The master and mistress, with their children, were the
head workers.
Great merriment has been excited in the old country because, years
ago, the first English travelers found that the class of persons by
them denominated servants, were in America denominated _help_,
or helpers. But the term was the very best exponent of the state of
society. There were few servants, in the European sense of the word;
there was a society of educated workers, where all were practically
equal, and where, if there was a deficiency in one family and an excess
in another, a _helper_, not a servant in the European sense, was
hired. Mrs. Brown, who has several sons and no daughters, enters into
agreement with Mrs. Jones, who has several daughters and no sons. She
borrows a daughter, and pays her good wages to help in her domestic
toil, and sends a son to help the labors of Mr. Jones. These two young
people go into the families in which they are to be employed in all
respects as equals and companions, and so the work of the community
is equalized. Hence arose, and for many years continued, a state of
society more nearly solving than any other ever did the problem of
combining the highest culture of the mind with the highest culture ofthe
muscles and the physical faculties.
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