DOMESTIC SERVANT QUESTION

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 260, 7 November 1906, Page 3

DOMESTIC SERVANT QUESTION

(By Eangatira.)

. The servant question in New Zealand is assuming perplexing and discomforting proportions. It is one which affects those who can afford, or wish, or need, to keep servants, but in a wider sense, it is seriously affecting the country. The colony is feeling it in two ways: First,in the disinclination of parents to have large families, because mothers cannot obtain help from domestic, servants, or, if any. of an inferior order, so that the care of a large family, without domestic assistance, is made a killing slavery. Secondly, the working classes are suffering from the pernicious influence which factory and shop life has on the domestic side of women's character. Those working-men who marry girls employed by factories or shops, marry, as a rule, women untrained in domestic economy, ignorant of the proper preparation of food, the making and mending of clothes, besides the ordinary care of a home, all of which results in reckless expenditure of money. The scarcity of domestic servants tells terribly on the health, of mothers, and deprives young children of the minute care and training so needed in early years. Husbands, and men generally, suffer, for when wives and mothers are overtired, nerve strained, and rendered incapable of pleasant companionship, homes become everything but what they should be. Many mothers have to do, in one day, the work of two or even three people; to keep a house in order, sew for children, to do the manifold and unending duties a mother owes her family, and preparation of meals, leaves no time for reacreation or outdoor life; and so much does she suffer by over fatigue and jangled nerves, disheartened by the impossibility of doing justice to her family and herself, that her temper often riots beyond her control. As a result husband and children suffer acutely, and, though the mother is fully conscious of her shortcomings, she is powerless to prevent them. 'Where long continued control of temper and irritation of mind and ~ouy weariness is kept up, the result is often a serious breakdown in mental and physical health. In country districts and particularly broken back country, such as the North, women's lives are shortened and darkened by unending drudgery and difficult conditions of life.

In the towns the position is only partially better, for the majority of servants are inferior, for domestic service is not looked upon as a permanent profession, and is not prepared for, in any way, at school, or after, and i<, is not till a situation is taken that the training of maids begins. In many cases a mistress engages one maid to do the work of two because she cannot alford to pay to two girls the high wages demanded. The servant, supposing she be the ordinary, fairly capable, average girl, educated on the present State school lines, if she has been in a situation before, has a limited knowledge of cooking and housework, but for want of some proper systematic training, at home, or in a training establishment, she does not know the value of food, or the best manner in which to prepare it, neither does she know the best ■way to perform housework. The result is discontent on both sides., and the maid is told of her shortcomings, but does not care to improve, so leaves, and her mistress struggles on till another maid can be induced to step into the breach, and so on ad infinitum. The quick-tempered mistress on the spur of the moment either gives her unsatisfactory maid notice, or else nags at her, till fault-finding, too often deserved, causes the girl to run away, or to ask for a holiday, and then not return. There arc some mistresses who really overwork and treat their servants unkindly, and distrust, and lock up, and suspect them of dishonesty. There are many mistresses whp treat servants with proper consideration, and take kindly interest in them and look after their welfare, while insisting on properly done work, and as a rule, these mistresses are well served.

Undoubtedly there arc faults on both sides, the mistress too often is not what *he might be, what she ought to bo by reason of her position; the maid is generally not competent for the situation she takes, or the wages she asks. But consider the maid! Where does she come from? How educated? What is her character? What is her object in going to service? Many years ago she came from the country, the daughter of the small farmer, or labourer, to a large extent, but the dairying industry has put a. stop to that partly, also the prosperous agricultural condition of the country has put small farmers and highly'paid" labourers into a better position, and country girls do not need to go to the town to work to the same extent as in bad times. As a general rule the domestic servant comes from the working classes in towns, she is sister to the factory employees; she is not trained at home, for at the age of 15 or 16 she goes out to service while her mother does the house work.. As she lias no references or experience, she probably goes into the service of anirnpeouuious young couple as a nurse maid, or a sort of iack-of-all-trades, and of washing up in particular. As she is quite incapable of good work and. Untrained, her employer, out of self-de-j (fence, keeps her to the dirtiest part of i the work, where she cannot make mistakes, or does it herself and sends her "young iucapablf' out with the baby which cries in its pram while the little maid reads a cheap novel under a fence, or talks to the butcher boy. From there she goes to a better place, where, after wasting good material, and ruining her mistress's temper, she learns the way to perform the work for which she is being highly paid. If she has grit and capacity she evolves into a good servant, but too often ignorant of responsibility and consideration for others. The experience of many mistresses is, that servants arc honest, hard working, well-meanins a-nd trustworthy, but ignorant in the knowledge of their calling, taking for their guiding precept, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," which, uufortunately, is j the spirit of labour. What is needed j is consideration of maid for mistress and j vice , versa.. -Also domestic servants in { some cases are entirely without grati- j tude, for example, many mistresses j nurse their maids through days, often | weeks of illness, only to nnd that the j maid gives notice a week after she is jvell. The objects for which girls go to ser- j vii'Q arc either to escape from parental ooxitroK or to OiUll to keep thcm.-ji'lvr-s. * do | (o „„■], ■ ; ; "t iiofc seek to ma.kn e< profession o t ooolcis only a means to an end—to live comfortably and to make wages till they many. If a cook could be made to luideretand that erexs. f&iluXQ la u^

