Classicly

Go from the rich to the poor among our gentry—from the gilded upper stratum to the lower base and barren subsoil—and here again we find that mistresses are as much to blame as the maids, whose shortcomings they bewail and resent. In a household of this kind, the res angusta domi prevents the hiring, because rendering impossible the payment, of good and well-trained servants; and the mistress has to be content with young girls whom she must teach, and whose untutored services she buys at small cost.

But here, again, the modern spirit of the age spoils what else might seem to be a return to old and wholesome conditions. Nine times out of ten, the mistress is as incapable of teaching as the maid is slow of learning; for we must remember that untrained girls of this sort are generally taken from the most humble class, and that they come into service with but little natural brightness of wit and less educational sharpening. The mistress expects too much from them.