CHAPTER II

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE EDUCATION (PROVISION OF MEALS) ACT

We propose in this chapter to describe the manner in which the Local Education Authorities are administering the Act of 1906. We shall see that the adoption of the Act has been by no means universal and that in many towns provision is still made by voluntary agencies. Where the Act has been put in force we shall find the greatest diversity of practice in such matters as the selection of the children, the dietary provided and the manner in which the meals are served. One Local Authority will construe its duties under the Act in the narrowest sense, cutting down the number of children to be fed to the minimum, and serving the meals with the least possible expense. Another authority will look on the school meal as a valuable means for improving the physique of its scholars; it will endeavour to secure that all children who are underfed shall be given school meals; the dietary will be carefully planned, while, in the matter of the service of the meals, the aim will be to make these in every way educational. We shall see that meals are as a rule given only during term-time, holiday feeding out of rates being held to be illegal, while many authorities limit their operations to the winter months. Most authorities have confined their provision almost entirely to necessitous children, the plan of providing meals as a matter of convenience for children of parents who are at work all day or are otherwise prevented from preparing a midday meal, and who would be able and willing to pay for school dinners, finding but little favour. We shall describe the arrangements made in the Special Schools for defective children, where a dinner is provided either for all children attending the school or for all those who care to stay, and in the Day Industrial Schools, where the provision of three meals a day for all is the rule. We shall discuss the extent to which the provision of meals by the Local Education Authority overlaps the relief given by the Poor Law Guardians. Finally we shall touch upon the question of underfeeding in the rural districts, where the problem is little less urgent than in the towns.

(a)--The Adoption of the Act.

The Provision of Meals Act came into force on December 21, 1906. As we have seen, it was merely permissive and its adoption was, therefore, only gradual.[176] Many Local Education Authorities contented themselves with making arrangements with voluntary agencies, the Education Committee continuing the already common practice of providing accommodation and apparatus, and the voluntary society providing as hitherto funds for the food. Thus, at Hull, the Education Authority co-operated with the Hull School Children's Help Society, which had been founded in 1885 for the provision of free meals. This arrangement was continued till 1908, when the Society's funds were exhausted and recourse was had to the rates.[177] At Scarborough, the Amicable Society, which had been founded in 1729 "for clothing and educating the children of the poor of Scarborough," arranged with the Education Authority that the provision of meals should be organised through a Joint Committee of the two bodies.[178] At Liverpool, where the provision of meals had been undertaken since the early part of 1906, before the Act was passed, by a voluntary committee consisting of members of the Education Committee, the Central Relief Society, the Guardians and others, this system was continued for some years. In spite of strenuous opposition in 1908 from the Labour party and the local Fabian Society, who complained that the numbers fed were far below the number in need of food, and that no proper attempt was made to ascertain the extent of the need, a special committee appointed by the Education Committee to investigate the whole question reported that the existing voluntary system was adequate. It was not till November, 1909, that the Education Committee resolved that, "after full consideration of the circumstances and after having regard to the fact that it has been necessary to call upon the general public on two occasions during each year for subscriptions to the funds, the Committee cannot but conclude that the time has now come when the provisions of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 1906, should be put into force, and, therefore, _though with great reluctance_," they recommended that application be made to the Board of Education for power to levy a rate.[179]

Footnote 176:

Aston Manor was the first town to apply for authority to levy a rate. Bradford, Manchester, and other towns soon followed. During the year ended March 31, 1908, 40 authorities were authorised to levy a rate. During the two following years the number was increased to 85 and 96 respectively. (Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, p. 8; Report of the Board of Education for 1908-9, p. 123; ditto for 1909-10, p. 62.)

Footnote 177:

Appendix to Minutes of the Hull Education Committee, October 22, 1909.

Footnote 178:

Report of the Scarborough Amicable Society for 1910, pp. 5, 8.

Footnote 179:

"Feeding the Children," by H. Beswick, in the _Clarion_, October 11, 1912.

Leicester, perhaps, furnishes the most notable example of the survival of the voluntary principle. In 1906, when the Provision of Meals Bill was before Parliament, the Town Council appears to have been in favour of it. After the Act was passed, however, the Leicester branch of the Charity Organisation Society opposed its adoption. At a conference between representatives of the Charity Organisation Society and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a scheme was formulated for administering the Act from voluntary funds. The scheme was accepted by the Town Council, and the formation of the Children's Aid Association was the result.[180] This body consists chiefly of members of the Charity Organisation Society and of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, with a small minority representing the Education Committee. In spite of considerable opposition from the Labour party, who demand that the Act shall be put into force, meals are still provided by this Association out of voluntary funds.[181]

Footnote 180:

First Annual Report of the Leicester Children's Aid Association, 1907-8, p. 3.

Footnote 181:

For a description of the methods adopted, see post, pp. 96-7. A somewhat similar system is in force at Chesterfield, where the arrangements for feeding are made by the Civic Guild, the expense being borne out of their funds. The Education Committee is represented on the General Council and Executive Committee of the Guild in a general sense, not in connection with feeding alone. Cases of children requiring food are reported by the Attendance Officers, and are fed at once by the Guild, investigation being made afterwards. If help is found necessary the whole family is adequately relieved. Arrangements are usually made for the children to be fed at eating-houses. The number of children so dealt with is very small.

This delay on the part of the Local Authorities in towns where, it was asserted, it was notorious that children suffered from want of food,[182] led to an attempt to make the School Medical Officer responsible for determining whether or not it was necessary to put the Act in force. In December, 1908, a Bill was introduced by the Labour party with the object of providing that, when requested by the Education Committee, by a majority of the managers, or by the head teachers, the Local Authority should provide for the medical inspection of the children for the purpose of determining whether they were suffering from insufficient or improper food; if the medical inspector reported that the children were so suffering, the Local Authority should be obliged to provide food. The Bill was not proceeded with, and the same fate befell four similar Bills introduced within the next five years.[183]

Footnote 182:

_Hansard_, April 23, 1909, 5th Series, Vol. 3, p. 1797.

Footnote 183:

Education (Administrative Provisions) Bill, December 8, 1908; February 19, 1909; April 14, 1910; February 19, 1912; April 15, 1913.

In 1911-1912, out of 322 Local Education Authorities in England and Wales, 131 were returned as making some provision for the feeding of school children (_i.e._ 13 counties, including London, 57 County Boroughs, 35 Boroughs and 26 Urban Districts).[184] Of these 95 were spending rates on the provision of food; 19 were spending rates on administrative charges only (accommodation, apparatus, etc.), the cost of food being borne by voluntary funds; whilst in the remaining 17 areas[185] the cost of both food and administration was met by voluntary contributions.

Footnote 184:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 320-322, 329.

Footnote 185:

The most important of these are Leicester, Sunderland, and Barnsley.

The steady decrease in the amount derived from voluntary contributions, and the increase in rates are shown by the following table :--[186]

Rates L Voluntary Miscellaneous sources Total. Contribution L (contributions from parents, Poor Law Guardians, etc.) L

For the year 67,524 17,831 335 85,690 1908-9

For the year 125,372 9,813 906 136,091 1909-10

For the year 140,875 7,537 1,370 149,782 1910-11

For the year 151,763 3,064 2,292 157,127 1911-12

Footnote 186:

See Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, p. 30, and (for London) p. 24; ditto for the year ended March 31, 1910, p. 20; Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1910, p. 309; ditto for 1911, p. 332. The voluntary contributions are understated in the figures for 1908-9, and possibly throughout. The returns for 1908-9, for instance, do not include Liverpool, where the whole cost was defrayed by voluntary contributions, and no financial details were supplied to the Board.

The discrepancy in the total for 1911-12 is due to the fact that the figures in the several columns are not given exactly, but to the nearest L.

The total number of children fed is given in the returns for 1911 as 124,685.[187] This, however, does not include a few counties and towns which did not return the number fed during the year. In most of these areas the number fed is very small, but at Barnsley the number attending daily was about 2,917, and in London the highest number fed in any one week during the year was 44,983. If we take these figures as representing roughly between two-fifths and one half of the total number of children who were fed at some time or other during the year, we get a total of about 230,000,[188] out of a total school population of 5,357,567.[189]

Footnote 187:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 322-24, 330.

Footnote 188:

This does not include children fed at Day Industrial Schools, Open Air Schools or, with one or two exceptions, Special Schools for Mentally or Physically Defective Children.

Footnote 189:

This number represents the average attendance at the ordinary Elementary Schools, not the total number on the rolls. (Statistics of Public Education in England and Wales, 1911-12, Part I., pp. 27, 333.)

In most towns where the Act has been adopted the amount spent on food is well within the limit of the halfpenny rate. In 1911-12, only Bradford and Stoke-on-Trent exceeded the limit, the latter (by an inconsiderable sum) owing to the coal strike. At Bradford the rate has almost from the first been annually exceeded by a considerable amount.[190] This excess is due partly to the numbers fed (a large proportion of the children receiving breakfasts as well as dinners), partly to the fact that the meals are continued throughout the holidays. The Local Government Board Auditor has regularly surcharged the excess expenditure, but the Finance Committee defrays it out of the Corporation trading profits, which are not subject to the Local Government Board audit.

Footnote 190:

In 1908-9, by L1,645; in 1909-10, by L2,370; in 1910-11, by L1,163, and in 1911-12, by L374. (Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, p. 26; Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1910, p. 304; ditto for 1911, p. 317.)

The limitation of the rate has in some towns undoubtedly restricted operations. In 1909, for instance, the Workington Education Committee were reluctantly obliged, owing to the exhaustion of the funds raised by the halfpenny rate, to stop the meals at a time of great distress.[191] At East Ham, the product of a halfpenny rate not being sufficient for a whole year, meals can only be given during the winter months.[192]

Footnote 191:

_Hansard_, April 23, 1909, 5th Series, Vol. 3, pp. 1862-1863. A similar complaint was received from Hartlepool. (_Ibid._)

Footnote 192:

See Minutes of Kingston-on-Hull Provision of Meals Sub-Committee, March 24, 1911, Appendix, p. 16. The abortive Bills introduced in 1908 and the following years by Labour members contained a clause that the limitation of the rate should be abolished.

We may note that the power of the Local Education Authorities to provide food for necessitous children is not limited to their powers under the Provision of Meals Act. By the Education Act of 1902 grants may be given for the maintenance of children at Secondary Schools. At Bradford, at any rate, in quite a number of cases this grant is earmarked for providing school meals.[193] More important is the power to provide three meals daily for all children attending Day Industrial Schools. These children are drawn very largely from the class to whom free meals would have to be given if they were attending the ordinary elementary schools.[194] Again, necessitous children who are physically or mentally defective can receive meals at the Special Schools, and the cost of the food (and other expenses) can be charged to the Special Schools account. Thus, at Liverpool, dinner is provided for all defective children, this provision having been undertaken deliberately as part of the school curriculum long before the Provision of Meals Act was passed. The class of physically defective children for whom Special Schools can be provided include not only cripples, but all children who are certified by a doctor to be "by reason of ... physical defect ... incapable of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in the ordinary public elementary schools."[195] This wide definition enables the School Medical Officer to send to the Open Air Schools, which several Local Authorities have established, and at which one or more meals a day are provided, not only children suffering from definite diseases, but also those who are underfed, anaemic and generally debilitated, to whom the fresh air, healthy life and regular, wholesome meals prove an inestimable boon.

Footnote 193:

"School Feeding," by Wm. Leach, in the _Crusade_, November, 1911 (Vol. 2, p. 192).

Footnote 194:

For a fuller account of the arrangements made for providing food at the Day Industrial Schools and the Special Schools see post, pp. 117-122.

Footnote 195:

Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act, 1899 (62 and 63 Vict., c. 32, sec. 1 (1)).

