The Globe. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1070, 1 December 1877, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1877.

Since our remarks upon the propriety of teaching cookery in the Girls' High School have appeared, our attention has boon directed to some correspondence on the subject printed in tho Parliamentary papers. About a year ago the Christchurch City Council took some action regarding the scarcity of domestic servants and brought the matter under the notice of Mr. Rolleston. The Immigration Officer, Mr. March, commenting upon the communication from the Mayor, pointed out the great, difficulty experienced in obtaining good female servants at Homo. Even in Great Britain the supply was not equal to the demand, and the consecmencc was that it was very difficult to induce single women of the right class to emigrate. Moreover, he pointed out that a very large proportion of those who arrive here very soon got married. Some years ago Mr. March made a careful examination of the Registrar's books, and he ascertained that for three years previously, 90 per cent of the marriages had been from the domestic servant class, and he believed it would be found that the proportion was still the same, were a similar inspection made. It is evident, therefore, that as long as we depend almost entirely upon Great Britain for our supply of domestic servants, there will be great difficulty in meeting the growing demands of the colony. The remedy which Mr. March suggests is that domestic work should lie taught in our public schools. He draws attention to the fact that a very small per centage of the girls who leave school accept service. " They have a distaste for for it, and having only been taught needlework, embroidery, &c, the majority seek to obtain situations at dressmaking or work of that description. If domestic work was made a part of the duties the elder girls have to learn, there would not be that disrelish for domestic service that there is at present." We hope Mr. March's suggestion will receive the serious consideration of the authorities. It is true of course, as Mr. Rolleston points out, that " the school curriculum must move on simultaneously with the popular practice, and cannot very much precede it, or guide it in a matter of this kind. If the people want a certain style of teaching they will have it, and they will not see the force of altering their ideas to meet the demands for useful servants." Mr. Rolleston further believes that the fashion may be set in a good class of Girls' High Schools, and that the future mistresses are the people to teach first. We look upon the question raised in the correspondence from which we have been quoting as a very important one indeed. It is patent to tho most careless observer that there is a very decided dislike to domestic service on the part of the rising generation. Many parents will suffer almost any hardship rather than allow their girls to adopt that mode of earning a living, while every other avocation is besieged with eager applicants. If such views continue to be held the consequences cannot but be evil, and the sooner a remedy is found the better it will be for the welfare of future generations. The one suggested is the teaching of domestic work in our schools, and as a first step, its introduction into the Girls' High School. This is certainly a very necessary course to take, and in a future article we may lay some facts before our readers in proof of its necessity. But we wish to point out that this is not all. Domestic service must be put upon another foundation than that upon which it at present, wo are afraid, rests. Till mistresses learn to look upon their domestics as something more than mere machines to do so much work, but without any inst.in.cts or ideas in common with themselves, so long will the present distaste for domestic service exist. The great gulf which the employers seek to fix between themselves and the employed must be filled up. Such a reform can only come about as the result of more enlightened views of our social relations.