So to make domestic service popular we must make it fashionable. It
should be as fashionable to be a domestic servant as to become a
hospital nurse.
Alter the conditions of domestic service until the profession of
domestic worker attracts the educated woman, and the problem is solved.
"Go into Service! Not I!"
That is what young girls say.
"I don't know what to do, I cannot get servants."
That is what the employer says.
What is she doing to make domestic service an attractive profession
to the young girl?
III
Study the psychology of the question, find out what it is young women
want of life. Be progressive. Do not say, "Because it was, it ever
shall be." Thank God, things do not stay as they were, or we might
still be working little children eighteen hours a day in factories,
starving and whipping lunatics, and burning witches.
Having realised that it is the human attitude which is of first
importance, then let us go on to see by what means we can lighten the
work of our households so that we may make service attractive.
We can solve the domestic problem--
1.--By becoming entirely, or partly, our own servants.
2.--By employing outside workers, who should be trained, uniformed,
and paid at a fixed rate per hour.
3.--By changing the conditions until domestic service becomes as
attractive to the worker as any other profession open to the woman
of average ability and education.
Other changes can be made: indeed, it is certain that sooner or later
they must be made unless we are to go servantless. When the necessary
alteration of mental attitude towards the subject is achieved, the next
thing to be done is to call to our aid all the labour-saving devices
which are available, for it is by making full use of them that we can
eliminate the hard and disagreeable work from houses and make the
profession of a domestic worker attractive to an educated woman.
In the industrial world it is now realised that to obtain the best
results the worker must be saved all unnecessary fatigue, and that the
mental atmosphere in which he works must be as free from strain and
anxiety as possible, for it is found that the labour of an over-tired
worker becomes practically worthless.
It is time we applied modern methods to the working of our households,
in which they are needed as much as in the office or the factory.
"They build these 'ouses," said Ann, "as though girls wasn't 'uman
beings....
"It's 'ouses like this wears girls out."
KIPPS.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This incident occurred in the early part of 1915.
CHAPTER III
WHAT THIS CHAPTER IS ABOUT
_The House that Jack builds without the help of Jane--A Hot and
Cold Water Service--What happens when you do away with Coal--How to
Save a Third of your Household Work--Light and Air--Kitchens and
Offices--Service-rooms--Furniture and Decoration--Bathrooms and
Washing-rooms--Some Labour-Saving Details._
CHAPTER III
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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