Here is an interesting experience of help by the hour contributed by the Director of the School. "After our raw boned, unprepossessing, though faithful Irish girl married a German with four children (to her subsequent regret) we had the usual string of unsatisfactory maids, so we decided to try help by the hour as recommended in Household Management. The following 'ad' was put into an evening paper:

"Wanted-A helper for light housework from 8 to 12 every morning. No washing. Pay $4.50 a week. Extra pay for extra time.

"We expected to have only a few applicants, but that same evening, which was cold and rainy, ten applied and during the next two days the number was raised to over fifty. The first applicant was accepted and while she proved fairly satisfactory, some of the others who applied looked more promising. After about two months we put in another advertisement asking for service from 7:30 to 12:00; pay, $4.00 a week. This time we had forty applicants. After about six months we advertised again, making the hours from 7:30 to 12:30, pay $3.50 per week. This third time we had about thirty applicants. Under the last conditions the rate of pay comes down to 10 cents an hour.

"This experience would seem to prove conclusively that, in Chicago at least, there is no lack of women willing to do housework, while it is almost impossible to obtain a satisfactory servant at $5.00 a week. Over 120 women in our locality were anxious for practically the same employment under different conditions.

"The arrangement was not satisfactory as to hours, so we made the arrangement with the present helper to come at 8 o'clock and stay until 11 and come again from 4: 30 to 7 :30 p. m. every week day, and on Sunday from 10 until 2 o'clock. This makes forty hours per week regularly, the rate of pay being as before, 10 cents per hour. The worker lives within a ten-minute walk.

"We have a laundress one day a week who does the washing and makes a start on the ironing, which the helper finishes during the week. She receives $1.50 for nine hours' work.

"Breakfast is a simple meal with us. When we have cooked cereal it is cooked the night before. Fruit, eggs or bacon, coffee and toast complete the meal, which is easily prepared in less than half an hour.

"Breakfast is finished when the helper arrives in the morning. She makes the beds, dusts the floors and cleans the bath room. Then clears off the breakfast dishes, washes them and straightens the kitchen and dining room and is ready for the ironing or for any special cleaning. She leaves the table set for lunch and goes home to her own lunch. In the afternoon the helper washes up the luncheon dishes which have been rinsed and left in the kitchen; prepares dinner and serves it at 6:15. She usually gets the dinner dishes washed and leaves the table set for breakfast by 7:30, but sometimes has to stay half an hour extra if dinner is late.

'When we wish to go out in the evening we have to leave someone with the children, so the helper is kept until we return, or if especially late, she stays all night for 25 cents extra. The extra time runs from nothing to $1.00 a week, according to circumstances.

"Our experience has been that this is a much less expensive arrangement than paying a maid, who sleeps and eats in the house and does the laundry work, $5.00 a week. The helper has no meals in our house unless she stays over time, in which case 10 cents is deducted for the food and time spent.

"According to the prize schedules published in the department of 'The Housekeeper and Her Helper' in the Ladies' Home Journal for September, '06, in a one-servant household the working time of the maid was about 70 hours per week-a fair average. This allows for two afternoons a week off and the evenings after the evening meal is cleared away but does not take into account the time spent by the maid in eating her own meals. This might fairly be reckoned at seven hours a week, leaving a balance of 63 hours spent in actual Work. In most households the food which the maid consumes could not be reckoned at less than 30 cents a day or say $2.00 a week. If the maid receives $5.00 or even $4.50 a week in wages, it is apparent that her services cost over 10 cents an hour for the time actually spent in work, allowing nothing for the rent of her room and extra supplies and waste.

"Our experience has been that food bills are a third less ($10 to $12 per month) than when we had a resident maid. This is accounted for in part from the bills have averaged $1 a month less than before. Then we have the use of the room which the maid would occupy and do use it. The proportional rental for the room might be reckoned at $4 or $5 per month.

"With our family of five-two children and a baby -housekeeping is a much more difficult problem than in the average household. We live in a heated seven-room apartment, hot water and janitor service furnished. In summer the washing is appalling and sometimes the flat work is sent to the laundry. It seems as if double the amount of cleaning were necessary in a soft coal city like Chicago compared with that in a suburb of Boston. Certainly a third more cleaning is required.

"Our experience has been that those who apply for work are much more intelligent as a class than the general run of servants and that they work very much more rapidly and efficiently. More careful planning and more forethought is necessary than with 'all the time' help. The feeling of relief comes, however, because we know, and our helper knows, that plenty others to fill her place can be found if she is not satisfied with the work, or if she does not come up to our requirements. So far as our family is concerned we feel that the servant problem has been solved."