than to go on drifting without any certainty that we are right, and with the importunate suspicion that after all we may be wrong.

But shall we not by adopting this course lose our hardly-earned reputation for sobriety and moderation? We shall only lose it in so far as we ought to lose it. Sobriety' and 'moderation' are words which are most commonly used in an improper sense. So far as I can see, sobriety' too often means narrowness of method, dimness of perception, thinness of thought, and 'moderation' is a hopeless quest of a supposed golden mean which ever eludes our grasp. Courage and consistency are what we most want as critics; and if we add to this a willingness to confess our mistakes (all progressive critics make mistakes), a constant openness to fresh truth, and a spirit of brotherly love, I think that our moral furniture will be complete. For educational writers, however, somewhat different qualities will be requisite. We are not bound to tell the least advanced Biblereaders everything; it is far better to limit ourselves to those things which are most surely established. Here the greatest moderation is not excessive. Here we shall be quite at liberty to indulge our taste for caution and circumspection. It is, however, to critical students that I address myself here, and not less to that important section of the lay public which desires to be in touch with the actual leaders of inquiry and discoverers of fresh truth. There must be many whose leisure is given to solid and serious studies, and who can recognise the superiority of courage to timorous hesitation-many who would sooner read the Old Testament in the light of a large historical criticism than in the shadowy twilight of the results of a mere literary analysis-many who feel that religion too will be the gainer by a more thorough investigation of the strangely varied records which enfold and often obscure it.

T. K. CHEYNE.

FEMALE EMIGRATION TO SOUTH AFRICA

PART I

DOMESTIC SERVICE

THE greatest impediment to progress in South Africa, from the mother's, or, as the Germans so aptly term it, 'hausfrau's' point of view, is the impossibility of obtaining efficient domestic servants.

From everyone we hear the same complaint-'I want a housemaid, cook, or nurse, and I cannot get one.' It is a subject we are never tired of discussing, and perhaps the fact that it is of momentous importance to all of us that some satisfactory solution of such a serious difficulty should be found, will be considered sufficient justification for dwelling upon it somewhat at length. It may help us to discover some such solution if we carefully sift this matter to the very bottom, trying to discover what is really wanted, and why, and whether we can't get it.

For years the colonies have been crying out for servants, and for years the demand has been inadequately met by a supply sent out from England, a supply which has fallen short in every particular of the requirements, at any rate, of South Africa. Every effort has been a lamentable failure.

We hear much talk of the need for servants' homes, we write long letters to the secretaries of various emigration societies at home, with hitherto the most unsatisfactory results, and the time has come when we must face the matter fearlessly and honestly, without shrinking from the censure which is sure to fall to the lot of those who lay bare facts which do not redound to the credit of anyone.

It is difficult to say who is to blame in the matter. Are we, the mistresses, to blame for the existing chaos? Or should the fault be laid at the door of the servants, or of the emigration societies who are supposed to cater for our needs?

Let us deal first with the mistresses and their responsibility. There is undoubtedly in many cases a mistaken view on their part as to the relations which should exist between mistress and servant. Kindness very often spells familiarity. Reproof and faultfinding may be merely a vent for temper, which no doubt is frequently

sorely tried, but the exhibition of which is a very certain impediment to any improvement on the part of the servant.

One great difficulty we in South Africa have to contend with is the absence in most of the houses of suitable accommodation for our maid-servants. This should not be an insurmountable difficulty. If we really recognised the absolute necessity of providing our children with nice-minded, superior companionship, and ourselves with efficient and congenial assistance in household matters, we might so easily when taking a house select one a little larger than our actual family needs, and thus provide the maid-servant with a room where she would be sure of that comfort and privacy which are quite indispensable to the modesty and moral welfare of every selfrespecting woman.

Then, again, how few mistresses make arrangements for regular and undisturbed meals for their maid-servants! The untidy and demoralising habit of eating when and how it is convenient is countenanced, and it is the convenience of the mistress, not that of the servant, which is considered.

The importance of these two points cannot be too urgently insisted upon. No woman who aspires to the position of mistress of a well-ordered establishment can afford to ignore their importance. No matter how excellent the qualifications of a race-horse, who would expect satisfactory results from him if he were badly shod, and were being pricked by the nails in his shoes at every step? No more can you expect a servant to efficiently discharge her duties if there is constant friction and discomfort in the establishment, and if she is being perpetually impeded in the discharge of her duties by petty worries, and by the difficulty, one may say the impossibility, of obtaining the requisite quiet and privacy for dressing and eating. These may appear to a great many as such minor troubles that they are scarcely worth mentioning. I can only say that those who consider them as such will never succeed in obtaining servants of the class required. A good mistress must respect the personality and individuality of her servants. I am not speaking of those who can afford the luxury of good servants, but of those who, if they would only recognise their responsibilities, and the necessity, both social and domestic, of keeping the tone of their homes up to a high level, might secure for themselves, their husbands, and children a degree of home comfort more in keeping with their social standing in the colony than that which they have had to put up with hitherto.

