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 Instructor Resource
Argenti, Corporate Responsibility
SAGE Publications, 2016.

Test Bank for Corporate Responsibility 1st Edition by Argenti

ISBN 1483383105 9781483383101
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Multiple Choice

1. Stakeholders generally wish for CR to succeed economically because

*a. financial sustainability supports its inclusion in the long-term corporate strategy.
b. there will be more financial support for managers’ sustainability efforts of interest.
c. CR becomes a primary focus for those involved.
d. financial sustainability supports short-term corporate returns.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 41
Question Type: MC

2. The Edelman goodpurpose® study suggests

a. GE benefits from their green energy business strategy.
b. NGOs demand greater CR activities in third-world nations.
c. organizations prefer to put their CR financial resources in regions most economically
deprived.
*d. consumers prefer to put their financial support behind brands that give back.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 42
Question Type: MC

3. The narrow view, or “business-case model,” for CR

a. looks at the focused high-impact CR practices.
*b. looks only at the link between CR activities and financial performance.
c. considers only high-margin activities.
d. incorporates key-link sustainability activities.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 42
Question Type: MC

4. The “syncretic model” of CR

a. is global in its approach.
b. allows a firm to identify and exploit opportunities that exist in key strategic departments of the
organization’s fiscal strategy.
*c. allows a firm to identify and exploit opportunities that exist outside the business case model’s
purview.
d. incorporated a 360-degree approach with all stakeholders in the organization’s industry.

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Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: pg. 42
Question Type: MC

5. The “syncretic model” of CR

*a. recognizes the interdependence between business and society.
b. recognizes the idiosyncratic nature of business and society.
c. benchmarks the CR strategy to high producers in each industry.
d. accounts for the three primary power sources in CR, government, society, and customers.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 42
Question Type: MC
6. Porter and Kramer outline the following three key ways that corporations can create shared
value opportunities.
a. Clustering stakeholder demands, adding value chain links, and reconceiving products and
markets
*b. Reconceiving products and markets, redefining productivity in the value chain, and enabling
local cluster development
c. Reconceiving stakeholder rights, redefining productivity in their strategy, and enabling local
cluster development
d. Clustering products and markets, finding productivity in the value chain, and enabling
resource development
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 43
Question Type: MC

7. Benefits for an organization that addresses social and environmental issues include all of the
following EXCEPT
a. supplier access and viability.
b. employee skills.
c. employee health.
*d. product alignment.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 44
Question Type: MC

8. Which of the following statements is true regarding CR?

*a. Only half of CEOs whose companies engage in CR activities understand the importance of
communicating their sustainability strategies to investors.
b. Companies identify short-term thinking among most stakeholders as a major obstacle to
improving their performance on environmental, social, and governance issues.
c. Involving investors in the conversation around CR generally reduces their ability to implement
meaningful CR strategies.
d. Studies show that 55% of chief financial officers and investors believe CR creates value for
business, but 22% of CR professionals don’t know if CR creates value for business.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

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Answer Location: pg. 45

Question Type: MC

9. Although better CR measurement and reporting is crucial to the future success of CR

programs, many corporations need better reporting mechanisms because _
a. gathering the data needed to support assertions about the business value of CR and justify
investments in CR programs is not supported by most IT systems.
*b. gathering the data needed to support assertions about the business value of CR and justify
investments in CR programs can be very difficult.
c. triple bottom line software reporting systems do not readily integrate with most organizations’
current financial systems.
d. management is not adept at CR data collection and reporting.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: pg. 45
Question Type: MC

10. The corporate social performance model created by Donna Wood in 1991
*a. is a term that includes both descriptive and normative aspects and incorporates all facets of
firm success related to corporate responsibility initiatives.
b. is the competing framework to the syncretic model.
c. suggests that CR competes with organizational resources for other key functions and creates a
negative culture from within.
d. applies only to third world and emerging national models of CR.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: pg. 45
Question Type: MC

11. Starbucks communicates its CR results effectively to constituents via a scorecard that
outlines all of the following EXCEPT
a. environmental stewardship.
b. ethical sourcing.
c. farmer support.
*d. CR market share.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 45-46
Question Type: MC

12. CR organizations can make the case for CR by pointing out

a. CR feels good.
b. CR costs more but attracts employees and clients.
*c. CR can generate profits otherwise unrealized and attract employees.
d. CR makes triple bottom line reporting much more efficient.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 46
Question Type: MC

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13. Dunkin’ Brands, the parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin Robbins, includes an
in its CSR report to look at the intersection of stakeholder interests and
business interests.
a. Issues Assessment Grid
b. Issues Cross-check Matrix
c. CR Intersection Reference Matrix
d. CR Audit Grid
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 47
Question Type: MC

14. In Management Models for Corporate Social Responsibility, Jan Jonker and Marco de Witt
identify three main pillars to use in creating the business case for CR.
a. Valued capital, economic drive, and social equity
b. Natural assets, economic capital, and social justice
c. Natural assets, economic capital, and social equity
*d. Natural capital, economic capital, and social equity
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 47-48
Question Type: MC

15. The four levers identified by Jonker and de Witt that corporations can use to derive short-,
medium-, and long-term value from their corporate responsibility initiatives include
stakeholder preference and all of the following EXCEPT
*a. remedial resourcing.
b. cost leverage.
c. risk reduction.
d. options creation.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 48
Question Type: MC

16. An example of cost leveraging within the framework of Jonker and DeWitt’s “four levers”
would be
a. packaging that lessens the strain on resources yet only increases costs on shipping supplies
minimally.
*b. reduced packaging both reduces the taxation of resources and saves money on shipping
supplies.
c. packaging that lightens the tax on resources and garners greater PR.
d. saving packaging costs as to allow greater expenditure on shipping costs.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: pg. 48-49
Question Type: MC

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SAGE Publications, 2016.

17. An example of risk reduction within the framework of Jonker and DeWitt’s “four levers”
would be
a. ensuring the safety of suppliers along a company’s supply chain reduces the risk of legal
intervention.
b. ensuring the safety of key employees reduces the risk of government regulation.
c. ensuring the safety of workers along a company’s production line reduces the risk of facility
shutdowns.
*d. ensuring the safety of workers along a company’s supply chain reduces the risk of facility
shutdowns.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: pg. 48-49
Question Type: MC

18. An example of operations creation within the framework of Jonker and DeWitt’s “four
levers” would be
a. using litigation to secure scarce resources serves as an opportunity for innovation.
*b. using compliance with environmental regulation serves as an opportunity for innovation.
c. using compliance with environmental regulation serves as an opportunity for less
governmental intrusion.
d. using compliance with state statutes serves as an opportunity for competitive security.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: pg. 48-49
Question Type: MC

19. An example of stakeholder preference within the framework of Jonker and DeWitt’s “four
levers” would be
a. suppliers can be empowered by using corporate clout to ensure access to resources.
b. suppliers can use corporate clout to ensure access to CR programs.
*c. suppliers can be empowered by providing additional training or using corporate clout to
ensure access to resources.
d. customers can be empowered through purchasing power to ensure access to resources.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: pg. 48-49
Question Type: MC

20. is an integral part of corporate strategy.

a. Targeting resource players
b. Managing damage control to stakeholders
c. Targeting cost reduction rifts
*d. Managing reputational risk
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 50
Question Type: MC

21. All of the following business performance measures are affected by CR EXCEPT
a. shareholder value.

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b. access to capital.
c. license to operate.
*d. supplier satisfaction.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: pg. 50-51
Question Type: MC

22. Based on the results of a study by SustainAbility in 2001-2002, the most significant CR
dimensions are eco-efficiency, working conditions, and
*a. environmental products.
b. altruism.
c. supply chain integrity.
d. carbon neutrality.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 51
Question Type: MC

23. Three types of business case arguments for corporate responsibility include all EXCEPT

a. a means of avoiding financial loss.

b. CR as a driver of tangible financial gains.
c. CR as an important component of a corporation’s strategic approach to long-term business
performance.
*d. a means of financial contingency planning.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: pg. 51
Question Type: MC
24. Some critics of CR suggest
a. that CR is a strategic means to an end.
b. that public relations is not compatible with CR.
c. identify ten key principles that undermine CR.
*d. CR inhibits free markets.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 11
Question Type: MC

25. explores and seeks to expand the connections between societal and
economic progress.
a. Looking at business and societal interests as competing goals
*b. Shared value creation
c. Disciplined CR
d. Shared progression
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 51
Question Type: MC

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SAGE Publications, 2016.

