Chapter VII: New Movements and Remedies

Sources of information: Visits to the institutions, correspondence with managers, and reports.

The public has not been content to accept the conditions described, and there are many movements which indicate a new spirit in intelligence offices and household work. This chapter can set forth only the most important and significant of these.

The Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, organized in Boston in 1880, is, we believe, the most representative and progressive association which deals with the problem of household work. Unlike most other institutions, its membership is open to employers and employees alike, and its purpose is to "increase fellowship among women." The work of this organization, which occupies and owns its building, is in the hands of four departments—Business Management, Education and Industrial Arts, Social Extension, and Social Service—and each department has several committees. It has an ethics, a lecture, a class, a hygiene, a food, a handwork, an employment, a protective, a befriending, and a hospitality committee. It has an exchange for work, lunch-rooms, lecture-rooms, and everything which makes for unity of work among women. The branch of this remarkable institution which deals with employment is the Domestic Reform League. Its objects are the scientific and careful consideration of present conditions; the awakening of the interest of women in the largest aspect of the problem; the recognition by the employer that fair conditions should be given for faithful service; and by the employee, that interested and efficient service should be rendered for fair wages and just conditions; and the further recognition by both that efficiency should be the standard of wages. This League has charge of the employment agency, and the use of it is restricted to its members, this being one of its ways of securing certain standards. The distinctly progressive movements for which this League stands are: a form of contract which employer and employee must sign containing the names of the parties, the wages and kind of employment, with the conditions that the first week is a trial week, for which the employer pays unless the employee leaves of her own will; that the employee is entitled to a full week's notice or full week's pay, and if the employee leaves without one week's notice, one week's pay is forfeited. When either employer or employee violates this contract, the use of the office is withdrawn. No employer or employee is called by any other title.

In addition, this League has done most of the little research on household problems, which has been undertaken at first hand. This includes a study of the "Hours of Labor," of "Social Conditions of Domestic Service," "Household Expenses," and "Social Statistics of Working Women." It also made the investigation of employment agencies which resulted in Boston's present excellent law. It has arranged series of lectures and, until recently, conducted a domestic training school. Its experience has demonstrated that a study of conditions followed by educational work for employers and employees, in connection with an ideal office to bring employers and employees together, is more in demand than a training school. This institution is, in the judgment of the writer, the most advanced in its methods of dealing with this problem, for it is a practical clearing-house for labor, and an educational centre.

A movement which has sprung up recently in other cities consists of employers' associations, which have opened employment agencies. A comparatively recent one is the Woman's Domestic Guild of America movement in New York and Chicago. These organizations, and others which they typify, are, in a general way, effected by a body of employers banding together, electing officers, and having a board or council. They select a manager or superintendent who is responsible for the actual working of the office. Employers who are patrons must be members of the association, but employees are not eligible. The former pay an annual membership fee of $2 and are charged $1 additional for each employee obtained. Fees of $1 are also charged employees. In New York the Guild can scarcely be called an employers' organization, since its board of employers has resigned and it is now in the hands of business men and women.

These organizations have good office equipment, fair waiting-rooms and systems, and use printed reference blanks returnable by mail. To the writer it seems that these Guilds have introduced three doubtful movements, the training school—which has been discontinued in New York because of lack of patronage—an honor roll, whereby all employees who remain in places one year will have their names published in a newspaper, and will have their $1 fee refunded as a prize; and that the membership fee paid entitles the subscriber to one hundred copies of the newspaper whose advertising medium the office is. The progressive movements for which these Guilds stand are the social and recreation opportunities which they afford through their classes and club-rooms. These Guilds are strictly business concerns, advertising methods of enterprising newspapers, and are not philanthropies.

They have been well advertised, are new, and have drawn the trade from other offices, and as clearing-houses they are a benefit and a success. But they seem to fail in many particulars where the Woman's Educational Union succeeds, because they are not conducted in the spirit which a solution of the "servant problem" demands. As educational centres for the study and solution of the problem, they are not even to be considered. This is due to the following elements: They emanate from employers, are financed by them, and are conducted entirely with a view to bettering the service in the homes. They represent more often the employers who have more than one employee, so the great mass of employers have no voice in determining the policy. They are one-sided, and can only see the problem from the employer's standpoint, though there are also many competent employees with good educations who could bring into such an organization a broader policy if they were given representation. As a rule, they do not recognize the scope and character of the matter they assume to settle. Such an organization to meet the conditions, needs a board composed of employers, employees, and business men and women, for any organization conducted only from the standpoint of the employer tends to develop personalities.

