93
Eight Hour Schedules for Two Employees 109
Eight Hour Schedules for Three Employees 121

PART I

CAUSES OF THE PRESENT UNSATISFACTORY CONDITION OF DOMESTIC LABOR

Ignorance and inefficiency in the home.
Difficulty of obtaining women to do housework.
The disadvantages connected with housework compared
with work in factories, stores, and offices.

IGNORANCE AND INEFFICIENCY IN THE HOME

The twentieth-century woman, in spite of her progressive and ambitious
theories about woman's sphere of activity, has allowed her housekeeping
methods to remain almost stationary, while other professions and
industries have moved forward with gigantic strides.

She does not hesitate to blazon abroad with banners and pennants her
desire to share with man the responsibility for the administration of
the State, but she overlooks the disquieting fact that in the management
of her own household, where her authority is absolute, she has failed
to convince the world of her power to govern. When confronted with this
accusation, she asserts that the maintenance of a home is neither a
business nor a profession, and that in consequence it ought not to be
compared with them nor be judged by the same standards.

Is it not due perhaps to this erroneous idea that housekeeping is a
failure to-day? For the fact that it is a failure cannot be hidden,
and that it has been a failure for many years past is equally true.
Recent inventions, and labor saving utensils, have greatly facilitated
housework, yet housekeeping is still accompanied with much
dissatisfaction on the part of the employer and the employee.

There are only a few women to-day who regard domestic science in the
light of a profession, or a business, although in reality it is both.
For what is a profession if it be not the application of science to
life? And does not work which one follows regularly constitute a
business?

Many women, however, do not regard housekeeping even as a serious
occupation, and few have devoted as much time, thought, and energy to
mastering the principles of domestic economy as of late years women of
all classes of society have willingly given to the study of the rules
and ever changing intricacies of auction bridge. Some consider their
time too valuable to devote to domestic and culinary matters, and openly
boast of their ignorance. Outside engagements, pleasures, philanthropic
schemes, or work, monopolize