26. A 2009 McKinsey survey found that CR represents an opportunity for long-termcontribution
to
a. retirement plans.
b. ESOPs.
*c. shareholder value.
d. client integrity.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 51
Question Type: MC

27. A CR strategy does all of the following EXCEPT

a. enables companies to expand into new markets.
b. spurs new product development and leads to innovation.
c. forces companies to get creative in their product offerings.
*d. enables government intervention.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: pg. 52
Question Type: MC

28. CR can help organizations better manage risk

*a. limit regulatory intervention and/or supply chain adjustments.
b. limit supply chain interference and allow regulatory adjustments.
c. limit regulatory intervention and/or tight value policies.
d. limit supply chains and/or regulatory adjustments.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: pg. 53
Question Type: MC

29. The Institute for Corporate Culture Handbook on Corporate Social Responsibility breaks
down the business case for CR into
a. ergonomic drivers and managerial drivers.
b. economic drivers and material drivers.
*c. economic drivers and managerial drivers.
d. integration drivers and supply-side drivers.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 54
Question Type: MC

30. According to the Institute for Corporate Culture Handbook on Corporate Social
Responsibility, economic drivers include
a. increasing shareholder value and creating competition.
*b. increasing shareholder value and creating competitive advantage.
c. increasing sustainability value and creating competitive advantage.
d. increasing shareholder value and creating creative advantage.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 54

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Question Type: MC

31. According to the Institute for Corporate Culture Handbook on Corporate Social
Responsibility, managerial drivers
a. are organized around balancing financial interests.
b. are organized around balancing portfolio interests.
c. are organized around balancing general interests.
*d. are organized around balancing stakeholder interests.
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 54
Question Type: MC

32. The narrow focus on shareholder value in business culture refers to the pressure on chief
executives to
a. boost long-term value creation at the expense of short-term earnings.
b. boost international earnings at the expense of short-term value creation.
c. boost narrow earnings at the expense of broad value creation.
*d. boost short-term earnings at the expense of long-term value creation.
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 54
Question Type: MC

33. Three areas in which shareholders contribute to a firm include

a. influence, information, and discipline.
*b. money, information, and discipline.
c. money, CR, and discipline.
d. money, information, and direction.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: pg. 55-56
Question Type: MC

34. Relative to CR, highlights the conflict between managerial and

shareholder interests.
*a. discipline
b. crisis
c. regulatory litigation
d. C suite power struggles
Cognitive Domain: application
Answer Location: pg. 57
Question Type: MC

35. Jensen and Meckling defined the primary challenge of corporate governance as

a. preventing agents and principals from gainsharing.

b. preventing agents from taking principals’ stake in the organization.
c. preventing principals from overriding agents.

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SAGE Publications, 2016.

*d. preventing agents from taking advantage of principals.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 57
Question Type: MC

36. Without the existence of a major shareholder with real power in an organization,
shareholders are limited in their ability to keep managers in check, having only two real
options at their disposal, namely
a. proxy wars and casting votes.
b. selling shares and gaining access to the board.
*c. selling shares and casting votes.
d. lobbying and garnering votes.
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: pg. 57
Question Type: MC

37. More than % of both CFOs and investment professionals believe that having high-
performing ESG programs can be a proxy for how effectively a business is managed.
a. 53
b. 29
c. 75
*d. 80
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 57
Question Type: MC

38. of CEOs and of investment professionals included in the study agree

that environmental, social, and governance activities create value for shareholders in normal
economic times.
a. One third; one quarter
b. Three quarters; one fifth
*c. Two thirds; three quarters
d. Three quarters; two thirds
Cognitive Domain: Knowledge
Answer Location: pg. 57
Question Type: MC

39. According to the results of a global survey by McKinsey, a quarter of do

not know what effect, if any, these activities have on shareholder value or on what activities
are the most important, when asked to consider the following: compliance/transparency;
changing business processes; investment in social issues; creating new revenue streams; and
charitable giving.
*a. CFOs, investment professionals, and CSR professionals
b. CR directors
c. CIOs and CR experts
d. CIOs, CEOs, and CSR professionals

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SAGE Publications, 2016.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: pg. 57-58
Question Type: MC

40. Porter and Kramer identify several ways in which CSR differs from CSV, explaining that
while a CSR approach , while the CSV approach .
a. defines value simply in terms of dollars; looks at economic and societal benefits relative to
cost
b. defines value as simply doing good; looks at PR benefits relative to cost
c. defines value as efficiency; looks at environmental and societal benefits relative to regulatory
standards
*d. defines value as simply doing good looks at economic and societal benefits relative to cost
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: pg. 58
Question Type: MC

True or False

41. The 2010 Corporate Social Responsibility Branding Survey by Penn Schoen Berland
reported that social responsibility’s importance to consumers dipped due to the recession,
with a drop from 75% of consumers reporting that corporate responsibility is important to
54%.
a. True
*b. False
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 42
Question Type: TF

42. Many CR successes are attributed not to corporate responsibility programs but instead
viewed as evidence of the ability of free markets to address CR issues.
*a. True
b. False
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 47
Question Type: TF

43. The corporate understanding of CR has shifted from seeing it as a moral imperative to
recognizing it as a critical business issue.
*a. True
b. False
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: pg. 52
Question Type: TF

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 Instructor Resource
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SAGE Publications, 2016.

44. The role of shareholders in a corporation is able to justify the strong emphasis on shareholder
value in business culture.
a. True
*b. False
Cognitive Domain: Comprehension
Answer Location: pg. 57
Question Type: TF

45. Attention to sustainability leads to reduced operating costs, increased revenues, lower
administrative and capital costs, and stock market premiums.
*a. True
b. False
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: pg. 59
Question Type: TF

Essay

46. How can policymakers enable CR brands with limited market power to deliver on consumer
expectations and desires related to CR, thereby empowering consumers with more infor-
mation from companies?
*a. One way to do so would be to create a CSR label on consumer packaged goods to distinguish
companies with good CR practices from those without. As consumers become increasingly
educated about corporations’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impact, companies
will face increasing pressure to improve upon their metrics for the ESG impact of their business
practices.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: pg. 46
Question Type: ESS

47. What are some reasons that sustainability has emerged as a subset of CR in recent years?
*a. Sustainability is an urgent matter because government regulations will increasingly require
attention to sustainable business procedures in the near future, and because sustainability can
bolster a corporation’s community relations, helping it secure licenses to operate and
engendering loyalty and trust among community constituents. Sustainability is a means of
hedging against future risk and an opportunity to strengthen existing business relationships.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: pg. 59
Question Type: ESS

Type: E
48. What is the ultimate goal of a CSR management system?
*a. The ultimate goal of a CSR management system is to successfully integrate corporate

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SAGE Publications, 2016.

responsibility concerns—social, environmental and economic—into a company’s values, culture,

operations and business decisions at all levels of the organization, which can help create better
management practices overall.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: pg. 61
Question Type: ESS

49. How can sustainable compliance be viewed as an opportunity?

*a. The firm must adjust its perspective on corporate compliance, viewing it as an opportunity
for innovation.
Cognitive Domain: Analysis
Answer Location: pg. 59
Question Type: ESS

50. What are the five stages Nidumolu et al. describe in the process of becoming a sustainable
business.
*a. The five stages are:
 Viewing compliance as an opportunity
 Making value chains sustainable
 Designing sustainable products and services
 Developing new business models
 Creating next-practice platforms
Cognitive Domain: Application
Answer Location: pg. 59-60
Question Type: ESS

Page 12
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remarking that the farther the piano is placed from one’s neighbour the
better, and that some consideration on this subject is due from everyone
who may possess and will manipulate that which in some hands may be as
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 CHAPTER VI

THIRD ROOMS

I have already discussed one manner of disposing of the usual third room,
but I hope most devoutly that the unparalleled sacrifice of devoting it to the
use of the maids may never be required of anyone. For unless people can sit
in their dining-room in the morning; and I cannot imagine anything more
distasteful; the drawing-room or parlour must be turned into a regular hack
room, and we are deprived at one fell swoop of a nice place in which to
receive our guests or of a fresh chamber for use in the evening. It is a great
thing to have entirely different surroundings then, and a pretty, well-aired
and ventilated room in which to spend the fag end of a day. Circumstances
must always govern cases, and there can be no set rules for the universal
regulation of all lives, and if English people would only realise this fact,
their sojourn here would be made far more interesting than it is at present.
No one has ever taken the third room for the maids, therefore no one can
ever do so. The door has always been in that position, therefore it must
remain so. That room has always been draughty, therefore draughty it shall
continue until the end of the chapter. These are the arguments used, if
argument of any kind is allowed. As a rule the position is accepted
unconditionally, and because an error has been made from the first, it is
allowed to continue unchecked when a little forethought would circumvent
that special mistake, and would make a room charming, habitable and
warm, which hitherto has been nothing of the kind.
Let me illustrate what I mean by an example. At a small house we
possess in Watford there is the third room in question, which has been made
into a very pretty library by the clever hand of Mr Arthur Smee, but which
the first year we were in possession had never been used save as a home for
books and a reception place for anyone who might come on business. No
one had ever sat there, nor could I discover anyone who would; but I myself
was then ‘on the shelf,’ and had never entered the room at all, being often
absent from home, and always, whether there or elsewhere, confined to the
circumscribed area of my own bed and sitting-rooms. I had asked questions
about the room but could never get a satisfactory reply only the ever-
repeated answer, ‘Oh, it looks all right, but just you try to sit there, that’s
all, you’ll soon see why we can’t do anything of the kind.’ Now here is the
room produced just as it was before I went into it, and I wonder if anyone
can see the real mistake in the design? I own I could not perceive it from
the picture. At first I asked if my people were ridiculous enough to fancy
the room had a ghost. No not a ghost exactly; but in a tentative tone of
voice something quite as uncanny and quite as intangible. Was it draughty?
They didn’t think so; and yet it was impossible to warm it. In fact, it was
quite out of the question that it could be sat in, and there it remained until
one day

