THE SERVANT QUESTION
By Virginia Church
THE SERVANT QUESTION
By Virginia Church
Press of
The Hampton Norma) and Agricultural Institute
Hampton, Virginia
1911
THE SERVANT QUESTION
BY VIRGINIA CHURCH
"^HAT S the good of Hampton,
anyway? I can't get a servant,"
has been a remark not infrequently
made by housewives -visiting the
school and seeing the possibilities
in it, according to their ideas, and
failing to realize its spiritual signifi¬
cance and ultimate end. Men, ac¬
customed to considering situations
as affecting local or national condi¬
tions, are wont to regard an insti¬
tution as large and far-reaching as
Hampton as something to be con¬
sidered relatively and not dismissed
without trial. But women, to whom
the personal equation is ever pres¬
ent, refuse to look below the sur¬
face of their own needs.
The subject of servants, along
with the race question and other
matters that have been tabulated
as problems, is one that does and
should occupy the feminine mind.
The woman who, having heard of
Hampton as a sort of factory where
cooks, waitresses, and housemaids
are turned out ad infinitum, comes
and meets the bright-looking, neat¬
ly dressed girls about the grounds,
is naturally disappointed when she
finds she not only may not take
her pick of them, but probably will
drive away with the seat by the
driver still vacant. She is not to be
blamed if, in hasty judgment, she
decides that education has made
them " too good to work" and
complains in irritation that she
supposes she'll have to go to an
employment bureau in Norfolk,
after all. The unruffled head of the
visitors' office agrees calmly that
she supposes she will.
The blame is not with the judg¬
ment but with its haste. Hampton
was not founded as an employment
4
bureau, nor for the benefit of the
individual. Its work is broader and
wider in scope There are several
hundred thousand young Negro
women in the Southern States who
need, either for their own use or to
be employed in the service of oth¬
ers, the instruction given at Hamp¬
ton. If, then, the knowledge ac¬
quired here were to end with the
few hundred receiving it individu¬
ally, the scope would be decidedly
limited. The instruction is not for
the few but the many. It is given
as a loan to be passed on.
The girls of the Negro race who
come to Hampton to study domes¬
tic science do, many of them,
go from the school into service,
both in the North and South,
but the end and aim of the school¬
ing is that they shall go back to
the state, the county, the town
from which they came and teach
5
others of their race the principles
of sanitation, hygiene, and domes¬
tic science that they have learned
in their year or more of study.
Cooking as taught at Hampton
is not a matter of boiling eggs,
roasting meat, or serving a meal
correctly. It goes deeper than that.
It begins in the garden. The girls
are taught to grow the simple pro¬
duce which they can raise and teach
their neighbors to raise in their
own homes, and with which they
can store their pantries and set
their tables. They are then taught
to prepare these fruits or vegeta¬
bles for the table. When to plant,
how to tend, when to pick, and
how to prepare are some of the
preliminary steps. In the kitchen
the cooking course begins with the
simple but necessary instruction in
washing floors, caring for the stove,
the pantry, and the refrigerator.
Then comes the daily care of the
dining-room, setting the table, and
serving the meals. They are taught
to know the different cuts of meat,
to prepare and cook them. Bread-
making and all forms of plain, sub¬
stantial fare come in this course.
Then there is a diet kitchen where
the girls have to cook food for in¬
valids. Meals are prepared here for
the hospital and for a small dining-
room in which students convales¬
cent or for some reason unable to
eat the regular fare are served.
Everything is distinctly practi¬
cal. In the academic work of the
domestic-science department there
is the study of the chemistry of cook¬
ing and its underlying principles,
taught by experiments, such as the
effect of boiling water on yeast,
the action of a paucity or an excess
of salt or sugar on yeast, etc.
They learn simple methods of can-
ning and preserving, so that the
summer's plenty may be made to
supply the winter's scarcity of food,
and what they study in the academ¬
ic classes they work out in the
kitchen, which thus becomes a
laboratory.
Work is the order of the day at
Hampton, and the days are long
and crowded with duties. They be¬
gin with the rising bell at 5 : 20 in
the morning. In Virginia Hall,
where the eight hundred and fifty
students eat, the meals are served
by the girls, who are in the dining-
room at 5 : 45. Breakfast is at six.
Those who wait on the tables clear
them, eat their own meal, and wash
and wipe the dishes not cleaned
by the washing machines, which are
run by the boys. An hour is now
passed in the study hall, after
which their own rooms and clothes
receive attention until time for
8
chapel and work in the class-rooms.
