In verse this was said long ago, as the imagination is always forestalling practical knowledge, and George Herbert, of the seventeenth century, foreran our science in his “Elixir:” “All may of thee partake: Nothing can be so mean, Which with this tincture _for thy sake_ Will not grow bright and clean. “A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine; Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, Makes that and th’ action fine. “This is the famous stone That turneth all to gold: For that which God doth touch and own Cannot for less be told.” Present-day, up-to-date books on housekeeping stand for the fact that in our households, whatever the estimates of the past and of other social conditions, all work is dignified--none is menial. For besides intelligent knowledge and execution, what in reality, they ask, gives dignity to labor? Weight and importance of that particular task to our fellow-beings? What then shall we say of the duties of cook? of housemaid? of chambermaid? of the handy man, or of the modest maid of all work? For upon the efficient performance of the supposedly humblest domestic servitor depends each life of the family. Such interdependence brings the employed very close to the employer, and no bond could knit the varied elements of a household more closely, none should knit it more humanly. The human, then, are the first of the relations that exist between employer and employee, that “God hath made of one blood all nations of the earth.” It is a truth not often enough in the minds of the parties to a domestic-service compact. And besides this gospel of Paul are two catch-phrases, not so illuminated but equally humane, which sprang from the ameliorating spirit of the last century--“Put yourself in his place,” and “Everybody is as good as I.” These form the best bed-rock for all relations between master and servant. There is need of emphasizing this point in our books on affairs of the house, for a majority of our notably rich are new to riches and new to knowledge, and as employers have not learned the limitation of every child of indulgence and also polite manners in early life.