Castle Garden, and willingly
give the needed instruction, at the same time paying the same wage as
that given to competent service. Professor Lucy Salmon, of Vassar, who
has devoted much time to this subject, reports that, on examination of
testimony from three thousand employees, it is found that on a wage of
$3.25 a week it is possible to save annually nearly $150 "in an
occupation involving no outlay, no investment of capital, and few or no
personal expenses." The wages received are relatively higher than those
of other occupations; for in Professor Salmon's comparison of wages
received by three thousand country and the same number of city employees
it was found that of six thousand teachers in the public schools the
average salary actually paid is less than that paid to the average cook
in a large city.

The second advantage lies in the healthfulness of the work, which
includes not only regularity but variety; the third, that a home, at
least in all externals, is insured; the fourth, that a training which
makes the worker more fit for married life is certain; and a fifth, that
the work is congenial and easy for those whose tastes lie in this
direction.

These are the facts that are constantly urged upon the army of
under-paid, half-starving needlewomen in our great cities, and no less
upon another army of girls in shops and factories, who are implored to
consider the advantages of domestic service and to give up their
unnecessary battle with the limitations hedging in every other form of
labor. Astonishment that the girls prefer the factory and shop is
unending, nor is it regarded as possible that substantial reason may and
must exist for such choice. As a means of arriving at some solution of
the problem, some six hundred employees of every order were interviewed,
under circumstances which made their replies perfectly free and full;
and the results tallied exactly with others obtained by an inquiry in
the Philadelphia Working-Woman's Guild, a society then representing
seventy-two distinct occupations.

A report of this inquiry was made by Mrs. Eliza S. Turner, the President
of the Guild, and is given as the most suggestive view of the whole
subject yet secured. She writes as follows:--

"Why do not intelligent, refined girls more frequently choose house
service as a support?" The replies here given are as nearly as
possible _verbatim_:

1. Loss of freedom. This is as dear to women as to me