The system is one of patronage and misses the dominant note in all women's work. The girl in the factory or store asks for fairness in privileges, hours, amount of freedom, and for protection, and the houseworker is not different from her. As one writer puts it: "Working women want, not charity, but companionship; not alms, but amusement; not bodily needs, but genuine personal relations. Social patronage, they shun as social pestilence." What self-respecting, desirable girls who have the capabilities for good houseworkers will leave a store or shop when such organizations offer as an inducement cash prizes and an honor roll published in a newspaper! They say, "We would be held up to ridicule by our friends, and this would be humiliating"; and that the store and the shop reward faithful service by increased pay, more holidays, and promotions. These are substantial and contribute to their comfort and happiness, which is, after all, the chief aim of most workers. These Guilds further show a system of patronage by permitting employers to become "members" with special privileges, while the employee is but a "servant"—not a discrimination designed to attract women from other fields.

Employers' organizations have many obstacles to overcome before they can become thoroughly businesslike. Members think they have a special claim and ask all sorts of special privileges or favors, or they send all the cripples and inefficient that come their way to them, in the hope that they will be given work, and to them this is an easy way to dispense charity. There must be a constant vigilance against favoring individual employers. They can rarely become co-operative with other intelligence offices, and can scarcely get into touch with the supply, because the conservative members are opposed to the methods required. The New York Guild says: "We have nothing to do with immigrants or their offices; they will scarcely do for our patrons"—an exclusive attitude which will prevent co-operative and educational work. Some of these, while poor, only need some help to act honestly. The keynote of every modern business now is co-operation, as is seen by other employers' associations, trusts, etc., yet this newest movement is not only competitive, but has actually refused co-operation. The Guild in Chicago is, we believe, on a more enlightened basis, and has shown a greater tendency to cooperate.

There is a further danger in employers' associations run as advertising schemes. They are misleading. The Guild openly advertises to "solve the servant problem," and raises the hopes of thousands of women. The study of this problem, brief as it is here, certainly shows that it is too deep and complex for any medium of exchange to solve. These Guilds do not increase the supply-they draw it from other offices, and for many households they supply, some applicant at some other office goes without. Where increased advertising is one of the objects of an agency financed by a newspaper, its methods may be open to question. Every application is advertised. This means that if there are twenty people waiting for a cook, and one applies and is taken at once, she is nevertheless advertised to draw other eager employers. Were this not true, the papers would not make a presentable advertising sheet in the number of positions wanted.

Some employers' associations have adopted better methods. The Household Registry Bureau, operated by the Housekeepers' Alliance of Philadelphia, with the co-operation of the Public Ledger is upon much better plans. It has the faults of the Guild in that it has not represented on its board any but employers, and is open to the danger of one-sidedness. But it has not fallen into the error of starting a training school, its applicants are employers and employees, it supports a home for the unemployed, which is also a recreation centre, and is co-operating with the best offices in the city. It modestly claims it is only a respectable intelligence office operating in the hope of bringing employers and employees together, and not to solve the problem. It insists upon references, whether employers want them or not, and does not hesitate to refuse employers when beyond question they are known as undesirable. It has private-interview rooms where employers must converse with employees, and men and women are separated. It has no honor roll, but every one is made to feel the obligation of contract, and a broken agreement by either employer or employee means that she must patronize some other office. Its success is measured not by the number it places, but by such things as: "How many girls can we induce to remain when they wish to leave their places for trivial reasons"; "how can we induce patrons to be more just in their treatment and demands"; and "put the girl in the right place if it is only one each week."

A distinctly progressive movement, though only small experiments as yet, are the Household Aid Company of Boston, and the St. Louis School of Housekeeping. The former is on a daily service plan. There is one house where the girls are trained, and from which they are sent out to homes to work upon regular schedules at stated wages per hour. Applicants are received upon two weeks' probation with no expense to themselves, and at the end of that time they are graded according to efficiency, and each makes a contract with the company for a definite number of hours a week. During the time of training, the wages amount to about four dollars per week. From this a moderate amount for room and board is deducted. After the period of training is over, they receive from eight to thirty-five cents per hour. After the training is completed, aides continue to live at the home while at work. The Company arranges the schedules and at present receives the money and repays the aides. Cooks, household managers, seamstresses, milliners, laundresses, buyers and marketers, upholstresses and clerks are furnished. They have an arrangement of major and minor subjects, so that a girl whose engagements for household work cover only certain periods of the day may go out for millinery and sewing, thus making it possible to utilize the whole day.