LIBRARY AT WAYSIDE.

when I felt rather better than usual, and went downstairs determined to
conquer or die in the attempt. Dear readers! if you could only have seen that
room you would, some of you, never have believed in me again for one
single moment. The centre table was heaped with books, old papers and
magazines. The matting on the floor had one long, thin and solitary rug.
There were aimless cretonne curtains at the window, which couldn’t
possibly be reached, because the desk was stuck right against it; and, worst
fault of all, the door opened on the wrong side, and so whenever it was open
the fire was as it were in the passage. And as had been rightly said, there
was not a single place to put a chair; and, indeed, the untidy thing in the
photograph was the only specimen of the genus that the chamber possessed,
if we except an ordinary bedroom seat, and another of a similar kind by the
desk, neither of which could be sat upon, save by an individual who had
serious writing to do. Then someone had placed in one corner a deck-
lounge, in, I suppose, a feeble attempt at being happy, and never did a
lounge less deserve its name. It was located between the window and the
fire, and therefore succeeded in nothing, save in being entirely out of place
and in the way. There too the shelves for books were left as shown in the
photograph, and had none of the small curtains over the smaller recesses, so
necessary to break up the lines and to serve as hiding-places for old and
way-worn literature. The fireplace was hideous, and a Moloch as regards
coal, while, of course the room could never be brought above freezing
pitch, because of the relative positions of the fireplace, door, and window,
each of which was put just exactly where it ought not to be. The design and
colour of the room were right enough, but the touches which turn a room
into a habitation were never more conspicuous by their absence.
I don’t know how it is, but I can put a room straight in five minutes
when another person merely grumbles and declares that nothing can be
done; and in a pious rage I set to work and very soon had made a
considerable alteration in the place. Although, of course, much could not be
accomplished until I sent for my factotum Joe, and had the door moved to
the other side, that elegant plaster in the ceiling dislodged, and the hideous
tiles in the grate renovated. Then I had a good thick portière placed inside
the door, hung the pictures properly, arranged the books and china, put the
curtains where they were required in the bookcase, altered the window-
curtains, put the desk on one side, not in the very centre of the window, and
imported a couple of deep, good basket-chairs from Heelas, of Reading, and
some smaller Liberty chairs and tables. The centre table was put on one
side, and not in the middle of the room, with magazines and newspapers;
and after that I put down proper and suitable rugs, instead of the big one,—
beautiful in itself and in its proper place which was a passage—but
ridiculous in the middle of a matted floor, where it resembled nothing so
much as a garden walk. Since then the room has been more used than any
other sitting-room in the house, and is now pronounced one of the most
comfortable in the dreary little place, or, I should say, in what was a dreary
little place until it was taken vigorously in hand. Albeit, nothing can make
the house a real success, because it is built east and west, and with all the
windows to the west and to the north and south: these, by the way, raking
the back yards of the neighbours fore and aft: while, except for the bath-
room window, there is not one which looks towards the east, where, of
course, one gets the pleasantest view and the morning sun: a great
consideration in a house which is literally a summer house, and where
therefore, the western sun is useless and tormenting. Even in the winter an
afternoon sun is no earthly use, for by the time it comes round to the
western windows it has to retire ignominiously into a bank of fog or cloud;
therefore such a house as this especial one should never be taken unless the
owner will close the north and north-west windows, and open out big
square bows on the south and south-eastern aspect in the manner the
windows should have been placed when the house was built. It is always a
pleasing reflection to me that the man who designed this house is dead, and
cannot now make any other person as miserable by his awkward vagaries as
he has made me. If he had simply consented to one or two alterations, and
had given us decent grates, and proper servants’ accommodation, the house
wouldn’t have been ‘half bad,’ and I do not suppose would have cost a
farthing more to build than it cost at first. The cornices were so terrible that
they had in some cases to be cut away and reduced to one-fourth, while the
elaborate and expensive style in which they had been liberally picked out in
all the colours of the rainbow, was obliterated by colour-wash at once; yet
the money spent on this ‘decoration’ would have gone some way towards
new grates; and my pet plain wooden mantels would not have cost half
what the monstrous marble ones did, with which one can’t wrestle, because
of the round openings in the mantelpieces, which would not allow of the
cheap introduction of the pretty, square, slow-combustion stoves, with plain
tiles, to which I must confess I am absolutely devoted. I think, if their third
room in any way resembles the one illustrated here, this picture will help
my readers very much, if they are anxious to have a library, a room where
the master can sit and smoke, and where business people can be
interviewed. But, if books are not plentiful, and the husband doesn’t smoke
and is not much at home, the room would not be of very much service to the
mistress and her girls, should she be fortunate enough to be the proud
possessor of grown-up daughters. And there are, of course, yet other means
of treating and disposing of the room. If children are numerous, and
bedrooms few, this third room may have to be taken for schoolroom
purposes, or, at best, may have to be used by boys and girls in the holidays,
or when lessons have to be prepared, and in this case it would require quite
different treatment to what it would receive were it merely a pretty sitting-
room, as it should most undoubtedly be.
If the sitting-room aspect has to be considered it should be made as
bright and charming as possible, and should be furnished with an eye to the
particular occupation of the house mistress, who is sure to have some
idiosyncrasy, and will either work, write or ‘housekeep’ indefatigably. If she
does this latter, she will want room for her household books, her receipt
books, and her house books, containing all kinds of hints as to what to do
and when to do it, which any woman collects if she is in the least house-
proud and anxious to make the most of her surroundings. In this case, one
of the recesses could be fitted with shelves on the same principle as those
shown in the photograph, but they should not be higher than the
mantelpiece, and where there is a gaping space, curtains should be hung, or
else doors placed to make a species of cupboard with copper hinges and a
good lock. In the other recess a writing-table could be placed, with some
shelves above it to hold books of reference, and this table must be furnished
with really good locks, for here should be kept account and cheque books,
and receipts and any private unanswered letters. Though let me once more
impress on all my readers never to keep any save business letters, and never
to keep those when the business to which they refer is completely done with
and ended. No one knows how long he or she may live, nor if sudden death
or illness may not leave all one’s secrets, should one have any, or the secrets
of others, open to anyone who may have access to one’s belongings;
besides, we have no right to keep other folk’s letters, once they are replied
to. We may ourselves be secrecy itself, but we cannot answer for the secret-
keeping capacity of our nearest and dearest.
If the window should be, as I hope it may be, one of the delightful
Caldecott ones, it should have a straight window-seat arranged exactly as in
this sketch, and thus we should be provided with a most comfortable place
to rest in, more especially if we supplement it with several big Liberty
pillows. These can be covered in plain linen covers, edged with frills of the
same or of Torchon lace. If this latter be used, a wide insertion should be
laid on all round the pillows, about an inch from where the lace is sewn on.
The lace must not be too full. If the pillow should be a yard square, or the
more ordinary size of three-quarters of a yard, the quantity of lace used
should be one-half longer than the length of the sides of the pillow, i.e., 6
yards of lace would be wanted for a pillow the sides of which measured 4
yards, while 3 yards would be sufficient for the smaller size, as the lace is
only just fulled on. It should not be heavily gathered, or it will not look
well.

