In France 299 In Italy 299 Benefactions for servants in Germany 299 Conclusion 301 APPENDIX I. Copy of schedules distributed 305 APPENDIX II. List of places from which replies to schedules were received 314 APPENDIX III. Circular sent out by the social science section of the Civic Club of Philadelphia 315 BIBLIOGRAPHY 317 INDEX 323 DOMESTIC SERVICE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Domestic service has been called “the great American question.” If based on the frequency of its discussion in popular literature, foundation for this judgment exists. Few subjects have attracted greater attention, but its consideration has been confined to four general classes of periodicals, each treating it from a different point of view. The popular magazine article is theoretical in character, and often proposes remedies for existing evils without sufficient consideration of the causes of the difficulty. Household journals and the home departments of the secular and the religious press usually treat only of the personal relations existing between mistress and maid. The columns of the daily press given to “occasional correspondents” contain narrations of personal experiences. The humorous columns of the daily and the illustrated weekly papers caricature, on the one side, the ignorance and helplessness of the housekeeper, and, on the other side, the insolence and presumption of the servant. In addition to this, in many localities it has passed into a common proverb that, among housekeepers, with whatever topic conversation begins, it sooner or later gravitates towards the one fixed point of domestic service, while among domestic employees it is none the less certain that other phases of the same general subject are agitated.