The St. Louis scheme is a little broader. Its plan is to give the first two weeks' trial training without pay. The first two months are devoted to general work, and the last four to specializing. The pupils may board and lodge at the School. After the first two months, they are sent out for emergency service, for which they are paid. This emergency service is the filling of temporary vacancies. If workers give all of their time to this emergency department, they are paid a good salary whether sent out or not. If they are sent out so often that they earn more than their fixed salaries, they are paid an additional percentage. Regular schedules, as in the Boston Household Aid, do not appear to be made. Besides this, the School conducts an excellent employment agency, which the Boston Company does not.

These experiments are along truly progressive lines. The courses are possibly too long, but both overcome a grave difficulty by making it possible for girls to earn wages while they are learning. To avoid the objectionable feature of patronage, employers and business men and women should be members of these boards, and the aides should be made to feel that they run the lodging houses, so far as that is practicable.

The Young Woman's Christian Association of Boston typifies a movement a little less new. This is a training school which eliminates the daily-service plan, but which extends its training to employees who are in positions, and sends instructors into employers' homes when requested. The Association also has an employment agency which is one of the best in the city in its principle and equipment.

There are in existence some training schools which do not operate employment agencies, such as the School of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Chicago. These schools do improve the conditions by training prospective and existing employers, but can scarcely be said to influence the subject through the employee. The extension of training schools for employers and of the work in schools and higher institutions is one of the most hopeful and progressive lines by which employers can hasten the adjustment, but that is a problem which is distinct from employment, which is the keynote of this investigation.

One training school which seems at least to have solved the problem of how to secure pupils is the Sargent Industrial School at Mattewan, N. Y. This was founded by Mrs. Winthrop Sargent in her old manor house in 1891, and now there are six resident pupils and more than two hundred day pupils with a waiting list of one hundred more. The object is to give free instruction in all departments of housekeeping only to those who intend to adopt household work as a profession. The afternoon classes are for girls from the public schools, and the evening classes for girls from the factories. Courses range from nine months for resident pupils upward to five years, and the hours are so adjusted that the work can be carried along with the public-school work. There are also classes in physical culture. Prizes are offered, honorable mention made, and testimonials and certificates are given showing the amount of study completed. Those who find training schools a failure might investigate with profit the methods by which such a large attendance is secured.

Another movement is the laundry operated by the Charity Organization Society of New York City. Several hundred women—widows and deserted wives who are breadwinners for little children, and wives who support invalid husbands—were graduated last year as expert laundresses. The laundry is a trade school. It receives eighty or ninety unskilled women every month, puts them at work over steaming wash-tubs, advances them to starching and ironing, and graduates them with a recommendation after thorough instruction in the ironing of filmy lace curtains and finest linen. While the woman learns her trade, she receives a warm dinner at noon, and from sixty cents to $1.50 a day, paid at five every afternoon, so that she can go to a day nursery for her children with money in her pocket to buy their supper. Single women are not admitted. It accepts laundry from patrons, so the instruction is entirely practical. The finding of employment is secondary and the training is the main work.

As a result of the conditions found existing for immigrant girls, a model agency for immigrants has been started, known as the Home Co-operative Bureau at 712 East Sixth Street, New York. There is a woman at the immigrant station who meets the Hungarian, Slavish, Bohemian, Jewish, and other immigrant women, and not only directs them to this agency and home, but finds relatives and friends and prevents them from falling into the hands of office sharks. No fees are charged the employees, and no charge is made for lodging while they wait for positions unless they can pay. Clubs and classes are conducted at this home and it is a social centre for the household employees and others. Situated in the midst of many questionable offices and in a densely populated section, it has an attractive office and good system; clean, comfortable, even tastefully arranged rooms where unemployed women can stay; it has a matron who does social and educational work with its patrons and neighbors; it uses its influence to assist all other reputable offices; it co-operates in the stamping out of the evils; and secures protection for employees. It is a small beginning by those who realize the great need of better housing and more social opportunities for the houseworker.

