BY CHRISTINE TERHUNE HERRICK AUTHOR OF "HOUSEKEEPING MADE EASY" "WHAT TO EAT AND HOW TO SERVE IT" "CRADLE AND NURSERY" ETC. NEW YORK AND LONDON HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS :: 1904 Copyright, 1904, by Harper & Brothers . All rights reserved. Published October, 1904. TO A FRIEND IN NEED THE EXPERT MAID-SERVANT...

The most common method of engaging a servant is through an intelligence office. There are nearly as many different kinds of these as there are types of domestics who patronize them. An office with a high standing should be selected. This is not only because a lower grade of employées is to be found at the other variety, but also on account of the methods followed in some of the cheaper offices. Such establishments occasionally have unscrupulous managers, who make a business of encouraging the ma

The first days of a servant in a new place are not easy either for mistress or for maid. This should be recognized by the mistress, and she should lay in an extra supply of patience for the emergency. She will need it, in order to endure with equanimity the sins, negligences, and ignorances of the new-comer—especially the ignorances. Yet, looked at impartially, the blunders made by the maid are probably not so much the result of ignorance as of unaccustomedness. The situation is much harder for

There is a type of mistress who seems to regard servants as beings of an inferior order. Her directions are given curtly—sometimes harshly. She takes the ground that the servant is paid for her work and that for anything beyond the business relation there is no need for consideration. She may be called one extreme type. The other extreme is more common. In her desire to propitiate her employée she is herself almost servile. She is in frank fear lest the servant may leave her, and in order to ret

The general housework servant has already been referred to as a Pooh Bah in petticoats. She takes practically all labor for her province. It is an illustration of the value of specialization that as a rule she commands lower wages for her services than does a maid who fills any one alone of the functions the general housework servant performs. Since the duties of the maid-of-all-work are what they are, the mistress should make a stipulation at the time of the engagement that the employée should

With specialization in the household come complications. The manual labor of the mistress may be lessened when she adds to her domestic force, but with every new maid she assumes more responsibilities. She has to reconstruct the system to which she had become accustomed when she employed but one servant, and very often the whole tone of the establishment is changed from what it was in the days to which she sometimes looks back as comparatively care free. Yet with the increase in a family or with

The tendency to introduce the wearing of livery into domestic service has grown within the past few years. There are still many protests against it, and writers are found who declare the cap and apron of the housemaid a badge of servitude. But the growth of the livery has been universal, and implies no more degradation in one relation of life than in another. The public servant, whether he be policeman or street-cleaner or motorman or car conductor or what you will, takes his uniform as a matter

The mistress of a house must not look for bricks without straw. In other words, she must not demand good work from her maids if they lack the tools with which to achieve it. When women, in the course of discussions on domestic topics at clubs and elsewhere, declare that housekeeping can be practised on the same principles as those on which men conduct their business, when they affirm that housekeeping may be run like machinery, they sometimes forget what is meant by the management of machinery.

Rise at six o'clock and have clothing in readiness, so as to be dressed and down-stairs by six-thirty. Strip the bed and open the window before leaving the room. If the care of the furnace is in your hands, open the draughts and put on a little coal. Light the kitchen fire, fill the kettle, put on the breakfast cereal and potatoes, or anything that requires some time to cook. Open the windows of rooms on first floor, brush up the floor and the halls, and sweep off the front steps. Go over bare f

Rise at six o'clock and be down-stairs by six-thirty. Open draughts of furnace and put on a little coal. Fill the kettle and put the cereal over the fire. Make ready the materials for the breakfast. When the furnace fire has come up put on more coal and close draughts. Open the windows of the cellar, air the pantry, and see that the kitchen is in good order, the stove blacked, etc. After the family and the kitchen breakfast inspect the contents of the pantries and refrigerator and plan with the

Rise at six o'clock and be down-stairs at six-thirty. Open and air the rooms on the first floor, brush off the steps, sweep out the halls, and brush down the stairs. Brush up the drawing-room or go over the floor with a carpet-sweeper, wipe up the hard-wood floors, and dust the rooms. If the woodwork is painted, spots must be wiped from it. Take hot water up to bedrooms half to three-quarters of an hour before breakfast, according to directions previously given by mistress. Wait on table during