It is often said that there are few good servants now; I say there are few good mistresses now.  As the jury seems to have thought the tap was in charge of the ship’s safety, so mistresses now seem to think the house is in charge of itself.  They neither know how to give orders, nor how to teach their servants to obey orders—­i.e., to obey intelligently, which is the real meaning of all discipline.

Again, people who are in charge often seem to have a pride in feeling that they will be “missed,” that no one can understand or carry on their arrangements, their system, books, accounts, &c., but themselves.  It seems to me that the pride is rather in carrying on a system, in keeping stores, closets, books, accounts, &c., so that any body can understand and carry them on—­so that, in case of absence or illness, one can deliver every thing up to others and know that all will go on as usual, and that one shall never be missed.

[Sidenote:  Why hired nurses give so much trouble.]

NOTE.—­It is often complained, that professional nurses, brought into private families, in case of sickness, make themselves intolerable by “ordering about” the other servants, under plea of not neglecting the patient.  Both things are true; the patient is often neglected, and the servants are often unfairly “put upon.”  But the fault is generally in the want of management of the head in charge.  It is surely for her to arrange both that the nurse’s place is, when necessary, supplemented, and that the patient is never neglected—­things with a little management quite compatible, and indeed only attainable together.  It is certainly not for the nurse to “order about” the servants.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] [Sidenote:  Lingering smell of paint a want of care.]

That excellent paper, the Builder, mentions the lingering of the smell of paint for a month about a house as a proof of want of ventilation.  Certainly—­and, where there are ample windows to open, and these are never opened to get rid of the smell of paint, it is a proof of want of management in using the means of ventilation.  Of course the smell will then remain for months.  Why should it go?

[2] [Sidenote:  Why let your patient ever be surprised?]

Why should you let your patient ever be surprised, except by thieves?  I do not know.  In England, people do not come down the chimney, or through the window, unless they are thieves.  They come in by the door, and somebody must open the door to them.  The “somebody” charged with opening the door is one of two, three, or at most four persons.  Why cannot these, at most, four persons be put in charge as to what is to be done when there is a ring at the door-bell?

The sentry at a post is changed much oftener than any servant at a private house or institution can possibly be.  But what should we think of such an excuse as this:  that the enemy had entered such a post because A and not B had been on guard?  Yet I have constantly heard such an excuse made in the private house or institution, and accepted:  viz., that such a person had been “let in” or not “let in,” and such a parcel had been wrongly delivered or lost because A and not B had opened the door!