There are some movements among private pay offices which are progressive, in that they serve the better convenience of the public rather than solve any whole problem. Such is the purchasing department of the Woman's Domestic Guild. One called a "Bureau of Social Requirements" undertakes the following things: designing and superintending entertainments; information on all social matters and customs, including the etiquette of cards and invitations; visiting books written up; household accounts kept in order and visiting housekeepers supplied. It also furnishes visiting stenographers and amanuenses; accountants by the hour, day, or season; suggestions and advice in matters of dress and interior decorations; shopping; mourning addresses; seamstresses and milliners; and selected addresses. It gives advice and assistance in heraldic matters; armorial bearings are authenticated; genealogical researches are conducted by experts; and has information concerning schools and public institutions. Dismantling and opening of residences, recommendations of architects, improvements and alterations in buildings, daily care of lamps; orders for hair-dressing, shampooing, and manicuring; bric-a-brac dusted, plants cared for, orders executed for coal, trunks packed and re-packed, — all these are taken charge of. It also has a real-estate department, and furnishes letters of advice and introduction, and chaperones. In fact, it undertakes to supply every household and social demand. Another announces that its proprietor is a "visiting household manager and general provider," and undertakes to relieve patrons of every department of household care. It includes most of the preceding and some new departures, as, securing apartments and houses for out-of-town parties, and houses furnished by contract. A third organization in New York City operates a "platoon system," which furnishes employees on the daily-service plan. They work on regular schedules, much as trained nurses, from house to house, or upon short-hour shifts.

But all of these movements are independent and for cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and many others, where there are laws to be enforced, and standards to be raised, the writer believes there is a need for a co-operative movement, and, based upon these investigations and a careful study of office systems, that best calculated to attain the end desired is the one proposed in the following outline:

Consistent with the belief that these offices cannot solve the household-work problem, the first part of the plan provides for a study of the existing conditions. A plan has been perfected in which the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, with offices at 264 Boylston Street, Boston, the Association for Household Research, of New York, with offices at 111 East Twenty-third Street, and the Housekeepers' Alliance, and the Civic Club, with offices at 1325 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, have united and will conduct such an investigation in these three cities. Co-operating with these are the College Settlements Association and Association of Collegiate Alumnae which furnish a fellowship for the research. The representatives from these organizations constitute the Inter-Municipal Committee on Household Research, of which the president of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, Mrs. Mary Morton Kehew, is Chairman, and Miss Frances A. Kellor, the Fellow, is general Secretary. This Committee has charge of general plans and of the direction, so that the work in all cities will be uniform and the results comparable as well as representative. But each city has its own large local committee which carries out the details, conducts the bureau, and otherwise supports the work.

The investigation in each city will be directed from a bureau of information, established by and in connection with the organizations represented on the Inter-Municipal Committee. Organizations, employers and employees, and all interested will be asked to co-operate, by sending to this bureau experiences, opinions, criticisms, suggestions, experiments, and proposed solutions. Trained investigators will be sent out to collect material by means of observation, interviews, schedules of questions, etc. Previous investigations and material will be filed and classified, and their value estimated. New enterprises will be examined and the result recorded. All of this study will be made with the advice and cooperation of householders and with a full recognition that the subject is both difficult and delicate.

These bureaus of information will be the distributing points for the information gathered. Their function is primarily educational and will embrace several lines, of which the following are illustrative:

1. Press department, from which will be issued a monthly bulletin; material furnished to newspapers and periodicals; and statistics, papers, lecturers, and references to clubs and other organizations.
2. Directories giving reliable employment agencies, advertising lists, day's work and daily service lists, approved boarding-houses for employees, training schools, social centers, organizations, etc., and all information of practical value to employers and employees.
3. Co-operation with other lines of study; placing of college women in related lines of research and practical work; assistance to legislative and educational work."

In brief, these bureaus will be clearing-houses where any person can find information and assistance along the lines indicated, and will be educational centres rather than a final aid or solution in themselves. It is hoped they may become centres which patrons will find of practical use.

