The stumbling-block in the use of the word “servant” is easily removed. The exclusive application of this word to domestic employees must be abolished before the class most desired in the occupation will enter it. As has been done in every other occupation, a word like “employer” must be substituted for “master” and “mistress,”—terms associated only with a system of apprenticeship or slavery,—while “domestic,” “housekeeper,” or some other descriptive term must be used for “general servant,” the words “cook,” “waitress,” and “maid” being unobjectionable for other classes of service.[296] As a matter of fact the word as now used is inappropriate in characterizing the work expected of an efficient domestic employee. Division of labor has made her in reality, though not in position, not a menial, a drudge, a slave, but a co-operator in the work of the household. The cook who prepares the raw material for consumption is not more a servant than is the farmer who produces the raw material; indeed her work is justly considered skilled labor, while that of the agricultural laborer is often unskilled. The cook is the co-operator with her employer in the same sense as the farmer is a co-operator in the industrial system; and the term “servant” as indicating a menial applies to her as little as it does to him. New words are coined and pass into familiar usage in a short time, old words become obsolete, new meanings are given old terms, and it is possible in the course of a few years to substitute for the present objectionable usage of this word a term which will describe more definitely the duties of the position and at the same time remove one of the most serious obstacles in the way of improving the character of the occupation.[297] The inferiority implied in the use of the Christian name in address is less clearly seen and less easily removed because its effects are more subtile. It may not be possible to attempt any immediate or general change, but a compromise is possible in giving the title to married men and women in domestic service, since marriage is supposed to carry with it added dignity. The Japanese custom of addressing one’s own employees by a familiar term, but the employees of another by a title of respect,[298] is also a possible compromise. It seems difficult to find weighty arguments in favor of refusing to a class of self-supporting men and women the title of respect accorded in all other occupations.