Taylor some?" To which the youngster immediately replied, "Oh, she's only
my governess."

This is the result of wrong principle in the home. No child is born a
snob. No child is born haughty and arrogant. It is the home environment
and the precedent of the parents that makes such vain, unkind little
children as the one mentioned above. It is actually unfair to the young
children in the home to set the wrong example by being discourteous to
the servants. They will only have to fight, later, to conquer the petty
snobbishness that stands between them and their entrance into good
society.


THE INVISIBLE BARRIER

In the sixteenth century French women servants were arrested and placed
in prison for wearing clothes similar to those worn by their "superiors".
It developed that they had made the garments themselves, copying them
from the original models, sometimes sitting up all night to finish the
garment. But the court ruled that it made no difference whether they had
made them themselves or not; they had worn clothes like their
mistresses', and they must be punished! We very much wiser people of the
twentieth century smile when we read of these ridiculous edicts of a
long-ago court, but we placidly continue to condemn the shop-girl and the
working-girl if she dares to imitate Parisienne importations.

It is very often the same in the household. We ridicule the "class
systems" of other countries, yet we deliberately build up a barrier
between ourselves and those who work for us. Perhaps there must be some
such barrier to keep the social equilibrium; but is there any reason why