The scope and order of the subjects to be investigated are not fully determined, but the following provisional outline will give some idea of the extent and nature of the study which the Committee hopes to complete. Any further suggestions will be welcomed:

[Re-Do Bullet Numbering]

1. Sources of Supply: To include such as relative numbers, characteristics, influence, place and position of:

   1. Immigrants who go into American households, with special attention to the races furnishing general housework girls (which is a pressing problem), and to Japanese, Chinese, etc., as a possible partial solution.
   2. Americans, including city and country girls, negroes, etc.
   3. Effects of competition, restriction of immigration, etc.

2. Methods by which Employees and Positions are Obtained: To include such as descriptions of places, methods, persons acting as intermediaries; reliability; abuses; frauds; improvements, etc.

   1. Private, free public, and philanthropic employment bureaus. (This study is completed and will be the first publication of this Committee.)
   2. Through employers and employees. (This includes references, with a view to obtaining some uniformity; means by which employers secure employees directly from each other; ways in which employees influence each other, blacklist employers, etc.)
   3. Methods and value of advertising.

3. Conditions of Household Work: To include private houses, hotels, restaurants, and boarding-houses, with as many grades and types of each as are possible.

   1. General:

      1. Kind of dwelling, number in family, children, occupation of employer, etc.
      2. Stipulations, demands, preferences of employees.

   2. Health:

      1. Housing, including size, heat, ventilation, furnishing of employees' rooms, with especial attention to changes affecting household workers.
      2. Food, including kind, amount, custom of serving.
      3. Bathing facilities, exercise, etc.
      4. Effect of household work upon employees.
      5. Advantages and disadvantages from a health standpoint.

   3. Economic:

      1. Hours: busy, call, free time; comparisons.
      2. Wages: amount, overtime, deductions, etc.
      3. Work: kinds and methods, system, etc.
      4. Competency: elements in determining standards.
      5. Promotions, prizes, rewards for good service.
      6. Advantages and disadvantages from an economic standpoint.

   4. Social:

      1. Privileges, customs, rights.
      2. Uniforms, use of first name, etc.
      3. Opportunities, vacations, supervision, and restrictions of social life.
      4. Advantages and disadvantages from a social standpoint.

4. Attitudes and Opinions: To include answers to specific questions in interviews, schedules, letters, and specific complaints and criticisms upon vital problems.

   1. Employers in large and small households, hotels, boarding-houses, etc.
   2. Employees—foreign and American—in households and who have left for other fields of work.
   3. Theorists and students who have studied, or are interested in the subject.

5. Status of Employers: To include such as:

   1. Education, training in domestic science, business, etc.
   2. Standards for work, character, etc.
   3. Economic and social.

6. Status of Employees:

   1. Associates, standards of honesty, morality, temperance, religion.
   2. Education, domestic training, and attitude toward it.
   3. Protection in employer's home, comparisons, results.
   4. Independent life outside of employer's home—clothing, luxuries, organizations, recreations, social life, savings, housing of unemployed household workers.

7. Legislation and Organizations:

   1. Existing laws affecting both employers and employees.
   2. Organizations which affect household interests.

8. Experiments: Such as co-operative housekeeping and boarding; apartment hotels; profit-sharing in homes; daily service by employees, etc.

9. Collection, Analysis, and Evaluation of Published Studies.

10. Solutions:

    1. descriptions, methods, elements of failure in past and present.
    2. Criticisms and suggestions; doubtful and possible remedies.

11. Special Classes and Institutions Affecting the Household:

    1. Nurse girls—qualifications, methods of selection, relation, and influence upon the child.
    2. Masseuses, hairdressers, manicures, etc.
    3. Private and public laundries—conditions, equipment, methods, etc.
    4. Public kitchens, prepared foods, etc.

12. Literature: Collections of the best books and edited references, reports, statistics, etc."

Whenever possible in each of the preceding, comparisons will be made with stores, factories, and offices, so that explanations may be found for the preference shown them.

A legitimate part of investigative work should be suggestions for and the encouragement of improvements. This study of offices shows a lack of thoroughness, system, and integrity, and the writer believes that model employment agencies working in connection with each other and with such a Bureau of Information as has just been outlined could do more than any other movement to remedy these and to improve both the quality and number of employees. This system of model agencies is outlined for the consideration of the reliable agencies already at work in the field and for any who may wish to start practical work in improving conditions. There are in each community enough reputable offices with good standards to unite and make such a system effective.

