Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/437

* DOIflXSTIC SEHVICE. 875 DOMESTIC SERVICE. boarded from their employers' tables, and the Kiit'lish may or may not be. as the agreement specilies. "Board wages" are paid instead, and they are very small, sometimes not more than 20 cents a day. Even when food is provided by the employer, it is not likely to be of the some variety as that which servos his own table. 'Beer money' and 'tea money' are gen- erally stipulated for in Knglish contracts. But the European servants, even in small eslablish- luents, have a means of revenue which only the servants of the wealthy or of corporations have here. Tips from guests are a recognize<l source of income; and the German maid, for instance, lighting a caller to the front door of a modest apartment house in Berlin, would feel defrauded unless she received her small fee. The advantages enjoyed by household servants in this country are many. They are generally lodged more comfortably than they would prob- ably be otherwise. Xunierous as are the com- plaints against 'the girl's room' of a small estab- lishment, it is usually moderately comfortable. The food is generally good. The wages, consid- ering that lodging, light, heat, board, car-fare, and e>c])ensive dress are not to be provided from them, are much better than shop and factory wages, and do not compare badly with the sal- aries of teachers. On the other hand, household serants have practically no chance to rise in their occupation: they are isolated, both indus- trially and socially. They have almost no per- sonal freedom, and their standing is regarded as lower than that of other women workers. ilistresses complain of the uncertainty of the whole situation: there is no fixed rate of wages. no fixed term of service, and no fixed standard of excellence. Various remedies have been suggested to meet these didiculties. none of which have proved en- tirely adequate. Some advocate a return to the more patriarchal system of the past, and believe in making the relations between mistress or master and servant a more personal one. Some have advocated a 'shift system' for servants — setting each to work for only eight hours, and then relieving him or her by another. This plan has been successfully adopted in Chicago by .1 very rich woman. It would, in its present form, be possible only to the very wealthy, or to an organization of some sort. Others advocate the abolition of all individual domestic labor. Xeighborliood nurseries for the children, with neighborhood kitchens and dining- rooms for the adults, seem to them to solve the problem. This, the cooperative housekeeping scheme, has been often tried, and generally with a signal lack of success. The failures, however, seem to have been due rather to mismanagement or to too sweeping and hurried changes than to any inherent impossibility in the plan. Thus, though one of the first arrangements of this sort trieil in America, at Coinbridge. Mass., in 1871, was not a success, a similar effort on a modified plan, in Brookline. Mass.. twenty-five years later, has not been a failure. This is the Beaconsfield Terrace Scheme — a busim-ss affair, rather than a so<_'iological experiment, in intention. The residents of the terrace have, in addition to their own yards, an inclosed park in common. They share tennis courts; a casino, where any one of them maj- entertain on a larger scale than in his own home: the .services of a choreman ; the time of a superintendent of the buildings; and so on. Their heat is supplied from a central engine-room and not from individual funiaces. The dilliculty with coiiperative housekeeping is that most persons instinctively object to it on the ground of lack of privacy. They feel that they will be deprived of their homes and given instead an improved boarding-house system, and that undw these conditions their children cannot develop properly, ilany, too, see in such plans danger of being victimized by 'cranks' and peo- ple of uncertain social views. Some of those who look forward to the ameli- oration of domestic service believe that it will be brought about by the establishment of train- ing schools for household servants. So far, how- ever, industrial tiaining schools have received little patronage from the class for whom they are intended. The servants themselves fail to perceive the importance of training, since they can obtain good wages without it, and their am- bition is not stimulated by the possibility of ris- ing in the social scale through such training. In England, some schools designed and endowed to prepare girls for household service have be- come sewing and dressmaking schools, under the dislike of the girls and their parents for house- hold labor. In Belgium, schools of industrial training have been instituted by the Government, and are nm under Government inspection and control. ThcT have succeeded much better than the private enterprises of other covmtries, al- though they are for general household training and not specifically for that of servants. Profit-sharing has also been tried in the house- hold, and has on the whole proved successful. The plan is to set aside a certain amount for housekeeping, and divide what can be saved out of 't liftween the mistress and the servants ac- cording to a proposition previously agreed upon. This of course gives the servants an interest in the welfare of the household, and has the same advantages and disadvantages as a similar sys- tem in business. Another solution for the domestic-service prob- lem lies in the modern tendency toward speciali- zation, ilany kinds of work formerly done in the house, under the supervision of its mistress, are now provided for outside of it. Trained workers take up some special branch of house- hold labor and contract for it with a number of families. It does not appear as yet. how(*ver, thaW s|x>cialization will solve the problem alto- gether. The servants' unions which have been organized have not yet accomplished anything serious. Xevertheless. it is the opinion of almost all students upon this subject that along this line — the organization of the indtistry upim a practical business basis, with a regular scale of wages for various grades of skilled and unskilled work, with fixed hours for work and the stigma of servitude removed — lies the hope of betterment. Such a system would necessitate proper train- ing on the part of those who wished to share in the benefits of the organization and many con- cessions on the part of employers. BiBi.rooRAi'tiT. Salmon. "Domestic Service," which contains a bibliography, in Eleventh United Staten Crnaiis ffcpor/ (Washington. 1892-04); Baylis. The Rirthts. Duties, and Relations of Do- mestic Servnnts (.5th ed.. London. 1896) ; Gra- ham, Master and Servant (London, 1899); Ad-