Beautiful pillows can be made by Miss Goodban, of 9 Westbourne

Terrace Road, Hyde Park of these same linens. She embroiders them all
over in flax and edges them with Torchon, and if these cases are simply
buttoned on like an ordinary pillowcase they can be washed in an hour and
replaced. Liberty silk covers also wash splendidly if one has a careful maid.
I have never sent mine to the ordinary wash; but washed at home they came
out of the trial as good as new; a fact I do not think many people can know,
or we should not see as many dirty covers as we do in the houses of folks
who ought to know a great deal better. The window-seat cover should be of
some hard-wearing material, such as ribbed and stamped Victoria cord, or a
really good all-wool tapestry. It is never the least use to use one of the
cheap tapestries provided so lavishly nowadays for this purpose, for if we
do, we shall at once be terribly disappointed by the effect. For these seats in
most rooms have a great deal of wear and in consequence if a cheap stuff is
used it will not last any time. To ensure real and satisfactory length of days
for any material, we must have one made of all wool, and not wool and
cotton mixed. The actual expense of these seats, and indeed of any fitted
seat, is the upholstress’s time and work, which costs as much if the material
is only 1s. a yard, as it does if one pays a guinea for the same amount,
besides which there is the continual worry of the British workman amongst
us. Though why women should not be their own upholstresses I for one
can’t think, and I should strongly advise any girl about to marry on limited
means to learn to make up her own covers and cushions as well as how to
cook the dinner. Then if the husband has a knowledge of carpentering and is
handy about the house, the place can always look nice at one-third the
expense it would cost were a workman or workwoman sent for when the
smallest alterations were required.
Given the window-seat there should be no need for a sofa, and that is a
decided consideration, but whatever chairs are had they should be
comfortable ones, and none are better than the excellent wicker ones of
which I have so often spoken. If expense be a great object one can
frequently buy these chairs from travelling hawkers who go about the
country with vans of chairs tables and baskets, and sell these special chairs
for about 5s. or 6s. in wicker, simply stained a faint brown, which said
staining I much prefer to paint or enamel, as it never becomes in the least
shabby. A cushion must be made to fit the seat finished off with a 4 or 5
inch frill, not any deeper, and another cushion must be made to fit the back,
while another must be placed round the sides of the chair, properly stuffed
and ‘buttoned down.’ This said buttoning down can be done by an amateur
if she purchases the proper needles for the purpose and secures the buttons
with very strong packthread. And I consider such cushions should all be
made in this style, as a plain surface wears out twice as soon as one that is
arranged with buttons; while, if one is clean and careful, the buttons need
not mean an accumulation of dust and dirt, both being got rid of perfectly
well if the cushions are properly brushed and beaten and attended to by a
housemaid who knows her work. By the way, it takes 2¼ yards of double-
width material to make a cover for an ordinary wicker chair, or 4½ of single
width material or of cretonne, but I cannot advise cretonne for the purpose,
or for any real hard wear on any chairs, it so very soon becomes dirty, and
is always in the wash-tub and in the hands of the upholstress. If the room is
very tiny the window-seat can be furnished with three deep drawers in
which we can keep any amount of odds and ends. Of course, the number of
the drawers will depend on the length of the window-seat, but three should
be the outside number. In any case they would come just under the seat and
be hidden from observation either by the deep frill or a woollen fringe, and
should open and shut very easily indeed. In a small house these drawers
would be invaluable for one of the principal drawbacks to a suburban
residence is the fact that there are no cupboards in them, neither are there
many recesses which we can utilise as wardrobes should we require to do
so. Let us suppose that this special room is given over to the mistress of the
house and that she is content to have the ever-delightful shade of ‘Panton’
blue, than which nothing is better in every way to live with, she would then
have the short curtains shown in the picture of some yellow material,
Wallace’s diamond serge for choice, lined with sateen or plain serge, if
there be many draughts or very much sun: then the material for the window-
seat should be in golden brown or turquoise blue stamped Victoria cord, and
the cushions should be in yellow, blue and pink linen, worked in very
coarse and thick real flax by Miss Goodban. If the room has very much
traffic, the floor should have a surround of plain brown cork carpet, with a
good blue square of Wallace’s Dunelm carpet in the centre, just lightly
fastened down in such a manner that it can be easily removed for shaking.
Personally, I never like nails put in any carpet; they cannot help spoiling
and tearing it, and it is far better to sew on the carpet itself a succession of
tiny bits of tape, of course on the wrong side, and close to the edge. In these
pieces of tape should the nails be placed. The tapes can always be renewed,
and in this case the edge of the carpet is never touched, and cannot present
the ‘worried’ appearance which characterises so many really good floor
coverings. In this special room the carpet should be in a special shade of
blue, which would harmonise with the paper. There are two or three
different ways of treating the walls of such a room, and the one I prefer is to
have electric turquoise Aspinall for all the paint, the Panton blue paper, and
a floral frieze with a great deal of yellow in it; or, again, one can have the
blue paper, but with real ivory paint, and an anaglypta dado painted in the
same shade instead of the frieze; while a really useful and hard-wearing
room may have a soft brown dado, and all soft brown paint, and a darker
blue paper. In this case both paper and paint must be selected by someone
who understands the science of colour. The brown should have a good deal
of cream in it, and the blue should have a great deal of indigo and not any
shade of green or turquoise at all. Here the window-seat cushion should be
covered in brown stamped Victoria cord, and the curtains should be in blue
serge or Tanjore cloth. I have never yet found a blue serge which would
stand sun, and not fade in a couple of weeks in the most distressing manner,
while almost any yellow serge stands the sunshine, and I can myself
guarantee Wallace’s diamond serge in yellow, for that has proved itself
absolutely fast. Shoolbred guarantees the Tanjore cloth, but personally I
have had no experience of this material, having had neither opportunity nor
occasion to try it. It is 4s. 9d. a yard, and is very pretty to look at; and is
besides a most excellent width. Need I say that any cornice in this room
must be simply coloured cream, and the ceiling papered in some
inexpensive and pretty yellow and white paper? If blue should be objected
to, or one is tired of it, a very pretty sitting-room can be made from any
floral paper which is really good, and, I say, hand-made. I am devoted to a
beautiful heliotrope and green clematis paper sold by Smee & Cobay, and
also to the ‘ragged robin’ paper sold by Haines, and either of these papers
should be used above a dado of some kind or other. A full green sateen
curtain dado is the best, and in this case all the paint should be the same
shade of green as that chosen for the dado, and that should be one of the
tints in the leaves on the paper itself. Then the carpet and curtains should be
green, and so should be the window-seat and the ceiling paper. The other
shades in the paper should appear in the cushions and table-covers:
although as regards the clematis paper I have never come across any good
heliotrope materials, and have only found this colour in silk and in a capital
cretonne sold by the Cavendish House Company, Cheltenham. I fancy that
Warings, of Liverpool, have also a good ‘lilac’ cretonne. They certainly
possess an admirable wall-paper with lilacs on a striped background, which
should not be forgotten by anyone who thinks of using that always
satisfactory decorative harmony of heliotrope and green. If there is not
much wear in these rooms, I should advise the green ‘Isis’ matting as a
background for rugs, but if there be a great deal of traffic, the soft green
‘Roman carpet’ sold by Shoolbred does excellently with some sort of a
‘surround’ which is easily cleaned, such as Jackson’s varnish stains, or plain
cream matting, or plain cork carpet, according to the state of the floor and
the particular tastes of the owner of the room, who should of course have
one of Giles’s removable parqueterie surrounds if she can afford it. In any
case she must never allow either a fitted carpet or a patterned surround to
fidget the eye, avoiding as a real sin against the first principles of art, those
terrible materials which imitate parqueterie or tiles, or pretend to be
anything save what they are, and giving a wide berth to felt, an admirable
material to look at, but a fearful and abominable dust-trap. So indeed are
fluffy materials of any sort or kind if they cannot be cleaned without
sweeping or by the friendly aid of a damp duster, which just passed over
them once a day, keeps the stain or matting or cork carpet in order, and
prevents the accumulation in corners that must ensue if we have not a
washable material as a surround to whatever carpet we may select. If we
have matting all over the floor, it is well to recollect that salt and water form
an excellent mixture to use to cleanse it with, the salt in some way
preserving and toughening the fibres of the matting as well as cleaning it in
a most effectual style.
The principal things to recollect in this, and, indeed in any room are,
first, that it must be made draught-proof and be properly ventilated, that we
must so arrange that the door does not open right on the fire, that while the
furniture may be as simple as we like, everything must be made to
harmonise, being either bought for or adapted to the room itself and the
special occupations of the room’s mistress. Fortunately if our purses are
light, there is abundance of inexpensive furniture in these days which I
cannot, I feel, praise too highly. I remember the dreadful struggles I had, to
make my own first house pretty some six-and-twenty years ago, when there
was nothing to be had but heavy wood and solid repps, and no one had
whispered ‘Liberty,’ or mentioned serge, or bamboo and wicker furniture,
or, if they had, had murmured it so gently that the murmur had not reached
the ears of anyone at all. Now, scoff as one may at wicker work and
bamboo, I venture to say that by them lies the way of salvation for the third
room in an impecunious household. I have bought the most charming and
beautiful little cupboard tables at Shoolbred’s, the most comfortable and
excellent chairs at Smee & Cobay’s, at Heelas, of Reading, and at
Wallace’s, which have all the delights of a real upholstered expensive arm-
chair, if one has the cushions made at home, at as many shillings as the
other costs pounds. While the most useful bookcase I ever came across is
also matting and bamboo, and this can have a species of cupboard shelf
made by hanging a curtain over the third receptacle for books, which said
curtain is like charity: it covers a multitude of sins in the shape of rolls of
wall paper, odds and ends of patterns, and old books which have seen better
days, and yet are not good enough to re-bind, and yet are too good to throw
away. Indeed, no book should ever be treated in such an ignominious
fashion. At the worst it can be sent to a hospital, or be kept in our own
special hospital box, which should be in every house, for how can we tell
when infectious disease may not find us out? In that case we shall be
thankful to be possessed of something to read which we can afterwards
burn without any arrière pensée in the matter at all.
One thing should be in every morning-room, or third room, or library,
call this little chamber by what name we will; and that is an invaluable
small closing-table I have discovered in Kensington High Street. It costs
about 4s. 11d., simply stained dark brown, can be folded up and put against
a wall, or laid under a sofa when not in use, and is altogether most
unobtrusive and excellent, for it can be set up in one second, and is
admirable for a thousand purposes. I think it is large enough to ‘cut out’
upon, although I am not an authority on the subject of work. I know it is
extremely handy for tea, and that one can make scrapbooks upon it, and
write upon it too, while as it can be folded and put on one side at any
moment, it does not get over-crowded with books and ornaments, and is
therefore always available. The ordinary small occasional table never can
be that, for it is usually clad in a nice square table-cover and has flowers or
a plant in the centre, and has moreover, every available corner filled with
books and ‘twos and threes,’ while the modest and retiring folding-table
only comes out for use, and is never ornamental, and will not be used
otherwise than for the purpose for which it is made. Of course the walnut
Sutherland table is much nicer in every way, but is not to be had under 30s.,
is often of most inferior wood liable to scratches and spots, and is also all
too often opened out clad in its tablecloth and ornamented to death. But we
have no qualms about the little cheap folding-table. If it is scratched and
spotted it can be scrubbed clean and given a new coat of Jackson’s varnish
stain and be in a moment as good as new if not better. Just one word en
parenthése, as it were, about stains. Do not let anything anyone can say
induce you to attempt the beautiful green staining we all so much admire at
home, for if you do, it can be nothing but a most ghastly failure. True, the
particular piece of furniture will be green, but such a green! for the proper
effect can only be obtained in the same way really good French polish is
procured, and that, as everyone knows, can never be got save by a
professional hand who knows the work, and has never yet been known to
divulge the secret of success. No; the green stain is not for the amateur, be
sure of that, while the ‘oak,’ and ‘dark oak,’ and ‘walnut’ varnish stains are
exactly all that they ought to be.
In this room a screen by the door is often a most blessed possession, and
as screens can be bought so cheaply nowadays everyone can avail herself of
the comfort procured by a judicious use of them. Liberty first, and
Shoolbred next, should be searched for an inexpensive screen, for
sometimes Liberty has none, and then Shoolbred may come to the rescue,
or our experience of both shops may be reversed; it all depends on which
place has had the last consignment from Japan. I bought a beautiful screen
at Liberty’s one year, about a month before Christmas, for 18s. 9d., but on
applying for another in the following March, found all were sold out, and I
had to go farther afield, discovering the one I wanted in a shop in High
Street, Kensington, the name of which I have forgotten. True both Liberty
and Shoolbred had plenty of screens but neither had an inexpensive one,
with a back warranted to resist the frequent and uncalled-for assaults of the
British housemaid. By the way, a screen should always be placed behind the
door, which should in most cases open from left to right into a room if the
room is in the least degree like the one illustrated. I am not fond of a door
opening into a hall, and of course the perfect door should not open, but slide
into the wall, but perfection is a word never heard, and certainly not
understood at all in the usual suburb.
If the room be blue, the portière should be of printed velveteen in shades
of yellow. With a floral paper it may be pink or green, but in any case a
plain material should not be employed as a portière. One should always
have a figured stuff there, and if one can afford it one cannot improve on
the aforesaid velveteen. Portières should be made up by a really competent
hand and should be lined, and edged with either ‘grip-cord’ or fan-edging,
as ball fringe is apt to come to grief in this situation, the portière being
often caught in the door, or as often grasped either by the parlour-maid as
she announces a visitor or by any small child who may have to open or
close the door. I may seem to speak unduly on the subject both of portières
and screens but unless they are employed freely, I can assure my readers
they will never circumvent the ordinary suburban residence, but that if both
are used, any house, even the most jerry-built one which ever disgraced a
‘Park,’ or blotted the erst-while fair appearance of a ‘Grove,’ can be made
habitable. Without these aids to health, to say nothing of decoration, such a
house would be an impossible home for anyone not born and bred in the
Arctic regions; while outside blinds, if they can only be just nailed up pro
tem., and be mere grass mats bought for a few shillings at Treloar’s, can
circumvent extreme heat, which often is as bad to bear in these terrible
houses as the excessive cold and draughts which characterise them. I know
that as a rule three years sets the suburban tenant on the prowl, and, as I
said before, the mere idea that such can be the case prevents many a woman
from making her house either pretty to look at or even weather-tight. But
three years’ experience of untoward weather in a jerry-built structure can
undermine the health of any woman, whereas she probably would not move
and would certainly keep much better in health if not entirely well, did she
do her utmost to get over the drawbacks at once. At the same time the hall
must be warmed by using the small, portable stove sold by Wolff & Sons,
119 New Bond Street, if it is out of the question to obtain warmth from a
real fire-place, and very great care must be given to ventilation by wide-
open windows whenever it is possible, and it is always possible during
some part of the day: and by ventilators, as suggested before, which should
always be open at night, especially when lamps are lighted and fires kept
up. For an unventilated room means a sleepy head, and dulness and
stupidity instead of the liveliness which should characterise a gathering of
the family when the work of the day is safely over and done.
 CHAPTER VII