cooking, is a backward step in her profession, she would study her work more The education of the' domestic servant is at fault, for the State teaches the following subjects only in standards 3. 4, 5 and 6: English, reading, composi« tion, writing, spelling, recitation,, arithmetic, drawing, singing, physical instruction, geography, history, nature study, or elementary science, handwork, needlework. Standard VII. has a syl* labus used in secondary schools, but VI I, is not compulsory, and technical education, is for the few. not the many, while moral teaching is left to the abstract method of the personal moral influence of the teachers and the tone of the school. In the above list of subjects thero is nothing .but needlework, essentially bearing on domestic life or work, beyond the general encoura-gement.to observe. The education is sound and lays a thorough foundation for commercial and trade work, but it does not enable girls to start life with any training which bears on their "womanly" or domestic character. There is no religious training, no definite moral teaching, no household knowledge imparted, no knowledge of cooking. More than half, probably two-thirds of the women of New Zealand .have to cook the daily meals of their households, yet, during the nine or ten years of school life, they are taught nothing by ordinary, daily tuition of the art which will be one of their chief daily duties.

Daily housekeeping troubles would be enormously reduced if mothers of families could obtain the service of even a girl of only sixteen years, who knew the rudiments of cooking and cleaning, and, Of ordinary housework, and with an ideaof the responsibility of the care of children. If the Government would tack on to its educational system the teaching of domestic knowledge, whereby girls could learn enough to. help them to the proper performance of the work for which they expect high payment, tha backbone the present incompetence and dislike of service would be broken. If wages and hours of work were placed on a settled basis, beyond the influence of either mistress or maid, and so regulated that neither side had cause to cavil, then mistresses would not be at the mercy of irresponsible and ignorant maids, nor would the maids be at the mercy of mistresses. But until domestic servants arc. by education, rendered fit for service and high payment, there is -little hope for a settlement of tha question. If the country would recognise that the wholesale payment, in factories and shops, of the future working class mothers, is highly injurious physically and psychologically, it would bring about some means by which to teach girls the arte of home, instead of the arts of trade.

Every well-trained servant is a prospective good wife, and in the material sense, a prospective good mother, as she possesses the knowledge of home-mak-ing. Factory girls are prospective inferior mothers and home-makers, for their lines of life fall in trade and commercial paths, and they possess knowledge useful to their employers, but useless to their future families. The shrinking birthrate has several causes, but one of the minor causes is the scarcity of servants. Mothers are not superhuman, and where there are no maids mothers know full well that large families mean neglected families.

So long as domestic service is looked upon as inferior employment to that of the shop and the factory, so long will servants, be scarce. If service can bs made a profession for which training is necessary and proficiency paid for, then it will rise in the scale, and instead of scamping work, maids will take pride in their duties, as is the case in other professions; and that want of honour, so common among, young servants, which, leads them to run - away •without notice, and to do the least for the wages they get, will disappear.

The result of optional and abstract moral teaching is plainly to be seen in. girls educated by the State system, for personal honour, which produces sense of obligation, and responsibility, is rare in them, and this shortcoming is not their fault, but the fault of our s?ystem of education. One fact at present' not realised by upper class mothers is. that the ordinary young domestic servant of to-day is unfit to have the care of children; and if they, value the welfare of their children they ■will try. to obtain girls of their own. class as nurses. It is strange that, when mothers ar« so particular about the friends their children make, they leave them in the hands of girls, to whom moral responsibility and sweetness of nature is a closed book. If the nurse were a girl of good birth and social standing, and treated with the consideration due to a lady, honoured sis one trustworthy of the care of the dearest possessions of the liome, the children and mothers of the colony would greatly benefit. There arc hundreds of girls of good birth and education who are so poor that they must earn their living, yet because of the uncertain footing on which they might stand, dread to take up the nursing and care of children as a livelihood. Yet the care of children and their serving is congenial work, and infinitely superior to the tea-room and the office. If the employment of ladies, as nursemaids, is placed on a proper standing, and they are honoured and cared for.-the dearth, of the ordinary domestic will not b<! felt so keenly by-mothers as is the ease now. It is certainly true, to a great extent, that the girl educated in the State schools is unfit to be trusted with children, but the fault is not hers, neither is her incompetence in other domestic work. Until women are trained by daily education to domesticity, servants will be scarce and good mothers will be wanting. To sum up roughly, there are three causes at the root of the servant question. The wrong education of the girls by the State school system, the general employment of girls in factories, and the want of regulation of work and wages. It is useless to complain of the incompetence of servants, of then- scarcity and independence, of the troubles of housekeeping, and the high wages for bad work unless we strike at the root of the matter, and make girls domestic by teaching them the value of it. The servant" question does not affect those women who have good faithful servants, and they are many; but it is of enormous importance to thousands of mothers and mistresses in the colony. RANGATTRA.