Excerpt from The Servantless House
This book might have been written in those far-off days which we now call "Before the War," for we were then experiencing difficulties enough with the servant problem. But now it may claim an even stronger reason for existence, because not only has the task of getting a maid and retaining her when found become hopeless for thousands of middle-class people, but also the cost of living and the increased rate of wages have, between them, compelled many who formerly kept servants to abandon all idea of doing so now; the simple I reason being that the incomes of those whom we may call "the professional classes" have kept to their old level, or have not advanced to anything like the same degree as the cost of living. This condition of affairs has made the servantless house far more pertinent to-day than ever it was before. And one development of the matter is, that keen minds of educated people have been brought to bear on what constitutes the daily household round. The entire working of the home, in fact, has been schemed on lines similar to those which have long been adopted for workshops, factories, and other modern business concerns: the underlying aim throughout being to see how rooms can be planned and equipped so as to save unnecessary walking to and fro, how essential tasks can be done with a minimum of labour and a maximum of effectiveness, and what devices can be introduced to take the brute-labour out of house work.
The purpose of this book is to bring the whole matter under consideration, in the hope that some useful service may be rendered by showing what can be done, at moderate expenditure, to make it possible for a servantless house to be run satisfactorily.
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