It is not a question of money as a rule. A houseful of servants does not necessarily mean comfort. The greatest comfort is often to be found in a tiny house where only one servant is kept, carefully supervised by the mistress, whose love of having everything done decently and in order permeates every thought and action, and

even lights the spark of enthusiasm in the girl she takes so much trouble to train.

We all know that to manage and look after incompetent servants is really harder work than to do the thing oneself. We are spared a certain amount of physical exertion, but we do not gain time. The mental effort and strain of trying to make that other pair of hands do the work our own would do in half the time, absorbs whatever of spare time might have been devoted to our own improvement.

It is an old-fashioned and far too readily accepted theory by many mothers that their education is completed, that there is no necessity for them to improve themselves, that the greater facilities afforded for the advancement in knowledge of all kinds. have nothing to do with them, and that the higher education of the day is for the benefit of the children only, and that they, the mothers, are not intended to profit by it. The result of this reasoning is that the rising generation are learning to despise the wilful ignorance of their parents. They are losing their veneration for elders who are less well instructed than they are themselves, and treat with contempt the advice of those who should be qualified by long years of experience to guide and direct the impetuous steps of youth.

It may perhaps be questioned what this has got to do with the subject of domestic service. It has this much to do with it-that without efficient domestic service mothers and mistresses cannot take the position in society to which the husband's civil, official, or military rank entitles them, nor without it can they devote time to keeping pace with their children, as the latter have the right to expect of them. Nor can they meet the necessity of being up to date,' so essential for every individual at this period of the world's history.

6

No colony or country can achieve greatness unless the mothers recognise and are able to fulfil their responsibilities towards their households, their children, and themselves.

However much we may desire to do so, we cannot ignore the fact that society is made up of classes, and that each class has its allotted duties, and the woman who deliberately neglects or ignores the more delicate or involved social duties of her class is quite as blameworthy as the servant who, instead of attending to her duties, spends what she considers her own, but what is really her mistress's time, in gazing out of a window or reading a 'penny dreadful.'

There is no doubt that hitherto we have not succeeded in obtaining the type of servant who would set the mistress free to perform her legitimate duties. But I am inclined to think that that is because the mistress will not take the trouble to procure her. We are too lazy, too ready to accept the assertion that they cannot

be procured as an undeniable fact, instead of recognising that where there is a demand the supply must follow as a matter of course. Let us therefore set before ourselves the necessity of making this demand, let us strain every nerve in this direction, and I shall be very much surprised if our efforts are not attended with remarkable success. Of course it will take time, perhaps years; but success will mean the loosening of the fetters which have impeded our freedom of action all these years.

It means that our field of usefulness will be tremendously enlarged, and it means that the women of South Africa will take their proper places in the social world, instead of being swallowed up by the sea of petty domestic duties.

SERVANTS

And now we will turn to the servants. What kind of servant is wanted?

Strong, able-bodied, healthy-minded women of the class that general servants are recruited from at home, in England, France, and Germany; women who do not look upon domestic service as degrading; women with a sense of responsibility, who take pleasure and pride in their work, and whose traditions and upbringing have taught them at least this wholesome lesson, that work, of whatever sort it may be, is elevating or degrading according to the spirit of the worker. Bitter experience renders it necessary to mention also the necessity of these being women whose respect for a contract would preserve them from the dishonour of breaking one, as they may not infrequently be tempted to do, at the instigation of unscrupulous employers, who entice them away from safer if less showy situations by offers of a higher wage.

And what are the servants we have to put up with in South Africa? It is only fair to say that there are notable exceptions to the type of servant obtainable in the colonies, whose picture I am going presently to place before you, but there are very few, only just sufficient to throw into great and hideous relief the fatal policy of countenancing and encouraging an influx of individuals who have no self-respect, no sense of their respective responsibilities, and no appreciation of the influence for good they might exert, and who are suffered to drag through the mud the honour of our cherished homes. The few exceptions are those servants, faithful, reliable, and self-respecting, brought out from well-organised English homes, or recruited directly from the registry offices whose irreproachable reputation is sufficient guarantee against the recommendation of anyone likely to bring discredit on their establishment. There may be black sheep even among these, but experience proves that, given