Lucy Maynard Salmon

Progress in the household Lucy Maynard Salmon

A lady recently called at the house of a friend who answered in person the ring at the door. With careworn expression and flurried manner she apologized for the confusion that apparently reigned in the house, saying: "My parlor maid is upstairs ill, -not ill enough to go to the hospital, too ill to work, too far from home to go there, yet needing attention from me. My waitress is having a fit of the sulks, and I have sent her out to do an errand and get some fresh air. The cook is just now not on speaking terms with her husband, -the coachman, -and is seeking a divorce, so that one or the other must go. The footman came home drunk last night, and had to be discharged this morning. My house is at sixes and sevens, my husband lunched downtown, my mother has taken the children and the nursery-maid home with her, guests arrive this evening, and I have spent the day in a vain search for help in the house. I belong to a club studying household economics, and have allowed it to turn a search-light on all my household affairs in the interests of society at large. I am now ready to call a halt, to refuse to have my domestic arrangements considered a hunting-ground for theorists, to pronounce all such clubs vain mockeries, snares, and delusions, inventions of the enemy for squandering time, and showing the bitter contrast between abstract theory and concrete reality. The only club I am interested in must provide on tap maids who never get ill or sulky, cooks without a temper, and coachmen and footmen of unimpeachable habits."It is possible that such conditions are not confined to "the uninhabited districts west of Schenectady," and that elsewhere there may be despairing housekeepers ready to cry out against all serious study of domestic questions, because such study has not yet had an immediate and practical bearing on the management of their individual households. It is, indeed, not improbable, for there is in every clime the tradition of a time when household helpers were abundant, competent, and cheap, -a golden age when harmony reigned in the household and domestic discord was unknown. Has this peaceful condition been rudely broken up by the meddlesome interference of domestic busy-bodies? 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? Is the club to revert to Browning, the investigator to confine himself to the comparatively safe field of ancient history, the theorist to live in the future, and the student of social conditions to content himself with flower missions and soup-kitchens? If it can be shown that conditions are worse than they have ever been before, and that discussion and investigation are responsible for this deterioration, then assuredly the club should change the field of its activity, and all discussion of the household affairs should c