The Star. THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1911. THE DOMESTIC HELP.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10180, 15 June 1911, Page 2

The Star. THURSDAY, JUNE 15, 1911. THE DOMESTIC HELP.

Tho deputation that waited on the Ron George Fowlds this morning asked, as the Minister said, a very largo order. The question of the training of girls systematically and scientifically in domestic duties will have to be taken in hand sooner or later. In the long run we shall almost certainly find domestic work in the centres of population at any rate organised on very different lines from those at present followed, but the difficulty is that there is no authority competent to take the subject in hand, and private enterprise has not yet realised the possibilities of developing domestic work as a paying proposition. It would be an enormous gain if each householder could contract with a company employing experts and carrying the proper equipment to have the heavy duties of each day in the house efficiently carried out. and the idea might be developed further by a system under which the housewife could order breakfast, lunch and dinner to be delivered at a certain hour, ready cooked and piping hot. There is an enormous amount of waste under the present system, ajid there are very few households that could not be conducted more economically if the main work could be " given out." However, this is an ideal that is not yet in sight, and in the meantime it would be a huge gain if girls were thoroughly instructed in the proper and economical methods of domestic work. If the younger generation of women knew how to set about the work of the house so that it occu. pied tho minimum of time, and if thoj acquired a taste for the work in their young days, there would doubtless b« less agitation for the importation of domestic helps. Mr Fowlds could only tell the deputation, that the continua tion classes instituted by the Educa tion Department provided the means for the proper training of both girls and hoys, and that these classes ought to be better appreciated. He touched on a larger question in this connection, for, as we know, it was his desire that the education of boys and girls should be extended beyond the primary school age, and that attendance at secondary schools or continuation or technical classes should bo made compulsory. This is the system under which Ger- j many is making her population the most efficient in the world. But the opposition in New Zealand was too strong for the Minister, and he had to modify his proposals very considerably, and while doubtless he would have been glad to give the deputation a more positive answer, he had to admit that the prospect of carrying out its ideas in this country was remote.