ic grievances without much
outcry, since they are altogether the consequences of education
and progress, and are the circumstances which make possible much
higher and better circumstances.

For just as soon as domestic service is authoritatively and publicly
made a commercial bargain, and all other ideas eliminated from it,
service will attract a much higher grade of women. The independent,
fairly well-read American girl will not sell her labor to women who
insist on her giving any part of her personality but the work of her
hands. She feels interference in her private affairs to be an
impertinence on any employer's part. She does not wish any mistress to
take an interest in her, to advise, to teach, or reprove her. She
objects to her employer being even what is called "friendly." All she
asks is to know her duties and her hours, and to have a clear
understanding as to her work and its payment. And when service is put
upon this basis openly, it will draw to it many who now prefer the
harder work, poorer pay, but larger independence, of factories.

Servants are a part of our social system, but our social system is
being constantly changed and uplifted, and servants rise with it. I
remember a time in England when servants who did not fulfil their
year's contract were subject to legal punishment; when a certain
quality of dress was worn by them, and those who over-dressed did so
at the expense of their good name; when they seldom moved to any
situation beyond walking distance from their birthplace; when, in
fact, they were more slaves than servants. Would any good woman wish
to restore service to this condition?

On the servant's part the root of all difficulty is her want of
respect for her work; and this, solely because her work has not yet
been openly and universally put upon a commercial basis. When domestic
service is put on the same plane as mechanical service, when it is
looked upon as a mere business bargain, then the servant will not feel
it necessary to be insolent and to do her work badly, simply to let
her employer know how much she is above it. Much has been done to
degrade service by actors, newspapers, and writers of all kinds giving
to the domestic servant names of contempt as "flunkies," "menials,"
etc., etc. If such terms were habitually used regarding mechanics, we
might learn to regard masons and carpenters with disdain. Yet domestic
service is as honorable as mechanical service, and the woman who ca