(b)--Canteen Committees, their constitution and functions.

The arrangements for carrying out the Provision of Meals Act are usually in the hands of a Committee called variously the School Canteen Committee, the Children's Care Committee, the Underfed Children's Meals Committee, or, as at Leicester, the Children's Aid Association. The constitution of this Committee varies in different towns. Sometimes it is composed entirely of members of the Education Committee.[196] Sometimes outside bodies, such as Boards of Guardians and voluntary agencies, are represented upon it. Thus at Crewe the Children's Care Committee consists of representatives of the Local Education Authority, teachers, Guardians and various voluntary societies.[197] At Leicester the members of the Education Committee are in the minority, the Children's Aid Association being composed chiefly of members of the Charity Organisation Society and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Elsewhere the Committee may be composed entirely, or almost entirely, of voluntary workers. Thus at Leeds, where all the members are women, all, except the Chairman and Vice-chairman, who are members of the Education Committee, are voluntary workers; two Inspectors attend the meetings and carry recommendations to the Education Committee, but they do not vote. At Bury St. Edmunds, where the Committee is also composed of women members, the only representative of the Education Committee is the official who holds the post of Borough Treasurer and Secretary to the Education Committee. At Bournemouth the schools are grouped under four District Care Committees, composed of voluntary workers nominated by the School Managers, and of representatives of the head teachers, the School Attendance Officers being _ex officio_ members. These District Care Committees are controlled by a Central Care Committee, composed partly of members of the Education Committee, and partly of co-opted members. The School Medical Officer here, as in some other towns, is an _ex officio_ member.[198]

Footnote 196:

As at Birkenhead, Bradford, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Stoke, West Ham.

Footnote 197:

Report of School Medical Officer for Crewe, 1911, p. 23.

Footnote 198:

Report of the School Medical Officer for Bournemouth for 1911, pp. 5-7.

The functions of the Canteen Committee also vary in different towns. Sometimes, as at Bradford, all the arrangements for the management of the centres and the decision as to which children shall be fed are in the hands of the Committee. At Leeds the Committee has no executive power, its functions being limited to making recommendations to the Education Committee as to the management of the dining centres. At Bury St. Edmunds each member of the Committee is responsible for one school, making arrangements with caterers for the feeding of the children and visiting the homes. This visiting of the homes is rarely, if ever, undertaken by members of the Canteen Committee, unless it is composed of voluntary workers.

(c)--The Selection of the Children.

In the selection of the children who are to receive school meals two methods may be adopted. The selection may be based either on the physical condition of the child or on the economic circumstances of the family. The majority of the children selected will, of course, be the same whichever method is adopted, since the child will generally be found to be under-nourished if the family income is inadequate, and vice versa; but there are some children who, although the family income is comparatively good, are yet, for some cause or other, underfed, and these will be excluded if the "poverty test" is the only criterion used. From the first the Board of Education has urged that the "physical test" should be used as well as the "poverty test." The administration of the Provision of Meals Act should be carried on in the closest co-operation with the School Medical Service.[199] The School Medical Officer should approve the dietary, he should supervise the quality, quantity, cooking and service of the food and should inspect the feeding centres.[200] In the selection of the children he should take an important part. Not only should he recommend for school meals all cases of bad or insufficient nutrition observed in the course of medical inspection. "The end to be aimed at," writes Sir George Newman, "is that all children admitted to the meals should be medically examined by the School Medical Officer either before, or as soon as possible after, admission."[201] That is to say, the Provision of Meals Act should not be considered primarily as a measure for the relief of distress; "the physical and mental well-being of [the] children ... should be regarded as the principal object to be kept in view."[202]

Footnote 199:

"When a system of medical inspection of school children such as already exists under several Local Education Authorities has been established, the School Canteen Committee, so far as its operations are concerned with underfed, ill-nourished or destitute children, should work in intimate connection with the school medical officer." (Circular issued by the Board of Education, January 1, 1907, in Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, p. 44.) "It is obviously desirable that any arrangements made by a Local Education Authority under the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 1906 ... should be co-ordinated, as far as possible, with the arrangements for medical inspection under the Act of 1907." (Board of Education, Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools in England, 1908, p. ii.) The general supervision of the administration of the Act was placed in the hands of the Board's Medical Department.

Footnote 200:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1910, p. 254.

Footnote 201:

_Ibid._ for 1911, p. 276. This course is strongly urged by the School Medical Officer for Portsmouth. "_All_ children, however selected, either by the physical or poverty test, _should be examined by the School Medical Officer_. This in many areas would involve a good deal of extra work on many medical men who find their time already fully occupied. Yet if any work is worth doing it is worth doing well, and here it is that the value of the School Medical Officer comes in, by culling and recording facts relating to the personal condition of the child, as well as the home conditions and surroundings of his or her life." ("The Importance of a Well-advised and Comprehensive Scheme in the Selection of Children ... under the Education (Provision of Meals) Act," by Victor J. Blake, in _Rearing an Imperial Race_, edited by C. E. Hecht, 1913, pp. 22-23.)

Footnote 202:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 275.

Very few authorities have made any attempt to select the children primarily or even to any great extent on the "physical test." In Brighton the plan has perhaps been tried with more thoroughness than in any other town. When, in 1907, the Education Committee undertook the provision of meals in association with the Voluntary Canteen Committee, it was resolved that "the term 'underfed' ... should be held to apply distinctively to those scholars who, by reason of more or less continuous antecedent underfeeding, are physically below a certain specified standard of size and weight. These cases, which must of course be the first consideration of any feeding scheme, can only be scientifically detected by a detailed system of medical weighing and examination, and when so detected should be dealt with in accordance with medical advice."[203] Accordingly all the children for whom an application for free meals is made are weighed and measured, and the Canteen Committee, when deciding whether any particular child shall be fed or not, has before it this report as to the child's physical condition. Whether the meals are supplied free depends on the economic circumstances of the family. If the child needs meals on medical grounds but the income is adequate, a circular is sent to the parent warning him of the child's condition. Sometimes the parent will be willing for meals to be supplied on payment of the cost. If the parent refuses to pay, meals are not granted, but the name of the child is placed on a special list for observation.[204] Roughly about fifty per cent. of the children are fed solely on economic grounds and fifty per cent. on medical grounds.[205]

Footnote 203:

Brighton Education Committee, Report of Canteen Joint Branch Sub-Committee, July 17, 1907. There were, of course, also the cases of "necessitous" children who did not appear on medical grounds to be suffering from malnutrition, but who, from the economic circumstances of the parents, were unable to obtain sufficient food. Children to whom the provision of a mid-day meal would be a convenience, and whose parents were able and willing to pay the cost, should also be provided for. (_Ibid._)

Footnote 204:

We have not been able to ascertain exactly what happens to these children on the "watching" list. In 1910 the School Medical Officer reports that they "are examined at intervals by the school doctor, and their progress is noted, the [Canteen] Committee taking such action as is recommended. Enquiries are also carried out by the school nurse, under the supervision of the school doctor, as to the nature of the meals given at home in these cases." (Report on the Medical Inspection of School Children in Brighton for 1910, p. 134.) These home visits by the school nurse are no longer paid.

Footnote 205:

In 1911, out of 1,050 children who received free meals, 54 were not examined, 550 were recommended by the school doctor on medical grounds, 446 were fed solely on economic grounds. (_Ibid._ for 1911, p. 119.) In 1912, out of 1,070 children fed, 69 were not examined, 422 were recommended on medical and 579 on economic grounds. (_Ibid._ for 1912, p. 122.)

At Heston and Isleworth, the Canteen Sub-Committee decided in 1911 to obtain from the School Medical Officer a report on the state of each child before determining whether it required school meals.[206] At Lancaster also all children who are recommended for free meals are seen by the School Medical Officer.[207]

Footnote 206:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 277.

Footnote 207:

Report of School Medical Officer for Lancaster for 1911, p. 26.

But these cases are exceptional. In 1909 "the number of Local Education Authorities who left the final selection in the hands of the School Medical Officer, or acted exclusively upon his recommendation or required every application to be endorsed by him," was, so far as the information of the Board of Education extended, less than a dozen.[208] In 1911 Sir George Newman writes, "it is true that in the majority of cases the School Medical Officer takes some part ... in the work connected with the provision of meals, but the number of cases in which he exercises all the functions ... appropriately devolving upon him are very few indeed."[209] In the great majority of towns, though the School Medical Officer may recommend for school meals children whom he finds suffering from malnutrition in the course of medical inspection, the greater number of children are selected on the "poverty test."

Footnote 208:

Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, up to March 31, 1909, pp. 12-13.

Footnote 209:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 273.

As a rule the primary selection is made by the teachers, either on their own initiative or on receiving requests from the parents. The School Nurse, the Attendance Officer or perhaps a member of the local Guild of Help may also recommend cases.

Sometimes a personal application by the parent at the Education Offices or before the Canteen Committee is insisted on. Thus at Manchester the parents have to make application either at the Education Offices or at any of the district centres, of which there are twenty-four, situated in different parts of the town, and open at convenient hours. The teachers can advise children, whom they consider to be in need of food, to tell their parents to apply, but they take no further part in the selection of the children. At West Ham also the parents have to apply at the Public Hall or Education Office. The section of the Act dealing with repayment is read to the applicant, who then decides whether or not he wishes his children to be fed.[210] On the parent's signing a form (by which he agrees to repay the cost of meals when he gets into work[211]), tickets are issued for a week, pending enquiry. The parent is expected to send a note to the head teacher each day to say that he or she still wishes the child to be fed.[212] This personal application has to be renewed every month. The teachers are allowed to give urgency tickets for three meals, but if the parents fail to apply the meals have to be discontinued. At Erith "no breakfasts are supplied till the parents have registered at the Distress Committee (if eligible), or have made personal application there, or at the Education Office."[213] At Leicester, again, the parent has to make personal application at the office of the Canteen Committee, and this application has to be renewed every month. At Birmingham, except in special cases, the parent has to attend the meeting of the Committee; if he fails to appear, after being given a second chance, the child, who has meanwhile been temporarily receiving the meals, is removed from the feeding list.[214]

Footnote 210:

Report of West Ham Education Committee for the year ending March 31, 1910, p. 51. This is the procedure now in force.

Footnote 211:

See post, p. 110.

Footnote 212:

We were informed by the head teacher of an infants' department that she did not insist on a note being sent more than two or three times a week.

Footnote 213:

Report of Erith Education Committee for the three years ending March 31, 1911.

Footnote 214:

_The Public Feeding of Elementary School Children_, by Phyllis D. Winder, 1913, p. 27.

The primary selection of the children having been made, by whatever method, enquiry is then made into the home circumstances of the family. The object of this enquiry is or should be twofold: to ascertain the resources of the family, so as to determine whether the parents are able to provide adequate food for the child or not, and to find out whether help is needed in any other direction, and by friendly advice to improve the conditions of the home. We shall discuss later the great advantages to be obtained from the employment of voluntary workers for the purpose of these friendly home visits, as distinct from the duty of making enquiries.[215] Here it is sufficient to note that very few Education Authorities have made use of their services at all.[216] The most notable example is, of course, furnished by the London Care Committees. A somewhat similar system has been adopted at Bournemouth. Here, as we have seen, the schools have been divided into four groups, and a Care Committee appointed for each. The members investigate the circumstances of children who are alleged to be in want of food and report to their Committee, which thereupon decides whether or not the children shall receive free meals. At Liverpool a tentative effort has been made in the same direction. Care Committees, managed by the different settlements, have for some years been attached to some half-dozen schools, but their position is rather indefinite. The enquiries are made by the School Attendance Officers, but the Education Committee asks the Care Committee for reports on special cases. At one school the Care Committee appears to visit all the cases. A wider scheme for the establishment of a system of Care Committees is at the present time (1913) under consideration. At Brighton also, where Care Committees have been appointed, mainly for the purpose of finding employment and generally supervising the children when they leave school, a Care visitor is sometimes asked to supplement the enquiries of the School Attendance Officers in doubtful cases where further investigation is needed. At Leicester the enquiries are made by a paid investigator appointed by the Children's Aid Association, subsequent friendly visits being paid by voluntary workers.[217] In most towns, however, the work of enquiry is undertaken solely by the School Attendance Officers.[218]

Footnote 215:

See post, pp. 145 _et seq._

Footnote 216:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1910, pp. 107-8; ditto for 1911, pp. 104-5. In several of the few towns where Care Committees have been appointed, they take no part in the work of feeding the children, their functions being confined to the "following up" of medical cases and perhaps the finding of employment for the children when they leave school.

