The Hawera Star FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1925, DOMESTIC SERVICE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 20 February 1925, Page 4

The Hawera Star

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1925, DOMESTIC SERVICE.

D>")ivprpci every evening by 5 o'clock in I-fnwern, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, El he in'. Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton, TI-irleyvill«s Patca, Waverley, Mokoia, •-Vhnkamara, Ohangni. Meremere, Fraser ltond, and Araratw.

Seventy years ago a little hand of Englishwomen, set. isa.il for the Crimea, and the work which they aeeomip'lisbed there, in hospitals choked with wounded and diseased soldiers, established the status of the nursing profession and set the name of their leader. Florence Nightingale, high on the iseroll of English heroines, until to-,day there is a proposal that she ohould be canonised by the Church of England. There is another sphere of woman’s work still waiting the seal of respectability which the devoted service of the Lady with the Lamp affixed for all time to nursing, and that is domestic service. “We can’t get ‘help’ ’ is the constant, cry of the housewife in the Dominions, and the position -at Home has been developing similarly since the war. The attitude of one section of the public is that there ought always to be ample “help” available, and that it is a. sign of decadence- in the race that girls should prefer employment in shops, offices, ancl factories rather than in domesticservice. But shaking of heads and wringing of hands will not overcome the difficulty, and it is unlikely thatdomestic sendee will regain its popularity until its status has been definitely raised. There is no more noble task a woman can set herself than

that of building a home, but there is a world, of difference, in, our present system of things, between the position of the wife and mother and the “hired girl” of the house, as the Americans! term her. That is not to say that in all New Zealand homes the, maid is treated as an inferior being ; time and again she has, not the slightest cause for complaint; but the general attitude of the public towards “service” i« one more of condescension, than of anything else. While that feeling exists there is bound to be a continued shortage of house help. Writing in the Spectator last month, Ann Pope, who is leading a crusade at Home in support- of the servant girl’s, claim to an improved status in society, goes, right to the root cause. “If domestic service is ever to become a popular and fashionable wity of earning a living, ’ she says, “Hie leading women, of the coun - try must tackle the matter themselves. A National Association of Domestic Employers, and Workers should immediately be formed: (1) to encourage training and interest in domestic occupations and correlated .studies*; (2) to do everything possible to raise the status of domestic service as Florence Nightingale did that of sick nursing. .... The present position, is the result of false ideals, which were disseminated for many years, although this fact is often, ignoied. Home life was voted dull and narrow ; household work useless drudgery to he done over 'and over again interminably. Well 1 there are heaps of other things that have to be endlessly repeated in the business world, and in public affairs. We need a change of ideals, a reconstruction of values. No individual home, whether one room or a mansion, need he a dull, narrow place, crushing out individuality and joy, if it be recognised as a, workshop for the upbringing of. good citizens, the harbour from which great expeditions set forth, to which the explorers return to refit for another adventure, and to which they creep back, etorm-tosLsed and battered, to find rest and peace before setting forth oii the most splendid adventure of all.” Who can dispute that contention? To-day’s cables quote from the evidence of English working men’s wives before the Food Prices Commission, to the effect that a higher standard of living is demanded now than before the war. There is cause tfor. rejoicing in that, since it is by striving ceaselessly to lift the standard of living of those to whom life is at most a struggle that men may lift the world itself a little nearer to the angels. But, if the menfolk are asking better meals, it is high time that something was done to provide better kitchens in which to cook those meals. And with better facilities in the kitchen must come, if the result is to be lasting, the recognition of domestic service, if not as a, profession, at any rate as one of the highest callings to which a girl can put her hand. So long as that recognition be withheld, so long will the problem of .staffing the household remain unsolved.