"It is often said that there are few good servants now: I say there are few good mistresses now .... 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." - Notes on Nursing.

Our motto is taken from Miss Nightingale's " Notes on Nursing," and is only too true.

It is amazing how little the house-mother of to-day (in many instances) looks after her house.

Housekeeping is scarcely the shadow of what it was a century ago, and the change is surely very much to be regretted. There would be far less craving for excitement, whether of pleasure or "a mission," - far less invalidism and necessity for wine and tonics, if our ladies would return to the good old ways (when they were good) and exercise their true and undenied rights in household rule and dainty ways at home.

In one especial respect the change has been greatly for the worse.

In former days the ladies of England looked more to the house cleaning than they do at present. The consequence was that they were stronger, brighter, more vigorous, than they are at present.

We look back to our own grandmother, and remember a stately old lady of ninety-five! with skin still of a creamy white, few wrinkles, several white teeth remaining, able to walk, read, and work as well as she could at forty years of age. She never, till the close of her life, indulged in any modern luxury. She was a perfect housekeeper. In her youth she told us she had been made for the sake of exercise to rub tables and shake feather beds before she went into the school-room; a portion of each day, too, was given to household duties. Now what is it? Numbers of women, who are well enough off to keep two servants, hardly ever walk over their house entirely at the same time. They go into the kitchen, look in the larder, order dinner, and remark on it if it is badly cooked, comment probably on any palpable housemaid's neglect, and find fault with her for it; but they do not visit every hole and corner as they ought every day or every other day (unless some duty prevents it), and see that windows are open, dust removed, china utensils washed and sweet, especially that basins are not wiped with a nasty cloth which leaves the odour of its recent presence; that saucepans are clean, drains in order, closets kept clean and sweet; yet these are absolute duties to be fulfilled, for on perfect cleanliness depends the health of the entire family, especially of the children.

Perfect cleanliness and pure air are antidotes to scarlet fever, smallpox, measles, and low typhoid or even typhus fever.

The house-mother who every day takes this beneficent round is acting as the wise guardian of the lives, health, and intellects of those who look to her for protection; such a thought should render the vigilance required a delightful rather than a burdensome task.

She should see especially that the beds are not made up unaired. Many housemaids, especially if they have a great deal of work to do, are anxious to get the bedrooms "done" early; so they strip the beds and cover them at once, shutting up the damp and unwholesome exhalations of the sleeper's body in store for his benefit the next night. Now this ought never to be. She should see that the beds are opened and remain so for some time; that the windows are open near them; that the mattresses are rolled back for the air to dry them underneath; that the blankets and sheets are placed in the air; that the bedstead is DUSTED; the bed curtains (if there are any) shaken well out and lifted on the bed while a slightly damp cloth wipes the carpet beneath it. She should require the housemaid never to forget her box for cinders, etc, in the winter; and she should see occasionally if that and the slop-pail is kept clean. The latter should be washed out twice a week with chloride of lime and water. Personal observation, the quick eye of the mistress (which a little pains will render wonderfully observant) will have a very stimulating effect on the housemaid. The lady should never fail to praise cleanliness and care in small matters.

Self-esteem, once awakened, will do much to cause a girl to exert herself; very much more than blame, which discourages and depresses. There is nothing like sympathy in influencing people. Let the house-mother show that she takes a real interest in her servants' work, and it will become a labour of love on their part.

"Attend," says a wise French writer, "as much to neatness as you do to economy. Accustom girls never to suffer anything about them to be unclean or in disorder; lead them to notice the slightest derangement in a house; say to them that nothing contributes more to economy and neatness than keeping things in their proper place. This may seem trifling, yet it leads to very important consequences; for then, when anything is wanted, there will be no difficulty in finding it; and when it is done with, it will be returned to the place from which it was taken. This exact order forms the most essential part of neatness. For instance, a dish will not be soiled or broken if it is put in its proper place as soon as it has been used. The carefulness which makes us place things in order, makes us keep them clean. Joined to all these advantages is that of giving to domestics a habit of neatness and activity, by obliging them to place things in order, and keep them clean".

Dust is one of the greatest enemies of domestic comfort, and a sad destroyer of furniture. We are bound to wage continual war with it; not only on this account. It is inhaled into the lungs, and becomes one of the sources of disease. Miss Nightingale says with great truth, " No particle of dust is ever or can ever be removed or really got rid of by the present system of dusting. Dusting in these days means nothing but flapping the dust from one part of a room on to another with doors and windows closed. What you do it for I cannot think. You had much better leave the dust alone, if you are not going to take it away altogether." A damp, but not wet, duster will alone remove without scattering it; and a friend of ours of great experience, and whose house is a perfect picture of cleanliness, worthy of Holland itself, asserts that she rarely has her carpets swept. They are wiped over with a damp (but only moist, not wet) duster. Thus the carpets are preserved from the wear of the brush, and the dust is not scattered over curtains and furniture.

Again we quote from the wisest of women: -

"Air can be soiled just like water. If you blow into water you will soil it with the animal matter from your breath. So it is with air. Air is always soiled in a room where walls and carpets are saturated with animal exhalations.

"Want of cleanliness, then, in rooms .... may arise in three ways.

"1. Dirty air coming in from without, soiled by sewer emanations, the evaporation from dirty streets, smoke, bits of unburnt fuel, bits of straw, bits of horse dung.

"If people would but cover the outside walls of their houses with plain or encaustic tiles, what an incalculable improvement would there be in light, cleanliness, dryness, warmth, and consequently economy. The play of a fire-engine would then effectually wash the outside of a house. This kind of walling would stand next to paving in improving the health of towns.

"2. Dirty air coming from within, from dust, which you often displace, but never remove. And if you never clean your furniture properly, how can your rooms be anything but musty? Ventilate as you please, the rooms will never be sweet. Besides this, there is a constant degradation, as it is called, taking place from everything except polished or glazed articles - e.g., in colouring certain green papers arsenic is used. Now in the very dust even, which is lying about in rooms hung with this kind of green paper, arsenic has been distinctly detected. You see your dust is anything but harmless; yet you will let such dust lie about your ledges for months, your rooms for ever".

The house should be thoroughly cleaned from garret to cellar once every year; the ceilings, if dirty, whitewashed, or papered (the latter mode is good, and the effect, especially when the paper covers a cracked ceiling, excellent, and it is as cheap as whitewashing, and can be done without injuring the wall papers), and the papers cleaned with bread.

Papers which are glazed clean best, and are therefore cheaper in the end than unglazed papers. We give recipes for cleaning every article of household use in the following pages: