c
workers, for the lowered standard of efficiency, for the startling
amount of immorality alleged to belong to the class, we have given every
explanation except the right one.

At the bottom of the "servant problem" lies the fact that it exists in
the privacy of the home. Now, we have reached a point of social
consciousness where we allow that it is right to intrude some homes and
ask questions for the good of the community. "How many children have
you?" "Are they all in school?" "Does your husband drink?" We have not
yet reached the point of sending agents to inquire: "How many servants
do you keep; what are their hours of work, and what kind of sleeping
accommodations do you furnish them?"

Some intelligent inquiry has been made into surface conditions. The
Sociological Department of Vassar College, under Professor Lucy Maynard
Salmon, during the years 1889 and 1890, made an exhaustive study of
wages, hours of work, difficulties, advantages, and disadvantages of
domestic service. Professor Salmon's book, "Domestic Service," giving
the results of the inquiry, is a classic on the subject. It deals,
however, almost entirely with the ethical side of the problem, the
social relation between mistress and maid. The relation between the
worker and the industry is hardly examined at all.

A later inquiry into the servant problem was conducted in 1903, in half
a dozen cities, by organizations of women which associated themselves
for the purpose, under the name of the Intermunicipal Committee on
Household Research.

The Woman's Municipal League of New York, the Educational and Industrial
Union of Boston, the Housekeepers' Alliance, and the Civic Club of
Philadelphia were the moving elements in the investigation. Co-operating
with them were the College Settlements Association and the
Association of Collegiate Alumnae, which together established a
scholar ship for the research. This research was most ably conducted by
Miss Frances Kellor, a Vassar graduate, and nine assistant workers, all
of whom were college women. The report of the investigation was
published a year later in the volume "Out of Work."[1]

This investigation by organizations of educated and expert women was the
first survey ever made of domestic service _as an industry_, the first
scientific study of domestic workers _as an industrial group_. It was
the first intelligent attempt to review housework as if it were a trade.

The most important conclusion of th