Lucy Maynard Salmon

“ Gamp into the trained nurse, and of the evolution of the modern hospital and the modern sick-chamber from the old-time crude, semi-barbarous methods of treatment?
The secret of it all lies in the one word,—investigation. Investigation is the product [86] of training, of education, of an eager and absorbing desire for knowledge, of minds open to conviction and ready to hold the judgment in suspense until it can be based on facts. The steps in the process of the evolution are equally clear. ”

“ Nothing is so inexorable as law. Law works itself out whether recognized or not. If we accept the workings of the law and aid in its natural development, peace and harmony result; if we resist the action of law and struggle against it, we do not stay its progress but we injure ourselves as the bird that beats its wings against prison-bars. ”

“ The household has not yet become a field for investigation. It resents intrusion into its domain and regards investigators as Paul Prys. It is sensitive to criticism, and it considers a suggestion of change as an unwarrantable interference with its affairs, and as an attack on it by outsiders. It does [88] not take kindly to new ideas, and it often rejects them on a priori grounds, not because experiment has proved them wrong. Clothed in a mantle of virtue, it feels itself above criticism, because the home is of divine origin. ”

“ The lawyer forgets his science, the business-man his classics, the theologian his mathematics, and the physician his metaphysics, yet each proves daily the value of these studies. So the college woman brings into every-day life, and may bring still more, the evidences of the advantage to her of a college course. She may go further, and show that resources within herself enable her to rise above much of the inevitable drudgery of household work, and thus overcome, in a measure, the common distaste for routine duties.
The college woman can do much by way of discussion. ”

“ Cold, enduring statistical tables, as well as observation, go to show that there is an error in this assumption, and when this fact is pointed out, Society, forgetting that there are some who would but cannot, and others who can but will not, attributes the discrepancy between theory and reality to college education for women. If a few college women could add something to our knowledge of how household affairs are conducted, would that contribution serve to atone for both voluntary and involuntary neglect of matrimony? ”

“ In a word, the relation of college women to the question of domestic science is first of all the duty of recognizing the importance of the subject itself, and of its special importance to them as college women; and second, a duty of examination, of discussion, of intelligent study, of appeal to public sentiment, of effort to secure at no distant day the establishment of a technical school of domestic science which shall in no sense be a substitute for collegiate and academic training, but shall be built upon such training as its most secure foundation. ”

“ Moreover, every individual has the same right to work that he has to life itself, and to shut out the rich and the well-to-do from the privilege is as unfair to the individual as it is to society. Indeed, it may be assumed that the members of this class are, as a rule, better qualified for work than are other classes, since wealth has brought opportunities in the direction of education and special training, and society loses in the same proportion as it deprives itself of their services. ”

“ Few persons whose attention is attracted by the modest sign of the Woman’s Exchange, now found in nearly all our large cities, realize that a new competitor has appeared in the industrial market. Few even of those who have assisted in organizing and carrying on such exchanges know that they have been instrumental in introducing a new factor into economic problems. Yet in spite of unpretentious rooms and unconcern as to economic questions, the Woman’s Exchange has already had an appreciable effect on economic conditions, and must in future play a still more important part. ”

“ It is at least significant that this progress has been made in a country where the education of men and women is precisely the same, and that the least advance has been made in those which arrange a special curriculum for women and which profess to train girls and young women specially for domestic life. America holds that education means for women, as well as for men, intellectual training rather than the accumulation of information without it, and that the value of this is seen, in the case of women, in the intelligent study they are everywhere making of household affairs. ”

“ But alas, who shall give an infallible recipe for accomplishing the impossible? Who shall lay down the principle that will make coal-miners contented with low wages and [104] long hours, that will make the employers of masons satisfied with bungling work that threatens life and limb, that will lull into ease a conscience aroused by the iniquities of the sweating system? Nothing can be more chimerical than to expect a perfect automatic adjustment of the household machinery while other parts of the industrial world are not in harmonious relation to each other. ”

“ Has progress been hindered by the club studying household economics, by the investigator seeking for facts, by the theorist trying to square the ideal with the real, and by students of social conditions anxious to explain the present by the past? Is the only remedy for present ills the suppression of all discussion, since discussion breeds contempt and unhappiness? ”

“ Granted, then, the existence of economic conditions in the household, the method of procedure is the same as in all other fields of action. In medicine the first step is to diagnose the case; in law, to take evidence; in mathematics, to state the problem; in science, to marshal the facts. No set of a priori principles can be assumed in the household with the expectation that the household will conform to them. Investigation to-day stands at the door of every entrance into a new field and bars the way to any attempt to force a passage without its aid. ”

“ The so-called “woman question” is not, as was once popularly supposed, synonymous either with woman suffrage or with the higher education of woman—it is as broad and as deep as the thoughts and activities of woman. It was inevitable that for many years efforts should be made to open new occupations to women, to give them better preparation for their work, and to secure [54] fair remuneration for service well done. It was inevitable, because, however much some sociologists may wish it otherwise, the fact remains that woman is and must be to a certain extent a wage-earner. ”