THE NURSERIES

Well may the heart of the ordinary mother of a family sink within her
shoes when she sees the regulation rooms provided for the use of the
children! Nay, one can hardly believe that they are meant for them at all, for
nowhere are two rooms placed in such a manner as to make real day and
night nurseries, and she is lucky indeed who has not to place one room on
the first, and the other on the second floor, thus making it impossible for the
nurse to look after the children or their garments in the manner she would
be able to do were both rooms on the same storey. But it is always possible
to have them on the same storey if convention is defied, and the ‘spare
room’ is relegated to the attics, or the nurseries themselves are placed there;
and moreover no considerations of any ‘spare room’ should prevent there
being a couple of nurseries in any house. It is odious never to be able to
entertain one’s friends even for the usual Saturday to Monday visit so dear
to the heart of the ordinary suburban resident; but it is far worse to keep the
children in one room only, alike for day and night use, and I sincerely hope
that this unhealthy and disagreeable practice may soon cease entirely to
exist. If in a tiny house and with one baby only, a second room cannot
possibly be had, the only way to arrange matters is to proceed on the lines
of a Harrow boy’s room, and to have either a system of ‘fitments,’ or to shut
all the washing and dressing apparatus into a cupboard sort of arrangement,
and to have one of the small folding iron beds, with a wire mattress
complete, which cost about 16s. 6d., and which can be put under another
bed in another room during the daytime, the mattress and other bedding
being folded up and disposed of in a similar way. Yet in such a wee house
as this, the baby would usually be in the mother’s room, and the nurse could
share a room with another maid, having her meals in the servants’ sitting-
room or the kitchen, while the mother herself looked after the infant. But I
fancy where this would be the case, decoration would not be a study, all the
energies of the mistress being spent, and very properly too, on making both
ends of the income meet if that be possible. At the same time, I can never
see why a cottage need not be pretty and comfortable, and I hope that no
one will be debarred from attempting to possess a pretty house because she
is poor. Pretty things are nowadays as cheap, nay often cheaper, than ugly
ones, and it only requires common-sense and the possession of a certain
amount of taste to ensure that a house shall be both artistic and comfortable.
Let us take first the unfortunate who really can only have one nursery, and
who has to allow the child to sleep there at night with the nurse, for I
always think it is unwise for the parents to have an infant in their bedroom
even when it is very small. A man’s rest broken, means bad work during the
day, while a woman is unfit for anything and certainly cannot do her work if
she has had no sleep during the orthodox hours of repose. In this case the
best room in the upper part of the house should be taken for the nursery; it
should be as near the mother’s room as possible, and if there be a dressing-
room attached, so much the better in every way, for out of that can be
constructed the very necessary nursery pantry. Therein can be kept
everything which is in any way unsightly, and it is possible that all signs of
the nursery itself being used for a double purpose can be concealed, if one
has at one’s service just an ordinary bedroom and dressing-room. We will
therefore suppose that, in the first place, the suburban villa contains a bed
and a dressing-room, and another bedroom and a bathroom on the same
floor. In this case, I should propose that the so-called ‘best room,’ with the
dressing-room, should be given over to the nurse and child, the master of
the house having the bathroom entirely for his own use as dressing-room. If
this arrangement is made, the bedroom which I trust may face south or
south-east, can be treated entirely as a day-room, and be properly and
prettily painted and papered. Under no circumstances should one of those
fearsome ‘nursery’ papers be allowed, neither must a cheap and vulgar
flower paper be
 COMBINED DAY AND NIGHT NURSERY.