A successful agency, no matter how small, should be upon the department plan, including one each for application and registration, adjustment, daily service, co-operation, extension, complaints and investigation, and financial or business. In the application and registration department all the facts, references, etc., may be kept for both classes of patrons. The card system for permanent records, and day books and temporary card systems for daily use, seem best. Once these are filed and the data kept up on them, orders can be filed accurately without the patrons' frequenting the office. Such records should be interchanged among co-operating offices, and would force robbers, rounders, and stool pigeons into honest work, or into non-cooperative offices.

The second great difficulty which these investigations have revealed is not so much incompetency, but mal-adjustment—sending any one in the hope that she will suit. This is met by the second department—adjustment-with a specialist in charge. There should be small booths for private interviews, and the one in charge must study the employers and mingle with the employees. This work cannot be hurried, and the two thrown together haphazard, but tact, judgment, knowledge of human nature, and just as many facts as the registrar can give must be utilized. Exchanging should be a feature — that is, giving temporary aid and then sending the right person when found. This implies keeping the interest of the patrons constantly in mind. Waiting rooms must be adequate, provided with reading material when necessary, and a careful supervision maintained to eliminate the evils of gossip and undesirable applicants.

A third department contemplates a new line of work, which seems imperative if the supply and the quality of employees are to be improved, or even maintained. We do not believe this will meet the whole problem, but will relieve conditions in homes which cannot grant the increasing demands of employees. The plan is to provide a number of household aides who may live together in a neighborhood lodging-house, or in any place accessible to their work. To these could be given routine work occupying as much of the day and evening as they wish to fill. Employers could afford to pay well for such service, as it relieves them of the expense of extra board and lodging and laundry. Regular schedules could be arranged for each aide according to the demands and location of families. If an employer wished all, or two thirds, or one half of the time, that arrangement could be made, the only conditions being that the girl has some choice in hours, in planning her schedule, and should not sleep at her employer's. Such an arrangement might be satisfactory to families living in flats and apartments where the presence of an aide not only crowds the family, but is often an intrusion into the family life. It also simplifies the problem of unsanitary and immoral conditions under which employees live in some homes. By this system many families could afford an aide where now the expense of an additional employee is too great. This plan gives the girl the economic and social freedom which will bring into household work many of the better class of girls. Indeed, as we have shown, some such system is absolutely necessary in order to attract store and factory employees, and is one way of dignifying household work. One illustration will show a possible working of this scheme. A number of families live in a neighborhood, each having its own laundress. These could live in a lodging house and go to their employer's for the day, or the laundry could be done at the lodging-house. Their evenings, and when their work is done, would be free, and they could entertain or leave as soon as they wish for the evening, and thus live a much more normal, healthy life.

In this department would also be found reputable and skilled women for day's work, laundresses, cleaners, etc. Lists should be kept for the use of employers who prefer to engage them personally. Offices, as a rule, do not bother with temporary help, because they do not quite dare charge the regular fee, and a reduced rate does not pay. The average office does not have at heart so much the needs of the employer as the amount of income which it can control.

Any office will fail unless the supply of employees can be maintained. Here the best talent must be placed, and to this and the next department must fall the work of remedying the existing immoral conditions. No office meets the present-day need which will not undertake that. To secure employees means that there must be competent, trained, well-paid workers to go out into the labor market and compete daily and intelligently with offices which are securing the immigrant, and which are misleading girls from boarding-houses, etc. They must know personally every agency and institution which is laboring to save girls and wants work for them, and every organization and individual which has a hold upon the supply. If a disreputable agency can afford to buy a newly arrived girl from a boardinghouse for fifty cents or one dollar, and sell her into slavery, surely a reputable office can afford that to save her for some good home! If an office has nothing else to recommend it, this work of directing girls aright ought to make it worthy of support.

Such a department should also include some attempt to secure summer household or hotel work in healthful localities for girls in factories and other confining work during the year, and for students who work summers to earn tuition, and to help women from institutions into places where their work also means a new environment.

