



Everyone knows something of the depraved mental and moral — 

 to say nothing of the phvsical — condition which results from a diet 

 of bad bread and burnt steak, and most families have experienced 

 the inconvenience and discomfort of a household after "Maggie" 

 or "Susie" has "given warning." The worry of domestic life 

 affects in no small degree all the other relations and departments 

 of life. 



At no other time and in no other country has this problem 

 become so serious as in the United States and at present. 

 Within the last fift}- or sixt}' years, foreign immigration has to a 

 great extent furnished material for this department of industry. 

 During this time there has been a ver}- marked falling off in the 

 number of American servants, and not because of any crowding 

 out, as the suppl}' seems never to equal the demand. "The plain 

 truth of the matter is," says one writer, "that the whole native 

 population of the United States has almost suddenly and with one 

 accord, refused to perform for hire any of the services usually 

 called menial or indoor. No countr\' has ever before refused 

 to do its own chores." 



The foreigners who have stepped into these positions have 

 received little or no training for such work. A great majority of 

 the young women w^ho come to this country, expecting to be taken 

 into our homes to do work which requires skilled labor, are un- 

 taught and inexperienced in every branch of household work. 

 They come because they are unable to obtain positions at home. 

 Many even of the better trained are quite ignorant of our waj^s and 

 tastes, and our household arrangements are to them mysterious 

 and bewildering. 



Of the American girls who have gone into service, we find that 

 a very large number are from the poorest and most ignorant classes, 



(31) VLAS. UNIV. yUAH.. V«)l>. IV. NO. 1. .HI,V I, l«'.t.'). 