used. If expense is a great object, and it would be probably in such a wee

establishment, an inexpensive, geometrical-patterned paper must be chosen,
with as little real pattern on it as is possible, great attention being given to
the colour; which after all is the principal thing to think about in all
decoration. For such papers, one cannot improve on the ‘Olive Leaf’ papers,
sold always by Godfrey Giles; and though these special colourings have
been obtainable for quite ten years, I have never found anything which
would quite take their place. They are 9d. and 1s. 6d. a piece. I advise the
latter, the extra 9d. quite doubling the time that the paper will really wear.
Some of Liberty’s damasque papers are also most suitable for these and,
indeed, for any rooms; but these are 2s., and, in consequence, would cost
more to put up. Lower than 1s. 6d. I cannot think it is wise to go, for after
all, the great expense of papering is the labour, and the vagaries of the
British workman render it undesirable that we shall have to employ him
more than we can possibly help. For, once he is in the house, heaven only
knows when he will leave; and while he is there, everything is disorganised,
the maids being engrossed by him and his doings and his followers, and
nothing going on in its accustomed and regular routine. I am very fond of
the soft apricot shade in the damasque papers, and should often advise one
of these used with either real ivory or café-au-lait paint. At first, one need
not put a dado, especially if the room be prepared for ‘number one,’ as that
can always be added later on, when the room begins to look a little shabby
round the base of the wall. Then if the master knows how to use his hands
at all, he can simply screw on a dado rail, made of the ever-useful
‘goehring,’ while the mistress can make a full curtain dado of some
inexpensive blue and cream cretonne. Oetzmann often has one at about
5¾d. a yard. This is easily made up, a very deep flounce is manufactured,
and a yard and a half of cretonne suffice for a yard of dado. It should be
slightly gathered on a tape, and the width of the cretonne makes the depth
of the dado. On the tape are sewn very small rings, and these are passed
over brass-headed nails put close under the dado-rail, which should be
painted after it is fixed, the heads of the screws being covered with putty
also painted over; this effectually conceals all traces of them. It is easy for
anyone to calculate the cost of such a dado exactly; but, as I said before it
can always be added to a room, should it not be advisable on the score of
expense to put it up at first. If the soft apricot paper is selected and the room
is a very sunny one, I should advise blue Bolton sheeting curtains from
Burnett, made double and edged with grip cord, as most undoubtedly
anything in such a room should be capable of being washed, while a square
blue ‘Dunelm’ carpet should be laid in the centre of the floor, the outer
space being covered with plain brown cork carpet. On no account should a
nursery be covered with linoleum, oilcloth or cork carpet; a real woollen
carpet should be de rigueur. Nothing is worse for a child to creep on than
the cold surface of any material which resembles oilcloth, while it is the
fault of the nurse entirely should a carpet be spoiled in any way. So, should
the mother find the carpet becoming the worse for unfair treatment during
the first eighteen months of a child’s life, she must realise that her nurse is
to blame, and that a woman who permits such ‘accidents’ is unfit for her
position, and should take some situation where the spotless carefulness and
cleanliness which should mark anyone who has the care of a child are not
required. For be well assured, if a nurse be careless and untidy in one way
she will have these same failings in all she has to do. A nurse may herself
look the picture of all she ought to be, but if her rooms bear the least signs
of neglect, if the child is not ‘turned out’ like a new pin, and has not perfect
‘manners’ by the time it is a year old, she must go. Unless she does, there
will never be peace in the nursery, neither will the children ever be well.
People may feel inclined to scoff at the notion that a child’s health can
depend on its appearance; but this is a fact, and no amount of scoffing will
alter it. If, for example, you see a child sent out with untidy boots, coarse
stockings in which there may be a hole or two, and which said stockings are
not pulled up trimly and correctly under the short skirts or the neat little
knickerbockers; if the under-garments are showing either at waist or knee, if
the clothes are unbrushed and awry and the hair unkempt, send the nurse
away at once. If she be careless about the looks of the children she will be
careless about their health. Her rooms will be either stuffy or draughty; she
will not discriminate about the children’s food or their times of sleep or
play; she will not see the boots are repaired and the clothes aired; she is
utterly untrustworthy.
I have had a large experience of people of all kinds, and I can honestly
say I have never found a sloven a good servant, or an untidy woman one
who could be trusted in any position in one’s household. Bad as this fault is
in anyone, it is desperate indeed where children are concerned, and should
therefore never be endured for a moment. The nurse who is really fit for her
post takes as much pride in the children’s appearance as the mother does
herself. Should she not do so, colds are incessant, and small illnesses
frequent, while should there be an infant matters are still worse, for the
baby’s bottles are sure to be badly kept; indeed a child may die, or at the
least may suffer severely because of the untidy habits and slovenly ways of
the nurse. One of the easiest ways to discover what manner of woman she
is, is this very question of the carpet. And should she object to one and
suggest oilcloth, be quite sure she does not know her business, or only
wants to save herself trouble. A carpet is a necessity in a properly-managed
nursery, and that should be an axiom which should never for one instant be
forgotten.
I should never paper the ceiling of a nursery, neither should gas be
allowed there; neither should we overcrowd this room with furniture, nor
should we permit a vast accumulation of toys. The ceiling should be washed
cream-colour once a year, and the room, if small, should be lighted with a
good duplex lamp from the centre of the ceiling; also from one swung out
on an arm near the fireplace, if the room be large and the nurse wish to sit
near the fire to do her work, or wash and undress the children there in
winter. No lamps should be allowed to stand about anywhere and all must
be out of the reach of the children, else will accidents certainly occur. The
lamp must be re-trimmed and refilled daily downstairs by whoever attends
to the sitting-room lamps, and must have a metal receiver. It must also be
the reverse of cheap. Cheap lamps are dangerous and abominable in every
way. Yet a lamp must we have in our nurseries if we wish the children to be
well, and to escape the blighting influence of a gas-vitiated atmosphere. If
no maid can be trusted to do the lamps the mistress must see to them
herself. She need not take more than half an hour about the three or four
which would be all that were used in a small house and she will reap the
benefit in the children’s health, and in feeling confident that the lamps will
not smell, and that they will burn brightly, and not expire suddenly because
they have not been properly filled in the morning.
If the nursery is a small room I should advise the table to be made on the
principle of one of the old oak gate tables in deal, stained a good dark
brown. This is quite large enough to ‘dine’ four people, and can be used to
cut out on, if required; and then when not in use it can be folded back and
put against the wall, thus giving the child or children more room to play
about. This table, a low chair or two, the children’s chairs, and about two or
three rush-seated chairs are quite sufficient furniture for a nursery, if we add
a big cupboard which, if we are lucky enough to have recesses each side of
the fireplace, can easily be constructed by any working carpenter. If there
are no recesses I should put this cupboard in one of the corners of the room;
it would take up less space there, and would not cause as many accidents as
if it stood out into the room, always ready to deal blows to the unsteady
toddler for whose sake such danger must be steadily avoided. The lower
part of the cupboard can be sacred to toys, the higher part to work and
garments in course of construction. All clothes in wear should be placed in
a cupboard in the dressing-room, which room should also contain the
nursery cups and saucers and property generally, and all washing and
dressing matters.
An excellent thing for the nursery is a wide box-ottoman placed in the
window, and if we can have one with sides and ends so much the better, as
this can be turned with the back to the room, and here in a species of crib or
cage, can a young person be placed safely to look out of the window, any
attempts at falling over the back being frustrated by the nearness of the
nurse. Of course baby cannot fall out of the window if open, or through it if
shut, because of the most necessary nursery bars, which must be erected
inside the window, not outside in the ordinary way; in this position they do
double duty, and not only prevent accidents, from the child falling out of the
window, but render it almost impossible for the glass to be broken. Of
course a nursery window should be of plate glass if no other window in the
house is, and should have a cheerful outlook, an amusing outlook being
better for a child than any amount of toys. The window should be absolutely
draught-proof. It must have a ventilator capable of being almost
hermetically sealed in its top pane, and at the same time very easily opened.
It must never be stuffed up with blinds and an undue amount of curtain.
Sunshine means health, and the more sunshine a house or room receives the
better. This should be impressed on a nurse at once, and she should never
have the means of making the room dark and dismal in her hands, or else
she will certainly do so at the very earliest possible opportunity.
Another most excellent thing to have in a nursery where there are
growing children would be a regular hammock on good supports, to be
erected or taken away at will, and to be sufficiently low to ensure that a fall
therefrom would do no harm. This hammock would be as useful as a sofa,
and as amusing as a swing, without the disagreeable after-effects and
danger; and, of course, it should be heaped with the humble pillows, made
of curled paper, in linen cases, which are so invaluable, because they cost
nothing, and can be thrown about genially without doing any amount of
damage at all.
The walls of the nursery must either be pictureless or embellished by
really good autotypes, sufficient of which can be procured for about £5 for
quite a large room. For let nothing allow any mother to put up the glaring
vulgar nursery pictures which one sees so often in children’s rooms, and
which undoubtedly vitiate the children’s tastes, and give them bad and false
ideas of art from their earliest days. Then, too, I most thoroughly
recommend that the amount of toys allowed be of the smallest: a Noah’s
ark, a really good box of bricks, a horse and cart, dolls, and a nice doll’s
house are quite sufficient for any small person. The child who is dependent
on a constant supply of mechanical and expensive toys is a poor thing, and
is never likely to grow up to be much good to itself or to anyone else.
If we arrange our nursery on these lines, and have the dressing-room
also, we should require the simple bed for the nurse only to be brought into
the room for use at night, and the dressing-room should be entirely kept for
dressing purposes.
Our nursery needs a good cupboard. Wallace sells a good deal ‘linen
cupboard,’ which, painted ‘real ivory,’ or electric turquoise enamel, makes a
capital nursery wardrobe, and here the child’s clothes should be kept, while
the nurse should have one of Wallace’s indispensable corner wardrobes for
her dresses, which costs by the way the ridiculous sum of 28s. All that is
required besides is a combination piece of furniture with drawers—toilet-
table and washing-stand combined—and which would give her ample space
for all the linen she possesses. One of Shoolbred’s small bamboo cupboard-
tables would hold boots and shoes and bonnets quite well, and no
accumulations of any kind should be allowed. The nurse’s box must never
be kept in either room, but be relegated at once to the box-room; and
directly a child’s garment is outgrown, or the worse for wear, let it be given
away. The only good I have ever been able to see in a small house is, that
no one can possibly hoard there. If hoarding is begun it cannot be carried
on, because if it were, there would speedily be no room to turn round.
Now, if one room only can be given up for a nursery, it must have
fitments which can be removable at will in case we stay there not longer
than the ordinary three years; or they can be on the lines of a ‘workers’
room,’ I designed for Messrs Wallace & Co., and which said fitments are
part and parcel of the chamber. In the first place the bed must fold up by
day into a species of ‘combined bedstead and bookcase arrangement,’
which is a bed by night, and looks like a bookcase-sideboard by day; and in
the second, another cupboard must be furnished with a shelf to draw out
from above, resting on brackets: on which shelf are to stand the basin ewer,
etc., when in use. The brushes and combs must be shut away, while the
looking-glass should be an ornamental one over the mantelpiece.
With a room such as this the nurse must take the child to its mother
when she herself is dressed, and she must throw up the window and open
the door while she breakfasts with the other maid or maids. She must then
‘do’ her nursery thoroughly, and after that wash and dress the infant. While
the child is quite small this should not be done later than 9 a.m; after it is a
year old it must be dressed before breakfast, and go to its mother while the
nurse has her meal. Indeed, no meals must be allowed in the nursery under
these circumstances; and the fact of there being only one nurse means that
the mother must act as upper nurse herself.
Such a situation I cannot recommend to any girl who has had but little
acquaintance with the ways and manners of an infant. If she undertakes it,
she will always be sending for a doctor; and, much as I love the profession,
I would rather recommend the payment of a good nurse, for, if she is good,
she knows far more about a baby than any doctor can do. He has most
excellent theories, she a great amount of experience to aid her in wrestling
with infantile complaints, which are generally treated far more satisfactorily
by strict attention to diet, exercise and air, than by any amount of the newest
and most wonderful drugs in the world.
If there are a couple of deep recesses, one each side of the fireplace, it
would be quite possible to treat the room on the principles of the worker’s
room and at no great expense. In one recess should be a folding bed, closed
up in a cupboard during the day time, exactly on the same lines as the
Harrow boys’ beds, and into this cupboard all the bedding can be shut. The
second recess should have four or five shelves fitted in, and these should be
covered by doors in three divisions. The upper and lower doors should be
shorter than the centre one, and they should all shut and open quite
independently of each other. The top cupboard should be used for garments;
the second one should enclose two shelves, the lower one of which should
be double width and hinged half way, so that when in use, it could open out
and be brought forward and be supported on folding brackets. This shelf
must be painted with Aspinall’s bath enamel or else covered with white
American leather to resist the action of water; and on this the washing
apparatus must be arranged. Above, on the first shelf, all brushes and combs
may be placed, while the glass over the mantelpiece can be used as a
dressing-glass, or we can have one fixed inside the cupboard door that faces
the light. On the other door should be fixed a brass rod for towels, then all
would be complete. The cupboard under this shelf could be used on one
side for the slop-pail, etc., and on the other for boots and shoes. These
fitments could be made out of deal by any decent amateur carpenter. The
wood could either be ‘goehring,’ which cannot warp or crack, or else well-
seasoned deal, ‘primed for painting.’ It should receive a coat of Aspinall’s
enamel, and after two days have elapsed and allowed that coat to harden
thoroughly, a second should be applied. Paint is saved and a good
decorative effect is obtained by filling in the panels with Japanese leather
paper or else with anaglypta, while carved panels can be bought very
cheaply in the material ‘goehring,’ which of course would require the same
amount of paint as would the rest of the cupboard fitments. Then the
window-seat can either be the box-ottoman one already suggested, sold by
Story & Triggs for about £6, 6s., and called the ‘Desideratum,’ or it can be
made at home from more deal or more ‘goehring.’ In this case the simplest
way to proceed is to put a straight piece of wood right across the bow or
Caldecott window, hiding it by a flounce of cretonne. The back of the
window would form the back of the ottoman, while the bottom could be
made of brown holland, tacked in on the inside all round. The hinges of the
top should be fixed to the back of the window, and the sides should rest on
wooden bars nailed on the sides of the window, and the top should be
composed of a stout deal frame, supplemented by straps of webbing, and on
these straps a cushion should be laid stuffed with flock. This box should be
made very strongly indeed and need cost very little; but although it holds a
great deal, and can be most useful to supplement the cupboards, it can never
be half as serviceable as the real box-ottoman with the ends and sides of
which I have already spoken.