But if co-operation is the keynote to raise the standard and drive out the hopelessly disreputable office, it is also the keynote to maintain and assist every clean, honest office, and for this the use of a clearing-house is suggested. The bringing of employer and employee together is done in the adjustment department. But that is not enough. In offices at night will be found many hundreds of girls, who, after waiting all day, are without places; in others, there are many disappointed employers. Now, is there not some way by which these two classes can be brought together? It is not always a question of inequality of supply and demand, but simply of failure to meet at the necessary moment. During the day many offices could prevent patrons from going elsewhere, if, by a clearing-house system, they could guarantee that within half an hour help would be supplied. Now false promises and deceptions are employed to hold the patrons, the only ground being the hope that "some one will drop in." Patrons go from one office to another hoping to "just happen" on what they want. Such offices as are here proposed, free as they must be from greed, could well work together and act as such clearing-houses, or establish one central clearing-house office for the benefit of all. There will be much opposition, for many offices will never reach the level of doing honest and conscientious work, just as there are many which do not even understand the situation; but surely some will see the personal advantage. These co-operating offices would place most of the employees, the central office acting as a mere central information bureau and record office for them all.

Because the intelligence office is a nucleus from which much important social and educational and industrial work can be done, it must have an interest in lodging-houses and training schools for its unemployed. Where advisable, those offices which run their own lodging-houses should be patronized by the others, and thus be able to assure employers of the places from which employees come. Where this is not possible, they should co-operate with existing houses or assist others to start them.

To make a daily service plan effective lodging-houses are needed in the districts where employees work. Approved boarding-houses could be used. Such a house would give the aides in their own houses all of the needed social requirements. A plan of this kind is the first step toward making the great mass of household workers less homeless and less likely to become household tramps.

Such a system of offices should encourage domestic training, but it scarcely seems to be its function to initiate it. There are at least three possibilities which it might develop. For thorough training a long course of from three to six months seems necessary. For this, it is suggested that scholarships be given in existing schools which meet the needs, rather than the equipment of expensive schools. In accordance with the co-operative tendencies which this plan emphasizes, these courses would have to meet special needs, and others added for the especial training of housekeepers, marketers, shoppers, etc. Such an institution as the Charity Organization Laundry, to which reference has been made, would make an admirable co-operative school, and no outlay would be needed at first. In urging training, the whole idea would be to utilize every available force, and to return assistance when needed, rather than to start competitive plants at much expense. The money needs to be spent on directing girls aright, not on training, when such fine facilities are waiting to be used.

A second important branch is the training of employees who already hold positions. By this plan, instructors would either go into houses and train employees in accordance with the wishes of the employer and the needs of the house, or the employees would come to the school for regular or special instruction. This would relieve the employer, who is often busy, incompetent, or indifferent. This plan works well in a small way in the Boston Y. W. C. A.

Third, arrangements can often be made with an employer who has more time than money, to take a green girl for a small wage, with the understanding that she be placed after a certain time and another taken. If offices now find it so possible and profitable to use employers thus for their own sole profit, why cannot the home be made a legitimate training school and the employer profit by a reduction in wage? Green immigrant girls would agree to such an arrangement, if they were not led by offices to expect extravagant returns. One employer writes: "Many ladies would be willing to take untrained help for $10 per month and give good conscientious training. I know at least two who are doing this now." If such co-operating offices advocated training or were in touch with competent schools, they would be using their influence in the right direction and their work would tell in increased efficiency and quality of the employees.

The writer believes any such system of offices would be incomplete without a complaint and inspection department. Broken contracts and complaints need to be investigated and the results recorded. In this way, an employer would not be blacklisted undeservedly, for now girls prevent each other from taking a place because they dislike her; and, on the other hand, most of the evils of written references would be obliterated and employees not discriminated against unjustly. All department records and services should be open to co-operating offices at all times.

Many complaints about offices are made. While it is not the business of one office to spy upon another, in justice to its patrons abuses should be looked into and reported to the proper authorities, 12 for the level of many can only be raised by constant surveillance. This department should co-operate with municipal authorities, and endeavor to supply reliable information about other places of business. Reputable offices can be of inestimable assistance, as they are natural places for complaint.

Every city possesses a sufficient nucleus of good offices so that if all of these departments could not be put into operation together, they could at least organize, adopt a standard devoid of the objectionable features and methods and insist upon that standard for membership. There could be cooperative and legislative committees to carry out other details, and they could gradually enable the smaller and poorer offices to carry out the department plan. New York has such an association formed to protect offices which could well extend its work to raising the standards. Such a system of offices doing clean, honest work, and improving other offices could not only be recommended by the proposed Bureaus of Information which constitute the first part of this movement, but should receive more direct encouragement and help as in matters of organization, advertising, and maintenance.