Failing these reforms, mistresses will probably continue to find themselves obliged to put up with cooks who cannot cook, and housemaids and laundresses who are both ignorant and incompetent. The irk and irritation of living all day long at close quarters with an impertinent and inefficient person, which often severely tries the nerves of the women of the professional classes, will continue. These things are inevitable so long as domestic servants do not choose their occupation because they wish to follow it, but because they have been failures in other directions. Therefore no improvement would be attained by shutting other avenues of employment to women and forcing them back into this. Such a line of action is, of course, quite impracticable, whatever be the difficulties of mothers of families and mistresses of households; factories, offices, shops, elementary schools and post-offices will continue to offer employment to women. But even if it were practicable it would fail of its aim. Work is only well done when it is chosen for its own sake, not when it is unwillingly accepted because the worker is fit for nothing else. And a genuine improvement in domestic service can only come about by an alteration in its conditions. A systematic investigation into English domestic service similar to that carried out in America by Professor Lucy Salmon of Vassar College would be most useful at the present juncture, and may possibly be undertaken by the household economics class at King's College. Professor Salmon issued 5000 schedules to employers and 5000 to employees, and received in all 1744 answers. On the answers received she based the conclusions arrived at in her book, "Domestic Service," which are not dissimilar to those set forth in the preceding paragraphs. Conditions in America are, however, so unlike those in England that a separate investigation for this country would be most valuable. (_c_) A DISCUSSION OF DOMESTIC BUDGETS (1) _Working-Class Budgets_ I have left myself very little space for dealing with another important section of household economics, namely, domestic budgets. Unfortunately the material for a satisfactory study of the actual and the advisable division of household expenditure is only abundant in certain classes. There are a considerable number of investigations into the cost of living among the working-classes.[84] From these it is clear that we must make a very marked line of distinction between the domestic circumstances of labourers and of artisans. The former spend at least from 75 to 80 per cent. of their income on food and lodging alone; yet if the family is of ordinary size and none of the children are earning anything, they are commonly under-nourished and badly lodged. The remainder of the income is devoted to fuel, clothes, savings, insurance, and recreation.