her advantage as to the advantage of those she employs to limit
the hours of household labor to six days a week? Many housewives may
object to this proposition inasmuch as the work in a home can not be
suspended even for a day. But when two or more employees work in a
private home, it is very easy to plan the housework so that each
employee may have a different day of the week as a "day of rest,"
without the comfort of the family being disturbed by the temporary
absence of one of the employees. It is only in families where one
employee is kept that it may make a very serious difference to the
housewife when her "maid-of-all-work" is away for one entire day each
week. Nevertheless the comfort of an employer ought not to outweigh
justice to an employee.

There are many ways of regulating the housework, as will be seen in the
schedules at the end of this book, in order to give one day of freedom
each week to household employees without causing much inconvenience to
the housewife. By continuing to refuse this privilege to women employed
in domestic labor, housekeeping is becoming more and more complicated.
Already it is such a common occurrence in some cities and in many parts
of the country, not to find any woman willing to do housework, that
many housewives are beginning to think that their future comfort in all
household matters will depend entirely upon new labor saving devices and
upon the help of the community rather than upon the increased knowledge
and skill of domestic employees.

There exists a prevailing impression, too, that housework has lost its
dignity, and that at this period of the world's social history, it is
impossible to restore it for women have stepped above it. But this is
not true. The fact is that housework has remained stationary while other
work has gained in freedom and dignity. Without noisy protestations, or
indignant speeches delivered in public, women have slowly and silently,
one by one, deserted housework as a career on account of the narrowing,
servile, and unjust conditions inseparable from it at the present day.
Let these conditions be removed and new regulations based upon modern
business principles take their place, and then it will be seen that
housework has never lost its dignity, and the very women who abandoned
it will be the first to choose it again as a means of earning their
livelihood.

As a proof of this, the following experience may be cited of a New Work
woman who wishe