snow: the servant (ilKl. PROBLEM. 37 



idea of disgrace wrongfully associated with it? Ruskin says that 

 the commercial relation between employer and servant has 

 proved a failure, and that all that remains is slavery or adoption. 

 However, adoption has been tried, especially in the west, to the 

 advantage in some cases perhaps of the servants but to the great 

 discomfort of the family. The commercial basis just as in other 

 occupations is the only true basis. One writer even goes so far as to 

 advocate giving up all personal interest in one's servants. She 

 thinks there is no more reason for inquiring into private affairs of 

 servants than into those of the seamstress or the occasional car- 

 penter employed about the house. But one's relations with a 

 person who spends most of her time in one's house would of neces- 

 sity be more intimate than with an occasional employee. 



There are some who suggest a special training for servants in 

 one particular line of work. They are to go about from one house 

 to another performing the same duty over and over again through 

 the day. This would result in a disastrous lack of responsibility 

 on the part of the half dozen or more servants employed at differ- 

 ent times in one household. 



The idea has also been advanced that girls should never live 

 under the same roof with their employers. This, however, is not 

 practical as it involves unnecessary expense, and it is far better on 

 both sides that the mistress shall know something of the life of her 

 house-maids outside of working hours. It is true, they need the 

 intercourse with companions of their own class, from which they 

 are otherwise somewhat cut off, but visitors should be allow^ed in 

 the kitchen, and it is now becoming customary to provide a ser- 

 vant's sitting-room. House-maids must have pleasant rooms to 

 live in, and when more women become architects more thought 

 will be given to that part of the house. 



There are few, however, who would think it necessary as one 

 writer suggests, to have the kitchen in the front of the house, 

 because servants as well as mistresses like to be entertained by 

 looking out of the window while engaged in their work. 



There is no industry in which skilled labor is more necessary 

 than this, but there is also no industry in which there is so little 

 done to procure it. Our standards of requirement are high, but 

 what right have we to expect that servants will meet them when 

 their training has been such that this is impossible? 



We have schools for all other trades and professions. Manual 

 training schools are becoming everywhere common, anci a marked 

 advance was made when it was thought necessary to have trained 

 nurses. To be sure, cooking is taught to some extent in o\ir 



