Primary Source: The Management of Servants: A Practical Guide to the Routine of Domestic Service, Chapter 1: Introduction
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Title
Primary Source: The Management of Servants: A Practical Guide to the Routine of Domestic Service, Chapter 1: Introduction
Description
Introduction to the manual for households employing domestic servants. Entire manual contains further reading chapters on categories such as "Households: Their Various Scales," "Engaging and Dismissing Servants," and "Opening the Door, and Announcing Visitors"
Creator
Member of the aristocracy
Source
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31175008555065&view=1up&seq=1&skin=2021
Type
ebook
Publisher
Hathi Trust
Date
6 December 2021
Contributor
Rebecca Miller & Tori O'Dea
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
THE
MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
In the course of writing a former work, “Manners
and Tone of Good Society," it was found that the
duties of servants, or rather the manner in which
those duties were performed, came prominently for-
ward, and greatly influenced the smooth working of
the domestic machinery, and that without the con-
stant co-operation of well-trained servants, domestic
machinery is completely thrown out of gear, and the
best bred of hostesses placed at a disadvantage. The
idea was thus conceived of writing the present work
to serve as an auxiliary or aid to those masters and
mistresses whose servants are either inexperienced or
indifferently trained. To demonstrate the method,
the manner, the style, in which things should be
done, has been the object in view throughout these
pages. The behaviour and bearing of servants in the performance of their duties have also been
duly considered, being essential points in their
training
An agreeable chatty style of writing is as pleasant
to read, as it is facile to write, and carries both
reader and author over the ground almost with a
bound, but this style has its drawbacks in a book of
rules for frequent reference, as the present work
purports to be. To envelop a rule, or a chapter
of rules, in a cloud of pleasantries, sparkling or
otherwise, as the capacity of the author may de-
termine, sprinkled and seasoned with many apt
quotations from well-known literary lights, scarcely
tends to elucidate a particular subject or rule, or to
enlighten the reader in following any direct method.
Bewilderment, and a vague uncertainty as to thơ
author's meaning, are likely to be the result of many
dissertations and deviations from the main point.
Therefore, in these pages, the main point has been
strictly kept in view, all inclination to be other than
tedious has been restrained, and simplicity of diction
in conveying the most intricate of instructions has
been steadily adhered to. This didactic and un-
relieved mode of handling the subject, necessarily
engendered much tautology and not a little repetition,
but as the mainspring of instruction is repetition,
repetition in works of this description becomes a
welcome feature.
This work is especially written for the use of
masters and mistresses, to enable them to instruct
their servants as to the correct method in which
every duty should be performed ; and to give this
instruction without hesitation or doubt as to how
things should be done, with but little or no trouble
to themselves.
The method of waiting at table, and every branch
of domestic service, in force in the households of
the upper classes of society, both on large and small
scales, from the stately mansion to the bijou resi-
dence, has been fully gone into and explained.
Thus every class of master and mistress will find
the present volume applicable to their servants, and
to their surroundings, and may confidently and
unhesitatingly follow its lead.
The technical and manual portions of this work
have been gathered from experienced and competent
servants, whose long service in families of position
is sufficient guarantee as to the class of information
supplied by them; and it is owing to this valuable
assistance that the writer is enabled to place before
the public the most comprehensive details of domestic
service.
MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
In the course of writing a former work, “Manners
and Tone of Good Society," it was found that the
duties of servants, or rather the manner in which
those duties were performed, came prominently for-
ward, and greatly influenced the smooth working of
the domestic machinery, and that without the con-
stant co-operation of well-trained servants, domestic
machinery is completely thrown out of gear, and the
best bred of hostesses placed at a disadvantage. The
idea was thus conceived of writing the present work
to serve as an auxiliary or aid to those masters and
mistresses whose servants are either inexperienced or
indifferently trained. To demonstrate the method,
the manner, the style, in which things should be
done, has been the object in view throughout these
pages. The behaviour and bearing of servants in the performance of their duties have also been
duly considered, being essential points in their
training
An agreeable chatty style of writing is as pleasant
to read, as it is facile to write, and carries both
reader and author over the ground almost with a
bound, but this style has its drawbacks in a book of
rules for frequent reference, as the present work
purports to be. To envelop a rule, or a chapter
of rules, in a cloud of pleasantries, sparkling or
otherwise, as the capacity of the author may de-
termine, sprinkled and seasoned with many apt
quotations from well-known literary lights, scarcely
tends to elucidate a particular subject or rule, or to
enlighten the reader in following any direct method.
Bewilderment, and a vague uncertainty as to thơ
author's meaning, are likely to be the result of many
dissertations and deviations from the main point.
Therefore, in these pages, the main point has been
strictly kept in view, all inclination to be other than
tedious has been restrained, and simplicity of diction
in conveying the most intricate of instructions has
been steadily adhered to. This didactic and un-
relieved mode of handling the subject, necessarily
engendered much tautology and not a little repetition,
but as the mainspring of instruction is repetition,
repetition in works of this description becomes a
welcome feature.
This work is especially written for the use of
masters and mistresses, to enable them to instruct
their servants as to the correct method in which
every duty should be performed ; and to give this
instruction without hesitation or doubt as to how
things should be done, with but little or no trouble
to themselves.
The method of waiting at table, and every branch
of domestic service, in force in the households of
the upper classes of society, both on large and small
scales, from the stately mansion to the bijou resi-
dence, has been fully gone into and explained.
Thus every class of master and mistress will find
the present volume applicable to their servants, and
to their surroundings, and may confidently and
unhesitatingly follow its lead.
The technical and manual portions of this work
have been gathered from experienced and competent
servants, whose long service in families of position
is sufficient guarantee as to the class of information
supplied by them; and it is owing to this valuable
assistance that the writer is enabled to place before
the public the most comprehensive details of domestic
service.
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Citation
Member of the aristocracy, “Primary Source: The Management of Servants: A Practical Guide to the Routine of Domestic Service, Chapter 1: Introduction,” ENGL 433: A Seminar on Virginia Woolf and Modernism, accessed September 6, 2026, https://ctsdh.org/ENGL433/items/show/93.