Footnote 217:

At Southend-on-Sea enquiry is made by the Civic Guild into many of the cases. (Report of the School Medical Officer for Southend-on-Sea for 1911, p. 54.) At Bradford the Canteen Committee communicates to the Guild of Help the names of all the new cases which are put on the feeding list. The members of the Guild thereupon visit any cases in which other help besides the meals is needed.

Footnote 218:

As at Birkenhead, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Salford, Sheffield, Stoke, etc. At Birkenhead an attendance officer has been specially appointed for this purpose. At Bradford a special constable has been told off to make enquiries in difficult cases.

The thoroughness of the investigation varies considerably in different towns. The parent's statements as to the amount of wages earned are in some cases checked by enquiries from the employers. At Birmingham the wages are always thus verified where the worker is employed by one firm regularly. At Bradford the wages are verified except when the applicants are working on their own account, for instance hawking, when it is clearly impossible. Generally enquiry is made from the employer as to the wages of the head of the house only, but at Leeds and at Leicester the wages of all earning members of the family are verified. At Leicester in doubtful cases enquiries may be made from the employer as often as once a week. In other towns, as at Stoke and York, where the current rates of wages are well known, wages are only verified when there is any doubt as to the parent's statement. At Bootle little attempt is made to verify the information given by the parents. Here the enquiries are made--so far as they can be said to be made at all--by the teachers. The help of the Attendance Officer can be asked in difficult cases, but this appears to be seldom done. The teachers naturally have no time to visit the homes, and the enquiry generally resolves itself into a form being given to the child for its parent to fill up. The parents are asked to state the rent, the number in the family and the total weekly income, taking the average for four weeks. When one considers the difficulty normally experienced in filling up forms correctly, one can readily imagine that the information thus obtained is practically valueless. Where the answers are unintelligible--an occurrence by no means rare to judge from the few specimens of case papers which we have seen--the information may be supplemented by questioning the children.

Often urgency tickets can be issued by the teachers, pending enquiries, as at Bradford, Birmingham, Bootle and Liverpool. At Birkenhead the teacher can only report the need for meals, but the enquiries only take two or three days. At Leeds we were told that a week or ten days generally elapses between the time of application and the child's being placed on the list, with the result that in some cases the most urgent need is passed. It is true that the head teachers can secure a child's being placed immediately on the list by writing specially to the Education Office, but to do this every time would involve a considerable expenditure on postage, which is not refunded.

When investigation has been made into the home circumstances, the decision as to whether or no the child shall be fed is made generally by the Canteen Committee or by a small sub-committee of this Committee, or perhaps by the Chairman.[219] Sometimes the responsibility rests with the Secretary of the Education Committee or some other official, as at Acton and Leeds. At Bournemouth the cases are decided by the District Care Committees, which are composed of voluntary workers and teachers. At Bootle the decision appears to rest entirely in the teachers' hands.

Footnote 219:

Thus, at Birkenhead, where the Canteen Committee meets very seldom, the cases are decided by the Chairman.

The decision is based on a consideration of the family income. Many authorities have adopted a scale. At Birmingham meals are granted if the income per head, after rent is deducted, does not exceed 2s. 9d. in winter or 2s. 6d. in summer.[220] In Bootle the income limit, in summer and winter alike, is 3s. 6d. for an adult and 2s. 6d. for each child under 14.[221] When we consider, however, the slipshod method of enquiry pursued at Bootle, we cannot attach much importance to the existence on paper of this scale. At Bradford dinners are given if the income does not exceed 3s. per head; if the income is less than 2s., breakfasts also are given. This scale is taken only as a rough criterion of the needs of the family. Special circumstances are taken into account, such as the size of the family, sickness, old debts, etc. And where the circumstances of the family are slightly above the point at which free meals may be given, the parents are often allowed to receive them on paying 1/2d. or 1d. towards the cost. At Leeds, on the other hand, the scale, which is a low one (2s. in winter and 1s. 6d. in summer) is, we are informed, rigidly observed. No regard is paid to the circumstances of the family. As a rule, directly the family income rises above the limit, the child's dinners are stopped, no matter how much debt has to be paid off. A delicate child who needed feeding or an underfed neglected child would not be fed if the income was above the limit. At Liverpool the scale is 2s. per head; at Stoke it is 2s. 6d.; at Brighton it is 3s. per adult, two children being reckoned as one adult. In all these towns the limit is not a hard and fast one, regard being paid to any special circumstances. At Manchester a sliding scale has been adopted. If there are five or more in the family the limit is 2s. 6d. per head, if there are only three or four 2s. 9d. is allowed, while if there are only one or two 3s. is allowed.[222] At Salford the limit is 10s. per week for two persons, and 2s. extra for each additional member of the family, rent not being deducted. In other towns, as at Birkenhead, Bournemouth, Leicester and West Ham, there is no fixed scale, each case being decided on its merits.

Footnote 220:

_The Public Feeding of Elementary School Children_, by Phyllis D. Winder, 1913, p. 26.

Footnote 221:

Report of Bootle School Canteen Committee, 1911-12, p. 3.

Footnote 222:

Report of the Manchester Education Committee, 1910-11, p. 221.

As a rule the cases are revised about once a month. Sometimes chronic cases will be continued for two or three months at a time, as at Liverpool. At York the cases are revised only twice a year. At the beginning of the winter the head teachers send in lists of children whom they consider to be necessitous. These children (if the Cases Selection Sub-Committee decide to feed them) remain on the feeding list till the following April, when the head teachers are asked to send in a list of children who they consider need not receive meals during the summer. The Attendance Officers visit again and the cases are revised by the Committee. This method is said to be satisfactory as, though officially the cases are revised so seldom, practically the circumstances are known, since the Attendance Officers regularly visit the homes in the course of their ordinary work and the Chairman of the Canteen Committee knows many of the children intimately. At Bootle, where, as we have seen, the decision as to which children shall be fed is practically in the hands of the teachers, there seems to be no system of revising the cases, and the tendency is for a child who is once put on the feeding list to remain on it till the meals are discontinued in the summer, unless the parents voluntarily withdraw the child on an improvement in the home circumstances.

Without discussing here the question whether it is possible to devise any system of selection which can be satisfactory, we may note some of the disadvantages of the methods at present in use. In the first place, since the selection is made in the main through the teachers, it necessarily follows that the numbers fed in any particular school depend very largely on the attitude taken by the head teachers. As a general rule the teachers are keenly interested in the physical welfare of their children, and anxious to do everything in their power which may promote it; but some teachers are opposed to the provision of meals, feeling that too much is done for the children; others, again, consider their schools "superior," and do not like their children to go to free meals. Constantly one finds an astonishing disproportion between the numbers fed at two adjacent schools, drawing their children from the same locality. It is true that the character of two schools, within a stone's throw of each other, may vary in a curious way, one attracting a more prosperous class of children--perhaps because of the personality of the teacher, better buildings, or some other cause--but this would not account for all the difference. At Bootle, for instance, it was reported, "there is apparently an absence of uniformity in assessing the needs of the children; for in the six schools of the poorest neighbourhoods it is found that of the number on the rolls the percentage of scheduled children varies from 6 per cent. to 34 per cent., and that in two schools of almost identical character, in one case 10 per cent. of the children are returned as needing daily breakfasts, and in the other 34 per cent."[223] Where the teachers are anxious to place all apparently underfed children on the feeding list, pressure is not infrequently exercised by the Education Authority to induce them to keep down the numbers.

Footnote 223:

Report of the Bootle School Canteen Committee for 1910-11, p. 22. At Birkenhead, and probably in other towns, the percentage of children fed in the Church of England schools is very much higher than in the Council schools, whilst the Roman Catholic schools feed a larger number still than the Church schools. This is doubtless due partly to the character of the buildings, the non-provided schools being generally very much inferior, and the better-off children being consequently attracted to the Council schools; partly, of course, also to the fact that the Roman Catholic population is chiefly Irish and very poor.

When an application by the parent is obligatory, there is cause for very grave doubt whether the provision of meals reaches all for whom it is intended. Miss Winder has shown that, at Birmingham, out of 22,753 children for whom applications were received during the three years 1909-11, 4,700 were not fed because the parent failed to appear before the Committee. She investigated the circumstances of twenty-eight of these families and came to the conclusion that, "although the small number of families investigated cannot justify an absolutely positive assertion, I think it may fairly be concluded that, on the whole, they are representative of most of the families whose applications are not granted, and that the home circumstances of these families are much the same as those of the families whose applications have been granted."[224] This is the impression gained from enquiries at other towns. At West Ham it is clear that there are children who need the meals, but do not get them because their parents will not apply. The number of "missed" cases does not appear to be large, for the Act is administered in a sympathetic spirit, the Superintendent of Visitors impressing on the Attendance Officers that they should bring to his notice any case where the children appear to be suffering from lack of food. But there are cases where the parents, though they will take the urgency tickets for three meals which the teachers can give them, will take no further action. At one school the headmaster pointed out two boys who looked obviously in need of food and attention generally, but whose father, though out of work, would not apply. In another case he had used his discretion and kept two boys on the list for a month in spite of their parents' failure to renew their application, but he felt obliged at last to take them off though he considered that they still needed the meals. In such cases the Attendance Officers are supposed to visit the homes to find out the cause of the children's underfed condition, and to urge the parents, if necessary, to make application for school meals, but this course does not seem to be by any means always pursued.

Footnote 224:

_The Public Feeding of Elementary School Children_, by Phyllis D. Winder, 1913, pp. 27, 29, 59, 62.

At Leicester again, nothing appears to be done in those cases where the child needs food but the parent refuses to apply. And such cases appear to be frequent. We were told by the vicar of a very poor parish that numbers of the parents would not make the necessary application. This evidence seems to be borne out by a comparison of the numbers of cases helped by the Distress Committee and the Canteen Committee. In 1910, for instance, it was found that on September 30, 607 married men and widowers, having 1,145 children wholly, and 214 partly, dependent upon them, were registered at the Labour Bureau as unemployed.[225] These numbers were, of course, not a complete index of the unemployment in the town. But, turning to the report of the Canteen Committee, we find that on the same date only 105 children were being helped.[226] The great discrepancy between these figures seems to point to the fact that the Canteen Committee had not discovered all the cases of children who were suffering from want of food.

Footnote 225:

_Leicester Pioneer_, October 29, 1910.

Footnote 226:

Quarterly Report of the Leicester Children's Aid Association, July 1 to September 30, 1910.

The failure of the parents to apply may in some cases be due to laziness and disregard for their children's welfare. Or it may be that they are too sensitive to ask for help. Or again it may be difficult or impossible for them to attend at the time named. The hour is usually fixed so as to be that most convenient for the parents, but it is impossible, of course, to fix a time which will suit all. At Birmingham cases have even occurred "where the father has been obliged to pay tram fares in order to arrive in time to prove his inability to feed his children"![227]

Footnote 227:

_The Public Feeding of Elementary School Children_, by Phyllis D. Winder, 1913, p. 29.