The decoration of such a room as this must depend on the aspect. If this
be very sunny, as indeed it should be, green or blue should be used, the
latter for choice. I do not think anyone who has not tried it can have the
smallest idea how delightful this colour is to live with, or the use of it
would be far more universal than it is even now. Of course people get the
wrong blue, and then rave against it, and rightly too, for a drab or dull shade
is simply awful. There are some shades which go black or grey at night, but
no difficulty is found where Aspinall’s ‘electric turquoise’ or ‘hedge
sparrow egg’ blue is taken as one’s guiding star. An old turquoise, or a
rather dark-coloured duck’s egg are also very useful as guides to colour,
should Aspinall be unprocurable, and the rather prohibitive price (4s. 6d. a
piece) puts Smee’s Panton blue paper entirely out of the market, as far as a
small suburban nursery is concerned. The cupboards and all the paint can
also be of a soft brown shade, and then the dado should either be in
anaglypta painted the same colour, or else in a blue and brown cretonne,
which can be found sometimes at Colbourne’s, or at Liberty’s or at
Oetzmann’s. Above that should be hung one of Knowles’s less expensive
blue papers, if one can get it the right shade and he generally keeps it now,
or the ever-faithful blue ‘Olive-leaf’ on which we cannot improve for a
small room. The furniture should be as advised before, though, if the room
be tiny, and there is only one child, Derry & Toms’ folding-table at 4s. 11d.
is quite large enough for all purposes, and leaves us far more space in the
centre of the room than we should otherwise possess.
If the room is sunless: well, I should like to say that this is impossible:
but, alas! I know that it is not: the room should be done in yellows and
browns, and have blue curtains and carpet. But a sunless room is a crime,
and should never be allowed. Neither should a tree-shaded house be chosen.
Trees mean damp and flies and all sorts of misery; and if the trees which
luxuriate in some suburbs cannot be cut down these suburbs must be
avoided, for trees are all very well in their way, and lovely and pleasant
enough in a big park, but they always come much too close to a small
house, and I personally have been almost crippled with rheumatism and
obliged to make two or three expensive moves, because I did not
understand how very much the nearness of trees to a house had to do with
the damp which caused me so much unnecessary suffering. Besides they
keep out sunshine and light, and moreover harbour insects and dirt; and I
think flies are among those miseries of suburban or country life which are
never properly taken into account when folks think and speak of the
delights of either existence.
By the way talking of flies let me give one or two simple ways of
dealing with these torments and with their friends, the wasps, which
however should never be destroyed heedlessly, because they in their turn
prey on the flies and reduce their numbers pretty considerably. For flies the
eucalyptus spray is a capital treatment, the only drawback being the
extreme stickiness of the eucalyptus water which falls about, and often
marks our cherished possessions. Then, Sanitas is very valuable, and if
people are not sensitive to smells, no flies have ever been found which
would face carbolic acid, a fact that I proved during one damp summer,
when we were almost eaten alive by the little wretches. For one of my
children caught scarlet fever, and the moment the orthodox sheets were
erected, and the mop used freely on the floors to spread about the same
disgusting stuff, with one accord the flies departed, and as far as I can make
out have not yet returned at anyrate in any great numbers. I discovered, too,
that wasps dislike eucalyptus, but not as much as flies do (these by the way
retreat also before paraffin), while they vanished absolutely before Liberty’s
‘joss sticks.’ These when burned liberally, kept them entirely at bay, and
that in a year when the newspapers were filled with complaints as to their
numbers and ferocity. Gnats are sometimes circumvented by hanging
‘southernwood’ on the bed, or about the windows, while, if the house be old
or much covered with creepers—I advise nothing but tiny virginian creepers
and clematis, roses bring blight and increase one’s insect troubles at once—
it is absolutely necessary to stretch very fine black gauze or net on a frame
to cover entirely the window outside. This keeps out every insect, does not
show, and does not keep out the very smallest amount of air or light. Only
are earwigs circumvented by these means, or by a liberal use of
disinfectants and of paraffin, but such remedies are to me worse than the
disease and can only be employed if folks are not highly sensitive to smells.
Carbolic makes me physically sick for hours at a time, and I think even the
worst plague of flies which was ever experienced is better than the misery
and discomfort of almost perpetual nausea. But when carbolic has not this
effect it should undoubtedly be largely used to keep all insects at bay.
Now let us just for one moment describe a suburban house where decent
nurseries are possible, where a good spare room is left, and a bedroom and
dressing-room do exist, and which yet costs no more than £95 a year, for I
see no reason why all small suburban houses should not be built on these
lines. The staircase comes up from the hall to a narrow landing; on the left
hand is the spare-room door, opposite that are good bed and dressing-
rooms; and then on the right is an arch, beyond which are bathroom, day
and night nurseries and a nursery pantry, designed first as a dressing-room
to the room used for the night nursery.
This arrangement is small but perfect, for if infectious disease entered
the nurseries, they could be isolated in one moment by a match boarding
doorway erected in the arch and protected each side by the usual carbolic
sheets. The strength of the carbolic, by the way, is 1 in 20, and the sheets
are kept damp with an ordinary garden syringe. At the first hint of infection
the rooms should be cleared of all superfluous furniture and draperies, and
the carpets taken away and cleaned at once, while all floors should be
mopped at least twice a day with the same carbolic as used for the sheets,
etc., and in this every article used in the sick-room must be steeped before it
leaves the place. Every mother and every nurse should know what to do on
an emergency, and the moment anything infectious appears, the utmost
precautions must be taken to prevent a spread of the complaint. Of course
the doctor and the master of the house notify the complaint at once to the
authorities, but the neighbours on each side and in front and back should be
told too, and the tradesmen be warned; indeed, no precautions are too great
to ensure that no one shall suffer by our fault or our carelessness and
selfishness. Remember that we may be unconscious murderers if we are not
super-careful at such times, for some child may die because we have not
sufficiently realised the situation, or known how really wrong it is to run the
very tiniest risk of giving someone else anything that may be fatal. As
children more especially are liable to take infectious diseases the nurseries
cannot be too lightly furnished, though of course, comfort must not in any
way be neglected, nor must draughts be allowed. All curtains and portières
must be washed, and the carpet and all furniture be removed at once, even if
it have to be stored in the passages and other rooms, and be greatly in the
way of the other inhabitants of the house. If the children have pets the dogs
and cats must be washed with carbolic soap and water, and sent away at
once, and the canaries must be removed downstairs. I do not think anyone
realises how easily cats and dogs can spread complaints, else I should not
have heard my nurse exclaim, ‘Oh! I should never have thought of sending
away the dogs.’ Neither, by the same token, would the doctor, although both
our dogs were in the habit of reposing on the beds, and one at least had
extremely long hair.
To sum up briefly the necessities of a healthy nursery, I should say that
they include two easily-isolated rooms, plenty of sun and air as opposed to
heat and draughts, and above all, spotless cleanliness and well-made,
simply-designed furniture, which can be easily moved, which allows of no
accumulations, and which finally can be kept by the nurse herself in a state
of perfect dustlessness without an undue amount of labour. Under these
circumstances even a suburban house can be made to do its duty and to
provide the proper accommodation for our future citizens the children of the
home.
 CHAPTER VIII

