the young women anxious to be anything but domestic servants?

As a matter of fact this dislike to service has not been brought about by the war; it has been growing steadily for many years, and to a great extent employers have only themselves to thank for a state of affairs which they so bitterly deplore.

The Ignorant Employer.

What sane person would undertake the management of a business knowing nothing of the conduct of it? Yet this is what young women of the moneyed classes have done ever since it became the fashion to despise domesticity, to imagine that housekeeping was a pursuit fit only for women too stupid to do anything else. The girl marries: to her, cookery and household work are deep, dark mysteries. How do you clean silver? How long does it take to turn out a bedroom? Do you allow 2 lbs. or 12 lbs. of margarine per week for a household of six persons? What is dripping? The cook says soup cannot be made without soup meat. Can't it? And what is soup meat? Imagine the annoyance of working under the control of such an employer!

Honest, competent servants become disheartened, the incompetent remain incompetent, while the ignorance of the mistress makes the temptation to be dishonest well-nigh irresistible. It is the ignorance of the mistress also that has enabled the perquisite and commission system (polite names for theft) to flourish, and which make it possible for tradesmen to employ men at low wages on the tacit understanding that a high wage may be gained by fleecing the customer.

No Chance for the Incompetent Servant.

Again, had the servant-employers of this country a proper knowledge of their duties, the incompetent servant would have little chance to exist. She would have been taught her work, and if she would not do it, have been dismissed.

But nine times out of ten the mistress does not know how to teach, and is so dependent on her servants that she must keep anyone rather than be left servantless.

The result of our genteel dislike of "menial" duties has not only encouraged dishonesty and incompetence in our servants, it has actually lessened the supply. The mistress who has never cleaned a room or cooked a dinner cannot realise the difficulties of either task. Hence it is that because domestic work generally has been done by paid servants, we have made but little effort to plan and furnish our houses in a labour-saving fashion. We have also failed to move with the times, and to realise that no matter if we approve or disapprove, young girls now demand more variety and more freedom in their lives than was formerly the case.

Wanted! a New Race of Mistresses.

A race of competent, sympathetic mistresses might have made domestic service one of the most sought-after of the professions open to the average woman. They might have eliminated practically all the hard and dirty work of the house, they might have organised regular hours for exercise and recreation, and by their own example shown what war is now teaching us—the incalculable value to the nation of the good housekeeper. In their scorn of domestic duties Englishwomen have forgotten that the sole duty of the housewife is not to know the price of mutton: it is her duty, and that of those who work with her, to bring up a race of decently behaved, clean, well-fed people, and to make of her home a place of peace and goodwill, a centre from which radiates a right influence.

Is this the work for the woman too stupid for aught else? or is it the work of a true patriot?

It is often said that the English govern their Government, and there is truth in the statement. The Press keeps its finger on the public pulse: when that shows signs of excitement, the Press acts, and between them, Public and Press set Parliament moving.

Domestic Training for all Girls.

Possibly, in time, the serious lack of domestic labour will excite the Public and the Press to such a pitch that the Government will realise that every girl, no matter of what class, should be taught how to cook and to clean and to wash, tend and feed a young child, and not only be taught how to do these things, but impressed with the idea that in so doing she is as surely performing her duty to her country as are the soldier, sailor, doctor, scientist, or merchant.

But the fact that you teach girls these things will not cause them to become servants, you object.

I am by no means sure that you are right. When all girls have been through a course of domestic training, and when they have been impressed with the national importance of such work, they will regard it from a point of view different from that which now obtains.

The girl who becomes the employer will know what she is asking of her employée; she will realise that to labour indoors from 6.30 or 7 to 10 or 10.30 five days a week is not attractive to a young girl. The work may not be continuous: there will be half-hours of rest and talk with the other maids; but the fact remains that the servant is on duty and liable to be called upon at any time during those hours.

The mistress, who has been a worker, will also realise how hard and disagreeable are some of the tasks required of the servant in a labour-making home.

On the other hand, the servant will know that she cannot take advantage of the ignorance of her employer and that her employer is not demanding of her work which she herself regards as derogatory. The maid, too, will start knowing her work: she will not have to pick it up as best she can, often from persons knowing little more than herself. The life of many young servants is made almost unendurable because they have to struggle along as best they may, scolded by mistress and upper-servant alike for not knowing what they have had no opportunity to learn. A child in a fairly well-to-do working home, whose mother has been a servant, goes out to service with some knowledge of her work, but as a rule the conditions in cottages and town workers' dwellings are so utterly different from those in the homes of the well-to-do that the young girl can scarcely be blamed when she breaks and spoils and makes more dust and muddle than she clears away.

Domestic Training will improve the Physique of the Coming Generation.

A three or four months' course of intelligent domestic training would do much, not only to solve the servant problem, but to improve the physique of the coming generation, for it is sheer ignorance of domesticity which accounts for a high percentage of the infant mortality which is a disgrace to this country. And this ignorance of the importance of cleanliness, sanitation, etc., is not confined to the poorer classes. Fashions filter downwards, and when the educated women of the upper classes show that they consider household work beneath their attention, why should they think it