But even if the parent is not obliged to appear in person, but may send an application by note or verbal message to the teacher, there are still "missed" cases. It is notorious that many parents are too proud to let their need be known; in such cases, as teachers have frequently told us, it may be a considerable time before it is discovered that the child is suffering from want of food; and when the discovery is made there is frequently difficulty in inducing the parents to send the child, or in inducing the child itself to go, to the school meals. There still seems to exist, in certain districts at any rate, an idea that the provision of meals is Poor Law Relief, and parents consequently shrink from applying. Moreover, it is not generally recognised that the provision of school meals is by no means universally known to the parents. The School Medical Officer for Leicester reports that "in certain cases it was a matter for regret that the families had not received help earlier by personally applying for assistance. Ignorance of the existence of the Canteen Committee was given as the reason for non-application."[228] And we have ourselves been told in other towns of cases where the children were suffering from want of food, but were not receiving school meals because the parents were unaware that they could be obtained.

Footnote 228:

Report of the School Medical Officer for Leicester for 1912, p. 36.

The enquiries into the home circumstances undoubtedly exercise a deterrent influence--to what extent depends on the manner of the particular individual who makes the enquiries--both with the more independent parent who resents the investigator's visit, and with the criminal and semi-criminal parent whose record does not bear close investigation. Thus the headmaster of a school in one of the worst districts of Liverpool told us that numbers of the boys were in need of food but the parents would not submit to the necessary enquiries and consequently meals were not granted. At Leicester, the searching enquiries made by the Canteen Committee, which, it must be remembered, is practically a department of the Charity Organisation Society, coupled with the insistence on an application by the parent in person, result, as we have seen, in numbers of underfed children remaining underfed.

Where the Education Authority has adopted a scale of income on which to base the decision as to which children shall be fed, this scale is frequently below, and in some cases very considerably below, the minimum amount which has been shown to be necessary for expenditure on food.[229] Where the scale is rigidly adhered to, two classes of children are excluded altogether, those who are underfed through the neglect of their parents to provide for them though able to do so, and those cases where the family income may be sufficient to meet normal calls but where, owing to illness or the delicacy of the children or other special circumstances, extra nourishment is required.

Footnote 229:

See note on page 205, _infra_.

To sum up, we find as between town and town, and even as between school and school in the same town, a great want of uniformity in selecting the children to be fed. Where the Education Authority has determined that all its underfed children shall be provided for, the child's need being the paramount consideration, undiscovered cases of underfeeding are reduced to a minimum. Where, on the contrary, enquiries are carried out in a deterrent manner, or the parent is made to apply in person for the meals, or the selection is based on a rigid application of a scale, there is reason to fear that considerable numbers of children are, and remain, "unable by reason of lack of food to take full advantage of the education provided for them."

(d)--The Preparation and Service of the Meals.

(i) The Time of the Meal.

There are considerable differences of opinion as to what kind of meal should be given. Many Local Authorities prefer breakfast. It is argued that when no breakfast is forthcoming at home the interval between the meal the previous evening and the midday dinner is too long, and that it is cruel to expect the child to attend morning school, when the heaviest work of the day is done, without a meal, especially in the cold winter months. By midday the parents, especially in districts where there is much casual labour, may have earned enough to provide some sort of a meal. But the arguments in favour of breakfast--as the sole meal provided--are largely based not so much on the child's physical needs as on the moral effect produced both on the child and the parent. The provision of breakfast furnishes a test of need. The meal is not so popular as dinner, and will only attract those who are really hungry.[230] Co-operation on the part of the mother is demanded, since she must get up early to see the children are dressed in time. Moreover, the provision of breakfast does not act as an inducement to the mother to go out to work, as it is feared the provision of dinner may.

Footnote 230:

Thus it was found at a school in Bethnal Green that, "in spite of the supervision of a most efficient Care Committee," the change from a porridge breakfast to a meat pie dinner doubled the number of children attending. ("The Feeding of Necessitous Children. A Symposium. I., Experience in S. W. Bethnal Green," by A. W. Chute, in _Oxford House Magazine_, January, 1909, p. 37.)

The arguments seem to us overwhelmingly in favour of dinner. The provision of a midday meal may possibly encourage mothers to go out to work, though it is exceedingly difficult to trace such a result to any great extent. But on the other hand there are numbers of cases already where the mothers are forced, by stress of circumstances, to be the breadwinners and are obliged to leave home all day, or, if they come home for the dinner hour, have no time to prepare a proper meal. The children will either get a piece of bread, or will be given coppers to buy their own dinner; in either case the meal will be equally unsatisfactory. Possibly the children will go dinnerless altogether, and the afternoon's lessons will then be a serious tax on their brains. The attendance at breakfasts is always less than at dinner.[231] The breakfast acts, that is to say, as a successful "test." But this means that many children, either because their mothers are too lazy to get them dressed early, or because they are too lazy themselves, miss the meals, _though they are admittedly in need of them_.

Footnote 231:

At West Ham, for instance, where all the children on the feeding list receive both breakfast and dinner, the number of breakfasts given during the year 1911-12 was 247,233, and the number of dinners 273,894; the attendance at breakfast was thus only ninety per cent. of the attendance at dinner. (Report of the West Ham Education Committee for the year ended March 31, 1912, pp. 175-77.)

We do not wish to under-estimate the importance of the moral aspect of the question. It is essential that co-operation on the part of the mother should be demanded. But the child's need must be the first consideration. The laziness of the children, be it noted, is frequently not entirely their own fault; the drowsiness in the morning may be due to the fact that they have slept all night in a crowded room and stuffy atmosphere. Till the deep-rooted objection to open windows at night can be overcome, this will continue to be the case. For this reason too, the children will often have little appetite for breakfast.

Physiologically, again, dinner appears to be the better meal since it contains a greater quantity of the elements which are lacking in the ordinary home dietary of the child. Thus in the feeding experiment at Bradford in 1907,[232] the porridge breakfast, the most satisfactory kind of breakfast that can be supplied from the food value point of view, contained a proteid value of 19 grammes, and a fat value of 20 grammes. The dinners contained, on an average, 29 grammes of proteid and 18 grammes of fat. Thus the combined proteid and fat value of the breakfasts and dinners was respectively 39 and 47 grammes.[233] Moreover, the gain in point of cheapness to be derived from provision on a large scale is much greater relatively in the case of dinners than in the case of breakfasts.

Footnote 232:

See post, pp. 184-6.

Footnote 233:

Bradford Education Committee, Report on a Course of Meals given to Necessitous Children from April to July, 1907, p. 7.

About 27 per cent. of the Local Authorities give breakfasts only, and about 45 per cent. dinners only, the remainder giving both meals.[234] In the last-named case, dinners may be given in some schools and breakfasts in others, as at Southampton and York. At Bradford dinner is given to all the children on the feeding list, the most necessitous receiving breakfast as well.[235] At West Ham all the children receive both meals. At Bootle, where till a few years ago only breakfasts were given, it was found that this provision was inadequate to meet the needs of many necessitous children.[236] The expense and the practical difficulties in the way of providing a proper dinner led the Education Committee to adopt a simpler method, namely, that of increasing the quantity of food supplied for breakfasts, any overplus being given at midday at the discretion of the teachers as an extra meal to children who would otherwise go dinnerless.[237]

Footnote 234:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 322-324.

Footnote 235:

Roughly about half the children fed receive both meals (Bradford Education Committee, Return as to the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, for the year ended March 31, 1913.)

Footnote 236:

Enquiries made by the head teachers showed that in the aggregate 295 children received no mid-day meal or an insufficient meal. Since, presumably, these enquiries were made by the method of questioning the children, no particular value can be attached to the actual figures; the school attendance officers enquired into fifty-four of the cases taken at random and found that all but two showed undoubted poverty in the home. (Report of Bootle School Canteen Committee, 1910-11, pp. 10-11.)

Footnote 237:

_Ibid._, p. 11. This is the plan still pursued (see post, pp. 86-87).

(ii) The Dietary.

Taking into consideration the fact that with a large number of elementary school children bread and tea form the chief elements in the home diet, it is of the greatest importance that the school meal should be planned so as to contain a good proportion of the ingredients which are lacking at home.

Whatever views may be held as to the amount of proteid food that is necessary for adults, it is not disputed that in the case of children the more expensive forms are necessary because the growth of the body depends entirely upon the proteids. "It is impossible," declares the School Medical Officer of the London County Council, "to cut down proteids to the same extent in children as in adults without serious results.... To set out, therefore, to relieve underfeeding by a single meal a day, it is necessary to concentrate attention upon proteids and fats ... and, therefore, a dinner for necessitous children must be necessarily more costly than for those properly fed in institutions or in their own homes. The want of clothing, which often accompanies underfeeding, also necessitates more expensive feeding in relief, the loss of bodily heat to be made up being greater than in the case of the child in an industrial school or workhouse, who is warmly clad, and who, moreover, spends much time in a properly heated playroom or dormitory."[238]

Footnote 238:

London County Council, Report of the Medical Officer (Education) to Sub-Committee on Underfed Children, 1909. See also "School Feeding," by Dr. John Lambert, in _Medical Examination of Schools and Scholars_, edited by T. N. Kelynack, M.D., 1910, pp. 240-242.

Few Local Authorities have so planned their dietary as to contain this excess of proteid and fat over starchy food. "Judged by this standard," declared Dr. Kerr in 1908, and the same statement holds good to-day, "most diets supplied by public funds are probably wanting in value for the children, however useful they might be as a single meal for a normal individual."[239]

Footnote 239:

Report of the Education Committee of the London County Council, submitting report of the Medical Officer (Education) for the twenty-one months ending December 31, 1908, p. 17.

It would naturally be expected that the School Medical Officer would be consulted about the dietary as a matter of course,[240] but this is by no means invariably the case. At Birkenhead, for instance, the School Medical Officer has no voice in the planning of the menu. At Stoke-on-Trent the School Medical Officer reports in 1911 that, "with the exception of the Fenton district, the medical staff does not appear to have even been consulted on the matter of dietary."[241]

Footnote 240:

"The determination of the dietary of the children generally, and of individual children whose health or age renders it desirable that special arrangements should be made in their case" is, as the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education points out, a matter "on which the School Medical Officer is particularly competent to form an opinion, and on which, therefore, his opinion should be sought by the Authority." (Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 275.)

Footnote 241:

Annual Report of the School Medical Officer for Stoke-on-Trent for 1911, p. 56.

Where the meals are given at restaurants, the dietary is almost invariably unsatisfactory, adequate inspection being impossible.[242]

Footnote 242:

See the descriptions of Stoke and Liverpool, post, pp. 89, 90-91.

The most elaborate dietary is probably that adopted by the Bradford Education Committee. In 1907, after the Education Committee had adopted the Provision of Meals Act, but before arrangements had been made to feed the children out of the rates, an experiment was made in feeding forty children for fourteen weeks. The dietary was carefully planned so that, while containing the requisite amount of proteid and fat, it should not be beyond the purse of the ordinary parent in normal times.[243] This dietary is still in force, a few alterations having been made which experience showed to be advisable. The menu is varied, according to the season, winter, summer, and spring or autumn. The same meal is not repeated for four weeks.[244] At Portsmouth again, where the dietary is drawn up by the Medical Officer of Health and the School Medical Officer, a different meal is given every day for three weeks.[245] In most towns, however, the same menu is continued week after week, with some slight variation in the summer. The same meal is given on the same day in the week so that the children learn to know what meal to expect, and in consequence the attendance is often considerably smaller on days when the dish is unpopular. Sometimes the food will vary very little even from day to day. Though served under various names, soup, stew or hash, it is really almost precisely the same. Some authorities supply only one course, others two. In some towns a child is allowed to have as much as it wants, in reason; in other towns only one helping is allowed as a rule, though, if there happens to be any food over, this may be distributed among the children.[246]

Footnote 243:

See Bradford Education Committee, Report on a Course of Meals given to Necessitous Children from April to July, 1907, p. 7.

