"HOTEL ECOLIER"

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 128, 1 June 1935, Page 19

"HOTEL ECOLIER"

SERVANTS ARE PUPILS

In certain European countries where the business of hotelkeeping is taken seriously, • vocational training of the staff is considered essential. (states a correspondent in the "Sydney Morning Herald's" Women's Supplement). It is not enough that they should: be efficient cooks, housemaids, etc.; they must also be taught how to act as such in the special conditions of service in hotels. As it is generally conceded that the best hotel service is found in France, it may be of interest to look into the modern system "of training for this highly specialised calling. . There is no difficulty about studying it at first hand. Anyone who, on visiting a French pleasure resort where there is a, hotel with . the sub-title "Hotel Ecolier" chooses that one in which to stay will find that the servants are all pupils working under the direction of expert teachers; they are generally girls who "have just left school, though occasionally there are older ones- among them. The training is both theoretical and practical. Lectures are given daily which all must attend, and the girls may be seen reading their texWbooks when on duty in lobbies and corridors and listening for bells when off duty in the garden. During the four months' course pupils have a period of. four weeks' work in each department of the hotel, acting successively as cooks, waitresses, chambermaids, and laundresses. To minimise the risk of inconveniencing hotel guests by a complete change of personnel, half the girls of each group are moved fortnightly, leaving the othir half to help the fresh relay with their new duties ahd" indicate individual requirements of the guests. With the attention to detail characteristic of the nation, pupils are taught more than the mere essentials of their work. The waitresses learn all that pertains to gracious service in the dining-room, including the arrangement of flowers and attractive ways of setting the tables; chambermaids and laundry maids are shown how to care for the linen that passes through their hands. ■' • The period of tuition in the Kitchen is the most interesting and varied, as, in addition to preparing, cooking, and dishing the innumerable dainty dishes of which French menus aref. composed, they learn about food values and the art of drawing up menus, and ate taken to market every day so "that they may know how to choose their materials and buy them to the best advantage. Instruction in bookkeeping is also included in the curriculum; pupils with an aptitude for figures are given an insight into the methods of hotel bookkeeping. In return for their services pupils are provided with board, lodging, and uniform by the management; the tips from visitors are pooled and divided among them for pocket-money. . By the time the course is finished they have acquired an all-round knowledge of the duties. of hotel servants and can take up whichever branch they prefer as a permanency with a prospect of rapid advancement to better and still better situations; eventually to supervisory and even administratory posts should they possess the personality necessary to the holding of such posts. And many of these French girls do possess it. Thus is an industry raised to the rank of a profession.