DOMESTIC SERVICE—A SUGGESTION.
T N the articles on "Household Prestige," which appeared in the Spectator last January, it was pointed out that a return to the old conditions of domestic service is extremely improbable, and that, if it is to take its proper placeplace as a skilled occupation, two things, training and " (this last especially including leisure), must be secured for its workers. If some proof of training can be given amenities will speedily follow, and an attempt is now being made to secure this proof.
The League of Skilled Housecraft is a combined effort that is being made by several of the organizations that work for women and girls to raise what has been from the beginning one of the most natural and obvious employ- ments for women—domestic work—to the rank of a skilled. occupation. Nearly all women, at one time or another in their lives, have to concern themselves with domestic affairs, and it is the fact that the great majority of them belong to the class that manages to muddle along some-. how" with no training at all that has brought the calling into such disrepute. This disrepute entails loss of status for the best type of domestic worker in her own class, and such a loss of status really matters to us all. A century ago elementary school teaching was in much the same condition ; the fact that a woman was a deserving widow, or that a man had a wooden leg, was held to be quite sufficient qualification for teaching in the village school ; and, though much very excellent work was done in these schools, there was no sort of guarantee that those appointed to be teachers knew anything about teaching, or even about the subjects they were supposed to teach. Now, elementary school teachers are among the most highly trained, best paid and most respected workers in the country, and this change has been brought about by means of training, examinations, and certificates. Sick nursing is another case in point. By the same means the League of Skilled Housecraft seeks to raise domestic work to the ranks of the skilled occupations. But as, for the great majority of those employed in it, expensive courses of training are impossible, it proposes, by granting certificates of efficiency to those who, after careful examination, show themselves to have acquired a considerable degree of skill in their work, to collect a number of certificated skilled servants who will form the nucleus of the League. To this end it invites all domestic workers between the ages of seventeen and thirty (the cases of older women will be considered on their merits), who have had at least six months' experience of household work, to enter for an examination to be held this autumn in several convenient centres in England and Wales. This preliminary examination will be partly written and partly practical, and will be based on a little ninepenny textbook, Housecraft, published by the Girls' Friendly Society. There will be a fee of 2s. 6d. payable by each candidate for examination : is. on application, which will include the cost of the textbook, and is. 6d. to be paid a month before the examination. An elementary knowledge of general housework, including scrubbing, cleaning, polishing, simple cooking and plain needlework, will be required for this preliminary examination, success in which will make the candidate a probationer of the League, and will give her, with the preliminary certificate, the right to enter for an advanced specialized examination in a year's time. In this she may take any branch of domestic work she prefers, and if successful in it, she will receive a diploma carrying with it full membership of the League of Skilled Housecraft, with the right to wear its uniform and badge. The scheme has been taken up with enthusiasm by many groups of experienced maids, who think it will meet their needs and solve a difficulty they have felt for a long time, i.e., that loss of status in her own class which a girl has to face when she decides on earning her living by resident domestic service. A hallmark of efficiency, such as is afforded by the certificates of the League, should go far to give them the status of their sisters who are certificated schoolmistresses or district nurses.
Further inf ormation about the League, explanatory leaflets, forms of application for examination, &c., can be obtained from the Secretary, League of Skilled Housecraft, c/o the G.F.S. Central Office, 39, Victoria Street, London, S.W. 1.
In addition to what is being done by the League, it is very much to be hoped that some system of training for very young beginners in domestic work may be evolved ; as it appears, from the experience of some of the juvenile employment committees, that there is a growing desire among working-class parents that their girls shall go straight from school at the age of fourteen into "good service." This means a place as underling, either in a large household where she will receive such training as comes from working under the supervision of older experi- enced servants, or in a household where the mistress herself works with her little maid, which, if the work is not too much for the strength of the growing girl, affords the best training of all. Owing, however, to diminishing incomes and the use of labour-saving devices, the number of house- holds of the type that used to employ one or more young maids in addition to their staff of experienced servants is yearly decreasing. And yet it seems possible that one solution of the domestic problem lies in this direction. Why should there not be some sort of signed agreement between the mistress, who is willing to take a beginner and train her, and the parent ; in which the girl is pledged to stay for three years and to enter for the preliminary examination of the League at the end of this time, in return for board, lodging, training, and a gradually- increasing small wage ? There would of necessity be considerable latitude in the agreement, and the plan would only work in those households where proper training could be given. These, however, might very easily be increased in number by rearranging the domestic staff. In some cases the upper (teaching) staff might consist of a couple of trained, educated women who would be responsible for the whole work of the house with the help of two of these girls, who coming straight from school, would not have lost the habits of discipline and of working under instruction. Or, in other csses, capable upper servants, the treasured survivals of pre-War days, would find that beginnars of this type were far easier to work with than the highly-paid products of post-War conditions, who think they hoer everything, who break everything, but who do and learn nothing. The plan is at any rate worth a more extensive trial than it has had so far, and is suitable for town and country alike ; for the parents of those little girls do not wish them to go out of reach, and in many cases would prefer that they should sloop at home. As a method of training, too, it has a great advantage over more elaborate and expensive schemes, in that in the place of ten girls cleaning the same thing over and over again in order that all may have the necessary practical experience (which is apt by its apparent futility to arouse the " contrariant idea" in the little worker's mind) there is always real work that must be done, and they learn quick practice as well as good theory.
It is plain that the help and co-operation of mistresses is essential in both of these schemes ; in the one case so that their maids may be told of the League and encouraged to enter for its examinations, and in the other that the possible rearrangement of their households with a view to training one or two young beginners may be considered. It is a bit of practical patriotism and reconstruction also, for anything that raises the popular conception of domestic work, whether paid or unpaid, makes for the wellbeing of the nation and for the probability that future generations will be better—because more intelligently—housed, fed, and nurtured than they have been in the past.
S. C. BOYS
(Oentral Head of the G.E.S. Employment and Training Department).
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