Footnote 244:

For Bradford and some other typical menus see Appendix I.]

Footnote 245:

"The Importance of a Well-Advised and Comprehensive Scheme in the Selection of Children ... under the Education (Provision of Meals) Act," by Victor J. Blake, in _Rearing an Imperial Race_, edited by C. E. Hecht, 1913, p. 24.

Footnote 246:

At one centre that we visited, the second helping consisted only of what was left by some of the children on their plates! Those who wanted more were asked to hold up their hands, and the food was then handed to them, the recipients being apparently selected at random, since there was not enough for all.

Occasionally special provision is made for the infants. Thus, at York, milk and bread is given in the middle of the morning to infants who are on the feeding list, it having been found that they could not digest the ordinary dinners. But as a rule, though in well managed centres the infants are placed together at special tables, so that they can be better supervised and taught how to eat, there is no separate dietary for them.

Where only breakfasts are provided there is, of course, less room for variation. Generally cocoa or coffee is given, with bread and butter, margarine, dripping, jam or syrup. At Bootle pea soup is given one day a week. In several towns porridge is provided, either alternately with the cocoa or coffee breakfast, or every day. At Sheffield, where a cocoa breakfast used to be given, porridge was substituted at one school as an experiment; it was found that the boys who were fed on porridge increased in weight at double the rate of the boys who received only the cocoa breakfast; as a result porridge breakfasts were substituted in all the schools.[247]

Footnote 247:

Report of Chief School Medical Officer for Sheffield, for the year 1910, pp. 26, 27. See post, p. 190.

(iii) Preparation and Distribution of the Meals.

In a few cases the Local Education Authority has equipped a kitchen for the preparation of the food, and makes arrangements for distributing it to the various centres. At Bradford all the meals, with the exception of those for schools in outlying districts where arrangements are made with local caterers, are cooked at a central kitchen and distributed in special heat-retaining boxes to the different dining centres by motor vans. Manchester, Birkenhead and other towns also have their own central kitchen. Sometimes, as at West Ham, a kitchen is attached to each of the centres; or occasionally a cookery centre is utilised for the preparation of the meals. Sometimes, as at Leeds and Portsmouth,[248] the Local Education Authority provides the kitchen and a caterer prepares the food. Frequently, however, all the arrangements for the preparation and the distribution of the meals are in the hands of caterers.

Footnote 248:

"The Importance of a Well-Advised and Comprehensive Scheme in the Selection of Children ... under the Education (Provision of Meals) Act," by Victor J. Blake, in _Rearing an Imperial Race_, edited by C. E. Hecht, 1913, p. 25.

(iv) The Service of the Meals.

From the first great stress was laid by the Board of Education upon the educational aspect of the meals. "The methods employed in the provision of meals should be not merely such as will secure an improvement in the physical condition of the children, but such as will have a directly educational effect upon them in respect of manners and conduct."[249] "The school dinner may ... be made to serve as a valuable object-lesson and used to reinforce the practical instruction in hygiene, cookery and domestic economy."[250]

Footnote 249:

Board of Education, Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools in England, 1908, p. ii.

Footnote 250:

Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, prefatory note by L. A. Selby-Bigge, p. 6.

In many cases this advice was totally disregarded. The second report on the working of the Act contains many examples of the utter lack of discipline prevailing in some centres. In one case "no attempt to teach orderly eating was made; there was a certain amount of actual disorderly conduct, throwing bits of food at each other and so forth." In another case where the meals were served in a small outhouse in the playground, the "table was a low locker.... On this a newspaper was spread, and there was hardly room for more than six children to sit round it. Other children sat on low benches where they could, holding their bowls on their knees ... about fifty partake of the dinner, but there is not room for more than twelve at a time, and then it is a scramble.... The food (Irish stew and bread) was good but everything else was as bad as could be." At another centre, we read, "the dinner is eaten in a perfect pandemonium of noise. Nine charwomen of a rather low type attend to about 470 children."[251]

Footnote 251:

Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act for the year ended March 31, 1910, pp. 8, 9.

It is encouraging to note that there has since been, generally speaking, an improvement in the service of the meals. But "there are still areas in which the educational possibilities of the meals have not been realised, or, if realised, have not received the attention which they deserve"[252]--a statement which we can amply corroborate.

Footnote 252:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 278, 279.

The different methods in vogue may be classified roughly under four heads, according to the place in which the meal is served, _i.e._ (_a_) in the school, (_b_) in eating-houses, (_c_) in "centres," or (_d_) in the home.

(_a_) The ideal place for the meal is the school when a room is specially set apart as a dining-room. The meal should be attended only by the children from that particular school and should be served under proper supervision. The tables should be nicely laid, regard being paid to the aesthetic side of the meal, and table manners should be taught. The children should themselves lay the tables and wait on one another. We have found these ideal arrangements in some of the Special Schools for Defective Children and in Open Air Schools,[253] but it is very rare to find such provision made for the "necessitous" children in the ordinary elementary schools. Many authorities, indeed, adopt the plan of serving the meals in the schools, but too frequently class-rooms are utilised. The objections to this course are obvious. Adequate ventilation after a meal is often impossible, and the smell of food pervades the atmosphere. It is frequently necessary to hurry over the meal so that the room may be prepared in time for school. The food is often served on the desks, an uncomfortable arrangement and one which renders it very difficult to teach the children to eat nicely.

Footnote 253:

We describe two or three of these schools later. (See post, pp. 121-2.)

The worst example of this utilisation of the school premises that we have seen is that of Bootle. Here the arrangements made for supplying the meals show a deplorable lack of appreciation, on the part of the Education Authority, of the benefits which may be derived from the Provision of Meals Act. The breakfasts are served sometimes in class-rooms, sometimes in the cloak-rooms or the cellars! When we visited Bootle (in April, 1913) the breakfasts had been stopped for the summer, but we were shown one or two of these cellars. We were told that they are made as inviting as possible--the walls are whitewashed, sawdust is sprinkled on the floors, a table is placed for the children to sit down to--but when all is done that can be done they remain entirely unsuitable places for the purpose. The only point that is urged in their favour is that the children enjoy the warmth from the heating apparatus. In the cloak-rooms there is not always room for a table, and the children sometimes have to sit along the walls, holding their mugs of cocoa or their basins of soup on their knees. When the class-rooms are utilised the food has to be placed on the desks; nothing in the nature of table-cloths is provided, and the state of the desks after the children, the infants especially, have eaten soup or bread and syrup, can be well imagined. Often the breakfasts arrive late, and the children have consequently to be hurried over the meal so that the class-rooms may be got ready for school.[254] It must not be assumed that nothing in the way of table manners is attempted; clean hands, for instance, can be insisted on (though even this is difficult in some schools where there is an insufficient supply of water), and at one school we were told that the infants had learnt to eat without spilling their food; but it is obvious that very little can be done. The method of serving the midday meal is even less "educational." We have seen that the Education Committee refused to make arrangements for the provision of a suitable dinner, and decided instead that the teachers should distribute at midday to the most necessitous children any surplus left over from breakfast. The dinner thus consists usually of merely a piece of bread, with perhaps some cocoa, if any remains from the morning meal. The bread is given to the children to take away, and they eat it on their way home. What renders the failure of the Education Authority to pay any regard to the educational aspect of the meal more disastrous is that it is the teachers who supervise the meals. Many of them bitterly resent the way in which the meals are served; as one pointed out to us, the girls are taught in the school how to set a table, but the practical example which the teachers are forced to show will have much more weight than any theoretical teaching. A year ago the head teachers presented a memorial to the Education Committee, urging that the schools should no longer be used. As "a temporary expedient," runs the communication, they "have loyally endeavoured to work this imperfect system, but they now feel that the time has arrived for the adoption of a scheme on a more satisfactory and permanent basis.... The serving of meals in cloak-rooms, cellars or basements, and other unsuitable places, calls for immediate remedy. In some cases the children receive their meals whilst sitting upon the floor; in all, the bread is of necessity placed upon the dirty desks. In others, there is no adequate supply of hot water and towels for use in cleansing the utensils. Under such conditions there can be no training in habits of decency or cleanliness.... When the meals are served in class-rooms, the desks and floors are rendered unfit for immediate school use, and a smell of food permeates the atmosphere. To combat this state of affairs as far as possible, the teachers have, in many cases, to wash the desks and brush the floors. In other cases, the children are hurried over their meals in order that the necessary preparations for lessons may be made."[255] To this the Education Committee replied that, while they agreed "that an ideal system of feeding the children would be by properly equipped centres quite apart from the school premises, the cost of such would be prohibitory, and that quite possibly the pressing of such a change would jeopardise the continuance of the exercise of the powers given by the Provision of Meals Act, now so beneficially and economically administered." The committee hoped "that the teachers will recognise the Authority's financial difficulties in the way of the introduction of a more desirable system, and, pending the arrival of the long-expected parliamentary aid for this and other ameliorative work devolving upon local education authorities, will continue their valuable co-operation in meeting the needs of their hungry scholars by the existing practical if not perfect system."[256] The teachers had apparently been considering the advisability of withdrawing their services altogether, but this threat of a possible cessation of the meals induced them to continue their assistance.

Footnote 254:

At Birmingham we note the same defect. "The children are quiet and well-behaved; but all the time is taken in serving the food, and there is no opportunity to teach individual children to eat slowly. The tendency, especially with the cocoa breakfast, is to gulp down the drink, eat part of the bread and jam, and carry the rest away." (_The Public Feeding of Elementary School Children_, by Phyllis D. Winder, 1913, p. 42.)

Footnote 255:

Report of Bootle School Canteen Committee, 1911-12, p. 10.

Footnote 256:

_Ibid._, p. 11.

(_b_) A second method is the service of the meals at local restaurants. This plan is strongly discouraged by the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education, since it is impossible to secure adequate supervision of the meals or proper control of the dietary; "the meals are consequently of little, if any, value from an educational or even nutritional point of view."[257] Any authority adopting this system is, in fact, animated solely by the desire to get the children fed with the least possible trouble.

Footnote 257:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 272.

Unfortunately the plan is still in favour with a considerable number of local authorities,[258] even in some of the large towns.

Footnote 258:

In many towns where meals are usually served at centres, local restaurants are utilised in outlying districts where the number of children is too small to allow of a centre being established.

Thus at Stoke-on-Trent the children for whom free meals are granted are sent to eating-houses.[259] These houses are often, if not always, small bakers' shops, not general restaurants. They are usually situated at an easy distance from the school. The numbers attending each are small, amounting to not more than twenty or so. At the one we visited[260] the conditions seemed to be as good as could be expected under the circumstances; the caterer was a motherly old woman who took an evident interest in the children, and the food was hot and palatable. The disadvantages inherent in the system, the impossibility of supervision and the lack of control over the dietary, are, however, observable here as elsewhere. Probably in few cases would the children get an insufficiency of food. The difficulty lies rather in securing good quality and the proper kind of meal. Thus it was found that one caterer had substituted, for the regulation fish pie, bread and jam, because the children preferred it. "I have inspected several of these [eating-houses]," reports the School Medical Officer, "and although I found one instance in which the children were treated on exactly the same lines as the contractor's own children, in fact sat at the same table, and were regarded quite as members of the family; in most instances the surroundings, the manner of serving and the dietary left much to be desired.... I would strongly urge the advisability of getting the catering in all instances into our own hands. I do not think that the full benefit of the Act can be secured in any other way; it is doubtful, as things are, whether the intention of the Act, as a remedy for malnutrition, can be carried out at all."[261]

Footnote 259:

At one school, the children have the meal in the school, the food being sent in by a caterer, the head-mistress preferring that arrangement.