BEDROOMS

In the rooms set aside for the purposes of rest and sleep, I venture to remark
that the ordinary builder, to say nothing of the ordinary decorator, rises to
his very worst heights of villainy, and makes the task before us one of
almost superhuman effort. I have had three of these houses to live in, and in
all of them, when the doors did not face the only possible place to put the
bed, they came exactly at the side of the fire, and left no space whatever to
put a sofa, let alone a comfortable armchair should one be ill and have to
remain in one’s room longer than the hours which are set apart for repose.
And as illness is always possible, and moreover more than possible is it
vain to ask when further ‘eligible sites’ are cut up for building, that the
landlords of the future will kindly keep an eye on the

BEDROOM.

plans and ensure the houses being built in such a way that it is possible to
live in them without an undue expenditure of money or resources? How I
should love to design just for once the small ideal house with its square hall,
capable of being used as an extra sitting-room or a billiard-room, we need
not then have the ‘three reception-rooms’ which sound so grand and mean
so little. Upstairs should be three good bedrooms and a dressing-room, bath
and day nursery; the servants’ rooms and box-room in their turn above
these, and whenever possible, reached by a separate staircase. I see no
reason why such a house with reasonable and rational servants’ downstairs
accommodation, as already described, should be out of the reach of the
usual suburban resident with his £800 to £1000 a year.
If arranged in this compact and comfortable style, and if every labour-
saving appliance that is obtainable is introduced, the number of servants
required would be minimised. A great consideration in these days, when
though we are always being badgered to help the unemployed no one seems
able to get any servants, and, even if they are forthcoming, they have to be
paid double the old prices, while they do half the amount of work. At least
that is what I am always hearing. Personally, I have never found any
difficulty in obtaining all the maids I myself require.
At the same time, if I were building ever so small a house, I should
undoubtedly have hot and cold water taps and a waste pipe in every
bedroom and dressing-room, and would even go as far as to have fixed
washing-stands there too. I would put at least one cupboard in each room,
also a window-seat, and, of course, the regulation tiled hearth and slow-
combustion stove with its tiled surround and its simple black fender. The
short curtains to the windows, the carefully-selected pictures and
ornaments, and the matted floor should all help to make the work light, and
to render it unnecessary to keep any superfluous number of maids.
But we have at present to do with the suburban residence as it is and not
as it might be, and therefore it is not much use in dreaming about
perfection, for if we do we shall most certainly be disappointed, and do no
real good at all. We shall have to combat shrunken doors and ill-fitting
windows, poor grates and bad floors, and therefore the sooner we set about
remedying these faults the better it will be for us. I do most certainly advise
that whatever else is put up with, the usual black wide-mouthed all-
devouring grate may be altered and replaced with some kind of a very
simple slow-combustion one. These grates can be bought for £3 or £4 at
Shuffery’s in Welbeck Street, and will probably save their cost in coal in
one month’s use. Besides which they will ensure the warmth and comfort
which cannot possibly exist without them; for pile on coal as we may on the
grate of the past, the heat goes mostly up the chimney, while the fuel is
exactly as useful as regards keeping the fire in, as would be leaves or pieces
of paper. Our sole occupation with such a grate is to jump up every five
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