“ Certainly to-day we interpret equality to mean that all persons should have the opportunity of making of themselves all that is possible; to jump at the conclusion that reform in domestic service means subscription to the literal interpretation of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence is to make an unwarranted assumption. If, however, we were to accept the doctrine of equality, it would be with an appreciation of what it involves. The establishment of social equality would sometimes mean the elevation of the employer to the natural social and moral position of the employee. ”

“ This has been the experience of every great movement that has looked toward the improvement of mankind.
But what is the relation that college women bear to these problems of the household? They cannot revolutionize society, nor would they if they could. They cannot bring about any reform either in mistress or in maid. It may be answered truly that they can do but little. They are few in numbers—and they cannot assume the ability to settle questions with which previous generations of women have not been able to grapple. ”

“ The young woman who has prepared herself for the profession of law or of medicine decides to marry and goes into business partnership with her husband. It would seem as if all plans for teaching household economics in the college or in the public school with reference to preparing young women for their future careers as housekeepers must be futile until [45] the orbit of the matrimonial comet can be predicted.
Yet it must be recognized that college education has already done much for the household, and presumably for that somewhat vague field denominated “domestic science.” ”

“ If the artist places before all else in importance the composition of his picture, if the author believes that his book should be the elaboration of a single idea, if the engineer knows that every part of his engine fits by design into every other part, it would seem clear that the application of the same principle is essential in the household. ”

“ Housekeepers still carry on their households in defiance of all business methods; ignorant women boast that they “have never so much as boiled an egg in their life,” and complain that their cooks will not stay with them; idle women spend their time in playing bridge, and wonder why their maids are discontented; men boast at their tables of their shrewdness in obtaining something for nothing, and cannot understand why [29] petty thieving goes on in their households; society receives the once, twice, and thrice divorced, but draws the social line at the cook and the butler ”

“ The historian may forgive the one who has wandered from the fold, but the wanderer must in future remain within the pale. Yet how shall the collector of experiences be diverted from his diversion of collecting? The collector of old mahogany depletes his bank account and turns his modest dwelling into a veritable second-hand shop, but still his pony chaise is tied before every farmhouse that has advertised an auction sale of household effects. The lawyer whose country estate produces green peas that yearly cost him five dollars a peck, cheerfully proclaims that it pays to be a gentleman farmer. ”

“ The problem should not in itself be an insoluble one; a happy, well-ordered household ought to be the normal condition of every home. But to expect to secure this end with the means given a young housekeeper is often to expect the impossible. Behind the housekeeper is not only personal ignorance but all the force of tradition; she must face difficulties so deep-seated as to seem almost inherent and ineradicable. ”

“ This means that before any improvement in household affairs can come, the attitude of mind with which they are approached must undergo a radical change; both men and women must recognize the analogy between domestic service and other forms of labor, and must work, not for more competent cooks and parlor-maids in their individual households, not for any specific change for the better to-morrow, but for improvements in the system—improvements, the benefits of which will be reaped not by this but by subsequent generations. ”

“ Each has the benefit of all the information and the general educational [48] training the college can give. To each alike the three great professions of law, medicine, and theology open their doors and invite special study and investigation. But if the young woman, turning her back on these attractive fields of work, desires to study the household in a similar professional way, she finds it a terra incognita. She realizes that absolutely nothing has been done in any educational institution toward investigating its past history, its present conditions, or its future needs. ”

“ The facts most obvious to her are that her mistress does not understand practical housework, yet is socially her superior. She at once draws the conclusion that house service is degrading. She tries to escape to other work less remunerative but more satisfactory, and if she is unsuccessful, returns to house-service, determined to secure every possible privilege. She will not spend even three months’ time, or pay a nominal sum to learn housework, as a trade or profession. The training-school for domestic servants is a failure because they will not attend it. ”

“ If the kitchen is to sustain an organic relationship to the other parts of the house it must represent in the arrangement of all its details the same idea of unity of composition that is expressed in a painting, of unity of development that gives life to a book, of unity of design that makes the perfect engine. ”

“ It is said that the only way to strike at the root of all these difficulties is to dignify labor; the practical question is, how this is to be accomplished. In the light of all that has been done to attain this end, and the reasons for the comparative failure which has followed, may we not say that one great [72] difficulty has been the fact that reform has begun at the wrong end? unless the chasm has been bridged between kitchen and parlor we cannot dignify labor in the kitchen alone. All true reform must begin at the top. ”

“ Thus the housekeeper, forgetting her Latin, Greek, and mathematics, her French, German, and history, her biology, astronomy and economics, retains as the most valuable heritage of her education a training in habits of accuracy, observation, good judgment, and self-control that enables her to be the master of any unexpected situation that may arise. From the beginning of school life until the close of the college course the conditions surrounding the young man and the young woman are similar. ”