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Classic
Cook Books
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page 367
THE MANAGEMENT OF HELP.
In all families whose style of living demands help in the household duties, the
management of "girls" is the great American puzzle. "Girls" come and go like the
seasons, sometimes with the weeks. The one who is "such a treasure" to-day,
packs her trunk and leaves her mistress in the lurch to-morrow, or, if she
happens to have a conscience and works on faithfully, she becomes the mistress
and runs the household in her own way, her employer living in mortal fear of
offending and losing her. This state of things is due partly to the fact that
all girls who go out to service, do so as a make-shift until they marry or
obtain some more congenial work. Few of them have any ambition to do their work
well, and few ever dream of making themselves a necessity in the family,
becoming a part of it, sharing its joys and sorrows, and so establishing that
honorable and close relation which exists between servants and families in
Europe. Here, it is so much work for so much pay, and no bond of sympathy or
attachment is allowed to spring up on either side. Another cause is the fact
that too many American women who ought to know better, regard work as degrading,
instead of positively elevating and ennobling when it is well and
conscientiously done. Is it wonderful that "girls" catch something of this
vicious sentiment, and that it poisons their minds with false views of life,
until they look upon their work as brutal drudgery, and strive to do as little
of it as they possibly can and collect their wages.
Perhaps the reason why girls prefer situations in stores, or shops, or even
factories, to housework, is that their work there is confined to certain hours
after which they are free, and it is quite possible that an arrangement which
would give the domestic certain hours of the day for her own, would work a
reform; or still better, certain reasonable tasks might be allotted her to do,
after which she would be free.
The fixed wages which prevail in most cities and towns offer no inducement for
the "girl" to try to become skillful or expert at her work. Among men the best,
neatest, and most skillful workman commands the largest pay, but the "girl" who
is a superior cook, or maid of all work, gets only the same wages paid to a
bungler who lives next door. Such a thing as a combination among ladies who
employ help, to grade wages and protect each other from the imposition of
untidy, dishonest, or indolent "girls," has never been made, and perhaps,
indeed, it is no more called for than a combination of "girls" to protect
themselves from lazy, tyrannical, or too exacting mistresses. Certain it is that
the whole system by which domestics are hired and serve is demoralized beyond
any speedy reform. All that any individual can do is to remedy its evils so far
as is possible in her own family. In
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