Footnote 260:

In April, 1913.

Footnote 261:

Annual Report of the School Medical Officer for Stoke-on-Trent, 1912, p. 23.

At Acton the meals are given at a dingy eating-house which is intended primarily to serve the needs of the women working at the laundries in the district.[262] There is only one room, so that the children have to have their meals with the other customers, and the hour at which the children come in, between twelve and one, is, of course, the busy hour for the restaurant. At one time a rota of ladies attended voluntarily to supervise the meals, but this plan has been given up; the School Attendance Officers now take it in turn to be present. The children come and go as they please and there is no attempt to teach table manners.

Footnote 262:

This eating-house is situated in the poorest part of Acton, where the great majority of the children who are on the dinner-list live. In a few cases, where the children live in other districts, arrangements are made for them to obtain food at the cookery centres; this food they take home with them. This plan, we were told, is only adopted in cases where the mother can be trusted to see that the dinners are really eaten by the children for whom they are intended.

At Liverpool, till quite recently, the same system was in force. The children received coupons at the school, which they presented at various cocoa rooms in the city.[263] The objections to this system were many. The number of cocoa rooms, at which coupons were accepted, was limited, and in some cases the nearest cocoa room was situated too far from the school for the children to be sent there.[264] Though some managers refused to supply unsuitable food, others gave whatever the children asked for--frequently buns, jam puffs, or iced cakes.[265] Often the children would take the food home to be shared among the other members of the family.[266] At some cocoa rooms the children were served in the general room, and were brought into contact with adult customers "of a class not choice in language or manners." There was little or no supervision--only occasional visits by the teachers--and consequently no attempt "to influence the children in the direction of cleanliness and orderliness at meals."[267] In spite of these revelations the system was continued for several years, being only finally given up in August, 1912. The meals are now served in centres. The food is at present supplied by caterers, but the Education Committee are considering the advisability of providing their own kitchen.

Footnote 263:

Some were sent to the depots of the Food and Betterment Association.

Footnote 264:

Interim Report of the Special Committee appointed to investigate the Insufficient or Improper Feeding of School Children, Liverpool City Council Proceedings, 1907-8, Vol. II., pp. 5, 15.

Footnote 265:

_Ibid._, pp. 11, 12, 19.

Footnote 266:

_Ibid._, pp. 17, 22, 23, 24. In one case where five coupons were given daily to five members of a family, it was found that the children took the coupons home every day, and at the end of the week these coupons were presented and value obtained. (_Ibid._, p. 21.)

Footnote 267:

MS. Memorandum on the Feeding of School Children, by the Liverpool Fabian Society, 1908.

(_c_) The plan most usually adopted, and the one recommended by the Board of Education, is the system of serving the meals at centres attended by children from three or four neighbouring schools. For this purpose some room belonging to the Corporation may be utilised, perhaps a room attached to the Police Station, as often at Manchester, or a room in some disused school; frequently the hall of a club or mission is hired. The arrangements are often of a makeshift character, the room being ill-adapted for the purpose and the surroundings dark and dreary. Moreover, the assembling of large numbers of children from different schools renders the work of supervision more difficult and detracts considerably from the educational value of the meal.

The actual conditions vary widely from town to town, and even from centre to centre in the same town. The best results are perhaps to be seen at Bradford,[268] the town in which most attention has been paid to the subject. Here the teachers supervise the meal, two or three being present generally, one to apportion the food and the others to supervise the table manners of the children. They are assisted by boy and girl monitors. These are selected generally from the elder children on the dinner list.[269] On arrival, about ten minutes before the meal, each monitor puts on one of the blue overalls provided for them, sets the table for which he or she is responsible and hands round the food. The position of monitor is a much coveted one. The system provides a valuable training for the children in doing things for themselves, and in looking after one another. The results are most marked. In every centre we visited the children were quiet and orderly, and in some cases the behaviour was excellent. At one centre we were particularly struck by the table manners of the boys, their consideration for one another, and the quick and quiet way in which they collected all the plates and spoons and packed them in the boxes for return to the cooking depot of their own accord, without any instructions from the teacher in charge. The results vary, of course, in different centres. For instance, with regard to clean hands and faces, some teachers are very strict, each child having to hold up his hands for inspection as he enters the dining-room. In others only periodical inspection is made, and we noticed several dirty hands, notably in the case of some of the boys who were assisting to hand round the food. Infants are placed at separate tables so that they can receive special attention. Each child is expected to eat the first course, or at any rate to try to eat it, before being given the second. When the child does not like the food, it is given a small helping at first and coaxed to eat it. Over and over again we were told that at first the children would hardly touch the food, being accustomed to the home dietary of bread and tea and pickles; but by the patient endeavours of the teachers this difficulty was overcome and the children have learnt to appreciate nourishing food. The importance of the aesthetic side of the meal is fully appreciated. Table cloths are provided and often flowers. The meal, indeed, "from start to finish is educational."[270]

Footnote 268:

The centres at Bradford, Leeds, West Ham and Birkenhead were all visited in the spring of 1913 and the descriptions refer to that date.

Footnote 269:

In the secondary schools, the poorer children are allowed to act as monitors, being given in return a 3d. dinner free.

Footnote 270:

Report of School Medical Officer for Bradford, 1909, pp. 100-1. At Nottingham the conditions are very similar to those at Bradford, the Education Committee having, in fact, modelled their policy on that of Bradford.

At Leeds it struck us that the chief aim was merely to feed the children, the educational side receiving only secondary consideration. As most of the centres are not large enough to accommodate all the children at once (at any rate in winter time), two "sittings-down" are necessary, and the meal is hurried through so as to allow the second relay to come in as soon as possible. The children begin their meal as soon as they enter, without waiting till the others have come in so that all may begin together in an orderly manner. Grace is said halfway through the meal. As soon as a child has finished the first course (of which it is allowed to have a second helping, if desired), it is given a piece of cake or bun which it eats outside in the street. The supervision is undertaken by the teachers, but only for a day or two at a time. This constant change of supervisors makes the teaching of table manners more difficult. One of the regulations runs that "the supervisor should see that no child is admitted who has not clean hands and face,"[271] but to judge from the very dirty state of some of the hands and faces we saw, this rule seems to be ignored, at any rate at some of the centres. No special provision is made for the infants; they have the same food and are placed at the same tables with the bigger children; in some cases the tables are so high that they have to kneel on the forms in order to reach their food, and the spoons provided are so large that it is difficult for them to eat without spilling it.[272] The condition of the rooms after the children have finished their dinner is anything but desirable, soup being spilled on the table and pieces dropped on the floor. Especially was this noticeable at one centre where the meal was served on desks. These desks were covered with dirty and ragged linoleum, and the whole surroundings were inexpressibly dreary, the litter of food on the floor at the end of the meal adding to the general squalor.

Footnote 271:

Leeds Education Committee, Rules for the Management of Dining Centres.

Footnote 272:

Complaints on both these points had, we were told, been made to the Education Committee, but, on the score of expense, nothing had been done.

At West Ham some attempt is made to render the meal educational.[273] Monitors and monitresses are appointed from among the elder children to assist in waiting on the others. Table cloths are provided, and in some cases flowers are placed on the tables. But here again the meal is spoilt by the sense of rush. Since at each centre there may be twice or even perhaps three times as many children as can be accommodated at once, each child is given its dinner as soon as it comes in, and is dispatched as soon as it has finished. "Table manners, personal appearance, good behaviour, and punctuality," are indeed, as the Superintendent of the Centres remarks, "not overlooked; but in these respects, the results are not as satisfactory as one could desire. The unusually large numbers of children attending the centres, and the limited time in which to serve the meals to enable the children to return in time for school, make it a difficult task to give the necessary individual attention."[274] At one time school managers and members of the Children's Care Committee took it in turn to attend the different centres and supervise the children, but this plan has been given up, and the supervision is now done solely by the women who prepare the meals.

Footnote 273:

The meals are served at the schools in some room which is no longer needed for teaching purposes; in some cases, we believe, in a room which was specially built as a dining-room. We have included this example in the third class rather than in the first, since in each case the school serves as a centre for children from neighbouring schools.

Footnote 274:

Report of the West Ham Education Committee for the year ended March 31, 1912, p. 52.

Birkenhead affords a striking example of the varying conditions prevailing in different centres in the same town. In one case a dining-room has been specially built at the school, this dining-room serving as a centre for several other schools. No table cloths are used, but the tables are of white wood, well scrubbed; plants are sometimes provided, and the whole surroundings are bright and cheerful. The children were unfortunately allowed to come in as they liked, but in other respects the discipline seemed good. Table manners were inculcated and clean hands insisted on. Food had to be finished at table and might not be taken away. At another centre the conditions were entirely different. The meals were served in a corridor at the public baths. Two long narrow tables were placed against each wall, with forms on one side; on the other side, owing to the narrowness of the corridor, there was no room for seats, so that some of the children had to stand. The children entered and left as they liked, and were allowed to take away food with them. Little effort was made to teach table manners, indeed it would have been impossible to do much in this respect owing to the unsuitable character of the premises. It would perhaps be unfair to dwell too much on the conditions prevailing in this centre, since the use of these premises was admittedly a temporary expedient (though we understood they had been used for some time), but the conditions at a third centre were not very much better. The hall was large, it is true, and there was plenty of room for the children, but the surroundings were very dreary. The tables, which were not covered with tablecloths, were dark and dingy. Here again the children were allowed to straggle in as they pleased, some as much as half an hour or forty minutes late. They left as soon as they had finished, frequently carrying away food with them unchecked. Little attention was paid to table manners and much of the food was wasted.

(_d_) The three methods which we have described all present one feature in common. The children, whether fed at the schools, at eating-houses or at centres, all share with their schoolfellows in a common meal. There remains one other method, the supply of food to the family for consumption at home. This is the method adopted at Leicester and, so far as we know, in this town only. As we have already pointed out, no rate is levied at Leicester, voluntary funds being declared to be sufficient. These funds are administered by the Children's Aid Association, a body composed largely of members of the Charity Organisation Society and imbued with its spirit. The Association proceeds on the theory that the provision of meals is simply a form of relief; this being so, the relief should be adequate, and the family as a whole should be dealt with. The food is accordingly distributed in the homes,[275] sufficient being supplied for all the family, not only for those attending school, and it is given every day, including Sundays, throughout the year. Milk being the chief article absent from the dietary of the poor, the food chosen is bread and milk. This is delivered by the ordinary baker and milkman so that the neighbours should not know that the family is receiving relief (though as a matter of fact the "bread and milk" families appear to be well known).

Footnote 275:

Where the home conditions are extremely bad, provision is made for children to be fed at eating-houses, but such cases are very rare. At the time of our visit, in July, 1913, there was not one such case.

Certain advantages have undoubtedly accrued from this system. The parents have learnt the value of milk, and the children have been taught to take it. At first there was often much difficulty in this latter respect, but by constant visitation the children's prejudice has been broken down, and they now relish the food.[276] On the other hand, under this method of distributing the food in the homes the advantages to be derived from a common meal are totally ignored. No provision is made to meet the case where the mother goes out to work all day, and where the provision of a midday meal at school would be of great value. Moreover, though frequent visits are paid to the homes at breakfast-time to see that the children are actually getting the food intended for them, it is impossible to ensure this in all cases.

