It is the opinion of a very large class that all difficulties can be removed by the application of the golden rule. No belief is more widespread than this. But it rests wholly on the assumption that the relation between employer and employee is a personal one, and presupposes that if this personal relationship could be made an ideal one the question would settle itself. In so far as the connection between mistress and maid is a personal one, the golden rule is sufficient, but other factors are involved in the problem. The golden rule may be ever so perfectly observed, but that fact does not eliminate the competition of other industries where the golden rule may be observed with equal conscientiousness, nor does it remove the distasteful competition of American born employees with foreigners and negroes; it does not overcome the preference for city life or the love of personal independence; it is not always able to substitute intelligence, capability, interest, and economy for ignorance, inefficiency, indifference, and waste; the observance of the golden rule by the employer is not a guarantee that it will always be followed by the employee. For moral difficulties, moral remedies must be applied, but they will not always operate where the maladies are in their nature economic, social, and educational. The golden rule is a poultice that will relieve an inflammation but will not remove the cause of the evil—a tonic that will invigorate the system but which cannot be substituted for surgical treatment. Another class of persons believes that the application of intelligence as well as of ethical principles is what is required of the employer. This position is best expressed by the correspondent of a leading journal who says: “The capable housekeeper is quite satisfied with the performance of her own domestic duties. If a true woman performs her whole duty, that which lies within her sphere of action, this everlasting cry of reform in domestic service would cease and in its place there would rise a more satisfied race of human beings.” But intelligence, capability, and the observance of all ethical principles must, like the golden rule, encounter the question of free Sundays and evenings after six o’clock, as well as that of the regularity of working hours and the possibility of promotion found in other occupations. No system ever has been or ever can be found that will enable a housekeeper to conduct a household satisfactorily on the instinct or the inspiration theory, to substitute sentiment for educated intelligence and for a knowledge of economic conditions outside of the individual home. The ostrich is said to cover its head in the sand and imagine that it is safe from capture; as well may the individual employer say, “I have settled the question for myself; it is sufficient and I am satisfied.”