Dinner and supper are served in
the same manner. The mornings
and most of the afternoons are
given to study or recitation. In
Virginia Hall in the students' kitch¬
en, there are men cooks to do the
heavy work, the girls being merely
assistants, but the cooking in the
diet kitchen, the teachers' kitchen,
and at the Holly Tree Inn, i§ done
by girls, who receive their academ¬
ic instruction in the night school.
It takes considerable pluck and re¬
veals stamina of no small degree
for a boy or girl to work all day and
study all evening, and rejoice in
and pay for the privilege of work¬
ing !
The work at the Holly Tree Inn,
where some thirty-five or forty reg¬
ular boarders and from two to
twenty transitory guests are daily
served, is carried on by eight girls
9
under the direction and supervis¬
ion of a very competent and charm¬
ing young woman who is a gradu¬
ate of Simmons College. Under
her the girls learn the preparation
of food,' the gentle art of cooking,
and the art of proper serving.
They learn that putting a dish into
the oven and taking it out at a
stated time is not the whole
sum of baking. The heat of the
oven must be regulated, the food
watched.
In connection with the cooking,
there is work in the dairy, in the
handling of milk and butter, the
use of the separator, the proper
care of the vessels, sterilizing, and
pasteurizing. Everywhere is the
slogan that cleanliness is next to
godliness and the first requisite in
the person and the home. Lately
some of the girls have begun the
care of chickens and eggs, and
10
promise to carry on this new
branch most successfully.
The same class of women who
resent the " over training " of the
Negro girl are those that also say :
" We can't get any good servants
nowadays. They don't know how
to do a thing. Before the war, the
Negro women were noted for their
cooking. They seem to have lost
the art." It isn't the art that's
lacking, it's the opportunity. Be¬
fore the war, the Southern house¬
wife, with a justifiable pride in her
culinary department, patiently in¬
structed and supervised her cook.
The cook became proficient. She
had young women, daughters and
kin, to assist her. They were
taught her methods, absorbed her
lessons, inherited the knack she
had acquired, and, better, practised
it daily. Then came the war, and
these faithful Negro women were
II
turned out of the homes, no longer
able to support them,- and thrown
upon their own resources, which
were few and pitiably meagre. In
squalid cabins or the shack of some
white cropper who lived on " corn
pone and sow's belly, " there was
no chance to practice what they
knew or to teach the younger gen¬
eration. The young people grew
up and had children of their own,
reared for the most part in poverty
and ignorance. What right, then,
has the housekeeper, at the end of
fifty years, to go to one of these
squalid cabins, take therefrom a
colored girl of eighteen or twenty
years, put her in a kitchen, and,
with a few vague directions, expect
results that came from totally dif¬
ferent conditions ?
In order to know,there must first
be given knowledge, and the bet¬
ter the equipment and opportunity
12
for acquiring knowledge, the better
the result. Let the girl who has
received the competent training of
Hampton go back to her home
town. With the missionary spirit
that has been inculcated into every
branch of her study, let her go in¬
to the poor, dirty, ill-kept homes of
her people. With the love of her
own race and the desire for their
betterment strong within her, let
her gently and wisely show these
poor souls how even a six-by-eight
cabin may be made roomier by a
process of cleaning out : let her
show these people how to grow
wholesome food in their small plots
of ground; how to enrich what
area they own and make the most
of it ; how to can what vegetables
or fruit they may produce and save
them for future use. Let her, by
example and practice, show the
value and added comfort of a cleanly
13
household; show her people how
to cook food that shall make for
strength ; how to shine pans until
they reflect faces also shining and
clean. Her " higher education"
has taught her the manipulation of
the separator, but she is also in¬
structed in the use of the ladle; so
that, going to the poorest huts, she
is able to help them to use what is
at their very door, and is not de¬
pendent upon costly or unavailable
material.
Let this leaven of usefulness
spread. Let the propagation of
cleanliness and self-helpfulness be
carried on by Hampton graduates
among their own race—then let
another fifty years pass, and you
may look for definite results. The
Negroes will have farms and homes
of their own and glory in their
comfort and progress ; the number
of available servants will be in-
14
creased and of a distinctly higher
grade, and the girls who go into
service will go with a spirit of
cheerful willingness, and do their
work well because they have ac¬
quired the knowledge and are proud
of their skill. When that time
comes —and it is not, after all so
far distant—will not the people of
both races bless the young disciple
of work who has gone into the
movement with her whole heart
and soul, and who wears the prin¬
ciple of the dignity of labor as jaun¬
tily as she wears her spring " bun-
nit;" will they not praise her skill,
her faithfulness, her courage, and,
through her, the spirit and work
of Hampton ?
i?