Footnote 276:

Second Quarterly Report of the Children's Aid Association, November, 1907, to February, 1908, p. 3.

We have classified the different methods under the above four headings according to the place where the meal is served, but, as will have been seen by the examples given, the educational value of the meal is determined even more by the character of the supervision than by the nature of the surroundings.

The supervision is frequently undertaken by the teachers. In 1909, the Board of Education reports that the "assistance of teachers has been the rule rather than the exception."[277] This service is always rendered voluntarily, though occasionally, as at Bradford, the teachers receive some small remuneration.[278] The amount of service given varies widely in different towns. At Bradford the same teacher will attend the centre daily for months. In other towns his or her turn may come quite infrequently, and may only amount to two or three days' service at a time.[279] Sometimes School Managers, members of the Canteen Committee or voluntary workers take it in turn to assist in the supervision, but their attendance is generally spasmodic. At Portsmouth the centres are entirely in charge of ladies who give their services voluntarily.[280] As a rule, however, paid superintendents are appointed, too often women of the caretaker type. In some towns the School Attendance Officer attends to collect the tickets and helps to maintain order.

Footnote 277:

Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, p. 17.

Footnote 278:

The head teachers receive 5s. a week for supervising dinners, and 2s. 6d. for breakfasts; the assistant teachers 4s. and 2s. respectively. At Derby also the teachers are paid. (Report of the School Medical Officer for Derby, 1911, p. 61.) This payment is very exceptional.

Footnote 279:

At Leeds, for instance, the teacher will perhaps be called on for a day or two every two months. At Liverpool a teacher is supposed to attend once a fortnight, but often no teacher at all is present. At Bootle the turn may be one day a week or a fortnight, or perhaps a week at a time; here the teachers, we were informed, voluntarily give their services "under protest," a fact which, when one considers the conditions under which they are asked to serve the meals, is not surprising.

Footnote 280:

"The Importance of a Well-Advised and Comprehensive Scheme in the Selection of Children ... under the Education (Provision of Meals) Act," by Victor J. Blake, in _Rearing an Imperial Race_, edited by C. E. Hecht, 1913, p. 24.

The question how far the teachers should be asked to give their services is a vexed one. On the one hand, where the teacher attends regularly--and regular attendance is essential if the full benefit from the meals is to be derived--this extra work involves a great strain. Especially when the midday interval is only from 12 to 1.30, as in many provincial towns, the time for rest is seriously curtailed. At Leeds "a reasonable time is allowed the teachers in charge for their own midday meal," and they are allowed to arrive late at afternoon school in consequence of this,[281] but we were told that this permission is not in practice taken advantage of, as their late arrival would dislocate the work. Moreover, although the service is supposed to be always entirely voluntary on the part of the teachers, there is always the danger that they may feel under a moral obligation to offer their services. In some cases, the burden seems to fall unduly on a few, only a small minority offering to assist in the supervision, the others taking no share.

Footnote 281:

Leeds Education Committee, Rules for the Management of Dinner Centres. At Bradford it is noticeable that it is as a general rule the men teachers who supervise the meals; women teachers assist, but the responsibility for the management of the whole centre seems to involve too great a strain upon them.

On the other hand, "it is unquestionable that where the teachers are willing to undertake the work, they are, generally speaking, the most competent supervisors. The reason for this is not far to seek. The children, being accustomed to obey the commands of their teachers, are more ready to behave in an orderly and disciplined manner when under their supervision than when a stranger is in charge. Moreover, the teachers' acquaintance with the idiosyncrasies of individual children enables them to keep an eye on those children who are specially in need of food or who need persuasion to make them eat the wholesome food provided."[282] Again, the fact that the teachers are present connects the meal in the child's mind with the school, and so tends to make it more a part of the school curriculum, a lesson in table manners. Without the teacher, Miss McMillan points out, "the whole venture will fail miserably on the educational side." But it is a mistake to ask the teachers to serve the food and wait on the children. Their function should be "to preside and to be the head, and as far as possible the soul, of the daily gathering,"[283] just as at dinner in a secondary school.

Footnote 282:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 280.

Footnote 283:

_London's Children: How to Feed Them and How not to Feed Them_, by Margaret McMillan and A. Cobden-Sanderson, 1909, p. 11. We have met with this ideal arrangement only at one school--a small "special" school for feeble-minded children at Bradford (see post, pp. 121-2.).

To sum up now the main characteristics of the present methods of serving the meals, it will be seen that, generally speaking, the conditions are very far from satisfactory. Even where the Local Education Authority draws up elaborate regulations for the management of the dining-centres, these regulations are frequently disregarded in practice by the supervisors. Too often the object is to get the meal over as quickly as possible, and inadequate attention is paid to the inculcation of table manners and the little amenities of a civilised meal. To expedite the service the food is frequently placed on the table before the children come in, and it is nearly cold before they eat it. Sometimes the second course is served and placed in front of the child before it has finished the first course. The food is almost invariably such as can be eaten with a spoon and fork, and the children are thus not taught the use of a knife.[284] Sometimes only a spoon is provided and the help of fingers is almost unavoidable. We have as a rule found the supply of utensils fairly adequate, though where water is given it is not always the case for each child to have a separate mug.[285] It is rare to find any attempt at table decoration, and table-cloths are by no means universal. It may be objected that table cloths are expensive and, if the tables are kept thoroughly clean, unnecessary, but to keep the tables well scrubbed costs as much as to provide table cloths and the necessity of keeping the cloth clean is a useful lesson to the child. Sometimes the food, if of the bread and jam nature, is placed on the table without plates. In very few cases has the system of utilising the services of the elder children been adopted with any thoroughness, and the valuable opportunity of training thus offered is lost.

Footnote 284:

Knives were used at Bradford for a time, but were given up, as it was found that the children hurt themselves. Their use demands, of course, much supervision, but they might be given to the elder children at any rate.

Footnote 285:

At Birmingham "in one school the same mugs [for cocoa] were used twice over for different children without being washed. The supply of utensils at several of the schools was too small for the numbers fed." (_The Public Feeding of Elementary School Children_, by Phyllis D. Winder, 1913, p. 43.)

(e)--The Provision of Meals during the Holidays.

At the time the Act of 1906 was passed, it appears to have been generally taken for granted that it empowered Local Education Authorities to provide meals during holidays as well as during school time.[286] The circular issued by the Board of Education, asking the Local Authorities for information as to the way in which the Act had been administered, contained a question as to the number of children who were fed during the school holidays, thus assuming that the meals would be continued; nowhere was it pointed out that the cost of the meals so provided could not be borne by the rates.[287] Moreover, during the next two or three years, the accounts of several Local Authorities, who continued the meals during the holidays, were certified by the Local Government Board Auditors.[288] About 1909, however, the question was raised whether Local Authorities could legally spend the rates on providing meals when the children were not actually in school. The Local Government Board, on being appealed to by the Newcastle-on-Tyne Education Authority, replied that they could not concur in any interpretation of the Act which would empower the authority to incur expenditure when the closing of the schools precluded the children's attendance.[289] In August, 1909, the cost of feeding children during the previous Christmas holidays was disallowed by the Auditor in the accounts of the West Ham Authority. The Local Government Board, on appeal, confirmed the disallowance, though they remitted the surcharge.[290]

Footnote 286:

See preamble to the Education (Provision of Meals) Act Amendment Bill, July 20, 1910. "This Bill introduces no new principle, but simply extends the Act to render permissible the continued operation of the Act during the holidays, a point which, when the original Act was passing through Parliament, it was generally thought was covered."

Footnote 287:

Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, up to March 31, 1909, p. 48.

Footnote 288:

_Hansard_, July 12, 1910, 5th Series, Vol. 19, pp. 189-190. In 1910, out of the twenty-five or so Local Authorities who continued the meals during the holidays, about one-fifth paid for them out of the rates. (Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1910, p. 255.)

Footnote 289:

_Ibid._, p. 254.

Footnote 290:

_Ibid._, pp. 254-5; Report of West Ham Education Committee for the year ended March 31, 1910, pp. 45-6.

Since this date, in the great majority of towns where meals are continued during the holidays,[291] the cost is met by voluntary funds. Sometimes the Local Education Authority will issue a special appeal for funds. Or the arrangements may be undertaken by some voluntary society or by philanthropic individuals. Where no provision is made officially, the teachers sometimes make arrangements privately for the most necessitous children to be fed at shops. At Leeds it has become the custom for the Lord Mayor to provide out of his own purse meals during the Christmas holidays (the meals being discontinued during the other holidays); the cost of this provision may amount to as much as L500.

Footnote 291:

The first report which was issued on the Working of the Provision of Meals Act gave the number of authorities who continued the meals during the school holidays--at that date 3 out of the 7 counties, and 32 out of the 105 county boroughs, boroughs and urban districts, who were making some provision under the Act (Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 1906, up to March 31, 1909, pp. 34-38). No figures are now available.

In one or two towns the charge has been met year after year out of public funds. At Bradford, for example, the meals have from the first been continued during school holidays.[292] The expenditure has been surcharged regularly by the Local Government Board Auditor, but, as we have said, it has been met out of a grant voted by the Finance Committee from the trading profits of the Corporation. The Labour Councillors maintain that when the Act was passed holiday feeding was considered legal and the ratepayers generally seem to uphold them in this claim, in spite of occasional protests.[293] At Nottingham the same plan is pursued.[294] At Portsmouth a grant is made to the Mayor on the tacit understanding that he will use it for the provision of meals during the holidays. At West Ham, after the Local Government Board auditor had, in 1909, disallowed the charge for holiday feeding, the cost was for a year or two borne by voluntary funds.[295] It became, however, increasingly difficult to raise the necessary subscriptions, and during 1911 L494 was charged to the rates, the voluntary subscriptions only amounting to L74.[296] During the following year recourse was again had to the rates. The Local Government Board Auditor surcharged the expenditure, but the Board, on appeal, remitted the surcharge, though confirming the Auditor's decision.[297] At Acton meals have been supplied regularly on Saturdays[298] and during the school holidays for the past few years without any question having been raised.

Footnote 292:

Report of Bradford Education Committee for the year ended March 31, 1908.

Footnote 293:

See letter from Bradford Ratepayers Association, in Bradford City Council Proceedings, August 10, 1909.

Footnote 294:

In London, during the Christmas holidays, 1911-12, meals were provided out of a sum placed at the disposal of the Chairman of the Council by the General Purposes Committee, from the balance of the account in connection with the erection and management of the Coronation Procession stands. (Minutes of the London County Council, February 13, 1912, p. 2791.)

Footnote 295:

Report of the West Ham Education Committee for the year ended March 31, 1910, p. 46; _Ibid._ for the year ended March 31, 1911, p. 39.

Footnote 296:

_Ibid._ for the year ended March 31, 1912, pp. 50-1.

Footnote 297:

The _East Ham Echo_, August 22, 1913.

Footnote 298:

At Brighton meals were provided on Saturdays by the Local Education Authority out of the rates till January, 1909, when it was declared to be _ultra vires_. (Report on the Medical Inspection of School Children in Brighton for 1908, p. 99.)

The question of the legality of the provision of meals during the holidays out of the rates is, indeed, an open one. The London County Council took counsel's opinion on the point in 1909 and again in 1910, each time receiving the reply that holiday feeding was illegal,[299] but the question has never been settled by a case in the courts. On special occasions the Local Government Board have relaxed their prohibition. Thus, in 1911, Mr. John Burns stated in Parliament that though the Board would not sanction in advance any expenditure incurred in providing meals during the week the schools were closed on account of the Coronation festivities, they would be prepared to consider each case on its merits, and decide whether any surcharge that might be made should be remitted or upheld.[300] And in the spring of 1912, during the widespread distress caused by the coal strike, the Board sanctioned the provision of meals during the Easter holidays.

