," should be instantly
discharged.

These very important conditions being understood and conceded, the
choice and arrangement of the eight hours' work must necessarily lie
with each individual housewife. Each family is different and has
different claims upon its time. The "rush hours" of social life are
sometimes in the evening, and sometimes in the afternoon, and again in
some families, especially where there are small children, the breakfast
hour seems the most complicated of the day. All these details have to be
carefully thought of when making an eight hour schedule. At the end of
this book a set of schedules is placed. Any intelligent housewife can
understand them, imitate them, and in many instances improve them. They
are merely given as elementary examples.

According to the number of employees she engages, the housewife will
have eight, sixteen, or twenty-four hours of work to distribute among
them, and to meet her peculiar needs she will find it necessary at the
outset to devote some hours to a satisfactory scheme. After testing
several, she will probably have to begin all over again before she
finally succeeds in evolving one that is available. But the problem is
interesting in itself, and always admits of a solution.

It may not be amiss to make this final suggestion for the woman who is
willing to give the new plan a fair trial: she should follow the example
of the business man when he is in need of new employees, and advertise
for help, stating hours of work, and requesting that all applications
be made by letter. This disposes rapidly of the illiterate, and in the
majority of cases, a woman who writes a good, legible, and accurate
hand, is more apt to be efficient in her work than one who sends in a
dirty, careless, ill-expressed and badly spelled application. Through
advertising one comes into touch with many women it would be impossible
to reach otherwise. It is also the most advantageous way of bringing the
employer and employee together, inasmuch as it dispenses entirely with
the services of a third person, who, naturally can not be expected to
offer gratuitous service.

The plan of limiting housework to eight hours a day is not an idle
theory; it has been in successful operation for several years. Yet it
is not easy to change the habit of years. There are many housewives who
would loudly declare it impossible to conform to such business rules in
the household; and many of the older generation of c