Footnote 299:

Minutes of the London County Council, February 2, 1909, p. 121; Minutes of the Education Committee, November 23, 1910, p. 991.

Footnote 300:

_Hansard_, March 27, 1911, 5th Series, Vol. 23, pp. 1074-5.

On several occasions Bills have been brought in by the Labour party to legalise the provision of meals during the holidays, the latest being in April, 1913.[301] So far these efforts have met with no success, though the Prime Minister declared in 1912 that the Government was favourable to the principle,[302] but it has now been promised that the forthcoming Education Bill shall contain a clause enabling Local Authorities to provide meals on Sundays and during holidays.[303]

Footnote 301:

See Education (Administrative Provisions) Bills, April 14, 1910 (No. 128), February 19, 1912 (No. 18), April 15, 1913 (No. 101), which all contained a clause for provision of school meals during the holidays; Education (Provision of Meals) Act Amendment Bills, July 20, 1910 (No. 265); April 19, 1911 (No. 181); March 13, 1912 (No. 82); April 16, 1913 (No. 109).

Footnote 302:

_Hansard_, March 28, 1912, 5th Series, Vol. 36, p. 598.

Footnote 303:

_Hansard_, July 22, 1913, Vol. 55, pp. 1910-11.

There seems indeed to be a general consensus of opinion in favour of holiday feeding. The experiments made by Dr. Crowley at Bradford in 1907, and by the Medical Officer of Health at Northampton in 1909, which we shall describe later,[304] not to mention the testimony offered by numbers of teachers as to the deterioration of the children physically during the holidays, prove conclusively the need for the continuation of the meals, if the children are not to lose much of the benefit which they have derived during term time.

Footnote 304:

See post, pp. 184-7.

In passing we may note that not only do many Local Authorities--how many we are unable to ascertain, but the number must be considerable--discontinue the meals during the holidays, but they stop them entirely during the summer months.[305] In some towns, where employment is good during the summer, there may be little need for school meals, but in large towns, such as Bootle and Salford, which contain a large population who rely on casual labour, it is obvious that the cessation of the meals during the summer must cause considerable hardship.

Footnote 305:

This may be through lack of funds, as at East Ham (see ante, p. 56), but is not always due to this cause.

(f)--The Provision for Paying Children and Recovery of the Cost.

When the Provision of Meals Act was passed it was assumed that a considerable proportion of the cost of the meals would be borne by the parents. It was confidently expected that large numbers of parents would be willing to avail themselves of the provision of a midday meal at school for their children and would gladly pay for it.[306] The circular issued by the Board of Education to the Local Authorities pointed out that the Act aimed at securing that suitable meals should be available "just as much for those whose parents are in a position to pay as for those to whom food must be given free of cost."[307] "There will generally be no difficulty in providing, where it is so desired, a school dinner at a fixed price in the middle of the day, attended by children for whom, by reason of distance from the school or because the mother's absence makes a home meal difficult, the parent prefers to take advantage of an arrangement similar to that now in operation in most secondary day schools."[308] Moreover, little difficulty was anticipated in extracting payment from those parents who could afford to pay but neglected to do so. These expectations have not been fulfilled. In the year 1908-9 the sums received from the parents, either contributed voluntarily by them or recovered after prosecution or threat of prosecution, amounted to only L295, or .44 per cent. of the total receipts.[309] In 1911-12 the amount so received had increased but was still only 1 per cent.[310]

Footnote 306:

See, for instance, _Hansard_, December 6, 1906, 4th Series, Vol. 166, p. 1283; December 7, 1906, pp. 1340, 1344. See also _ibid._, July 9, 1903, Vol. 125, p. 196, and April 20, 1904, Vol. 133, p. 788.

Footnote 307:

Report on Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, p. 41.

Footnote 308:

_Ibid._, p. 42.

Footnote 309:

_Ibid._, p. 33.

Footnote 310:

The amount was L1,570 out of a total of L157,127. (Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 332.)

The smallness of the sums voluntarily contributed by the parents is largely due to the action of the Local Authorities. In the great majority of towns in England[311] no serious attempt has been made to establish "school restaurants"; the Local Education Authority, owing perhaps to lack of accommodation, perhaps to the difficulty of providing for a fluctuating number of children (a difficulty felt especially where the meals are supplied through a caterer), perhaps to the feeling that the provision of school meals as a matter of convenience would encourage the mothers to go out to work, has limited the provision to necessitous children. In 1911-12, out of 118 towns (apart from London) in which provision was made for underfed children, in only twenty-two were any of the meals paid for wholly by the parents. The number of children so paid for was in most cases negligible, the total amounting to only a few hundreds. And these figures include meals paid for under compulsion (though without prosecution) as well as meals voluntarily paid for as a matter of convenience.[312]

Footnote 311:

For provision made for paying children in Scottish towns, see Appendix II., pp. 242, 245, 246.

Footnote 312:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 325-7, 331. In eleven other towns the parents in some cases paid part of the cost.

But even where the system of voluntary payment has been tried, it has been a failure. At Bradford, where a large proportion of married women work in the mills, it was felt that many parents would take advantage of a system by which they could obtain a midday meal for their children at cost price.[313] The Education Committee accordingly sent round a circular to the head teachers asking them to announce to their scholars that a good dinner could be obtained for 2d.[314] The response was disappointing. Comparatively few of the mothers took advantage of the offer, and the result, though the number of paying children[315] seems to be larger than in any other provincial town,[316] can only be described as a failure. This may be partly attributed to the cost. Where there are several children a payment of 2d. per head may be more than the parent can afford. But the main cause of failure is undoubtedly the dislike of the independent type of parent who can afford to pay to sending his children to meals the majority of which are being given free. In fact any system which seeks to combine free and paying meals, the free meals being the chief element, is fore-doomed to failure.[317]

Footnote 313:

"The needs would be met of a host of children who never got a decent meal." (Councillor North, Bradford City Council Proceedings, February 26, 1907, p. 233.)

Footnote 314:

Extracts from the Annual Reports of the Bradford Education Committee for the four years ended March 31, 1907, 1908, 1909 and 1910, pp. 14, 16. The charge is now 2-1/2d.

Footnote 315:

The numbers given in the Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911 (p. 325) are 182, but some of these were paid for by the Guardians. No record, we were told, is kept of the individual children who pay, but the amount received in 1912-13 from parents who voluntarily paid the whole cost was L169 19s. 8d. Thus only some 16,320 meals were wholly paid for, out of a total of 782,979. (Bradford Education Committee, Return as to the Working of the Provision of Meals Act for the year ending March 31, 1913.)

Footnote 316:

At Finchley as many as two-thirds of the meals are paid for, but the charge is very low, only 1/2d. per meal. We were informed that the price would not cover the cost of food if it were not for the fact that the meat used in connection with the dinners was provided as a voluntary gift.

Footnote 317:

This was the opinion of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Medical Inspection and Feeding in 1905. (See ante, p. 37.) "If no distinction is made between the paying children and the non-paying children," declared one witness, "I feel sure that the Birmingham artisan would not send his children. He would not let them go to receive a meal in regard to which it was not known whether it was given free or not." (Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Medical Inspection and Feeding, 1905, Vol. II., Q. 1246, evidence of Mr. George Hookham.) See also the evidence given by Mr. F. Wilkinson, the Director of Education for Bolton. (_Ibid._, Qs. 3115-3119.)

In the Special Schools for mentally or physically defective children, where the dinner is provided more as a part of the school curriculum than as a "charity" meal, there is not, as we shall see, much difficulty in inducing the parents to pay for the meals.[318] In rural districts also, where the children are in many cases unable to go home at midday, the system of paying dinners has more chance of success.[319]

Footnote 318:

See post, p. 120.

Footnote 319:

See post, pp. 123-5.

Turning now to the question of the recovery of the cost from unwilling parents, the Provision of Meals Act, it will be remembered, laid down that the Local Authorities should require payment unless satisfied that the parents could not pay, and the cost might be recovered summarily as a civil debt. In practice this has been found very difficult to accomplish. It is impossible to tell from the returns how much of the L1,570 received from parents in 1911-12 was contributed voluntarily, and how much recovered after compulsion, but the amount recovered must necessarily be very small.[320]

Footnote 320:

The amount recovered _after prosecution_ in 1911-12 was L42 10s. 6d. for the whole of England and Wales, London accounting for more than half this sum. (Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 325-7.) To this we must add the amount recovered with more or less difficulty, but without prosecution.

Where the Local Education Authority confines the provision of meals strictly to the cases where the family income is below a certain amount per head, as at Leeds, there is of course little to be recovered, attempts at recovery being limited to cases where the parents have made an incorrect statement as to their income, and have therefore been obtaining the meals under false pretences. At West Ham, indeed, the Education Committee has interpreted the Provision of Meals Act to mean that recovery must be attempted in every case where meals are supplied. When a parent applies for meals for his children on the score of being unable to provide for them himself--for only necessitous children are fed, no provision being made for voluntary payment--he has to sign a form by which he agrees to repay the cost of all meals which have been supplied when he gets back into work and can afford to do so. Moreover, he has to send a note every day saying that he still wishes his children to be fed,[321] this being insisted on as a proof that meals have been supplied in the event of an attempt at recovery. In any case the full cost is rarely charged, the wage and the number of children being taken into consideration, and a rebate of sometimes as much as 75 per cent. being granted. But as a matter of fact very few accounts are sent to the Borough Treasurer for collection, as the wages of nearly all the parents of the children who are fed, even when they are in good work, are too small to allow of their paying for meals supplied in the past.[322]

Footnote 321:

See ante, p. 64.

Footnote 322:

Report of the West Ham Education Committee for the year ending March 31, 1912, p. 54.

When the Local Education Authority is determined to provide food for all children who need it, for those who are underfed through the neglect of their parents to provide for them as well as for those whose parents are too poor to do so, a considerable amount ought to be recovered. The difficulty lies in the impossibility in many cases of securing sufficient evidence of the parent's ability to pay. Magistrates are notoriously loth to convict. At Bradford we were told that in numbers of cases magistrates' orders for payment had been served on the parents, but these orders were frequently disregarded by parents who knew the practical difficulties in the way of enforcing them.[323]

Footnote 323:

In 1911 proceedings were taken against parents in only eight towns, including London. The number of cases was 219, of which 147 were in London. (Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 325-327.)

Whether the amount due for meals which have been already supplied is paid by the parent or not, the commonest result of sending a notice that the Local Authority intends to recover the cost is that the parents refuse to allow their children any longer to receive the meals. "In practice it is found," says the Bootle School Canteen Committee, "that when action is taken to enforce payment the children are withdrawn by their parents from further participation in the meals, with the result that the children revert to their former ill-fed condition."[324] At York, too, we were told that when a child who is found to be underfed through neglect is put on the feeding-list and a letter written to the father that he will be charged the cost of the meals, he invariably writes back demanding that his child shall be taken off the list. Nothing more is done and the child remains underfed. The Local Education Authorities are, indeed, "on the horns of a dilemma in dealing with such cases, as the Act obliges them to make this attempt to recover the cost, and they know that the only result of their doing so will be that the children are withdrawn from the meals."[325] So much has the Bradford Education Authority felt this difficulty that they have more than once sought power, by inserting a clause in the local Bills promoted by the Corporation, to compel the attendance of children at meals in all cases in which the School Medical Officer certifies that the children are underfed, and to recover the cost. These efforts have so far proved useless, it being held that such a clause involves a new principle and cannot therefore be included in a local Act.[326]

Footnote 324:

Report on the work of the Bootle School Canteen Committee, 1910-11, p. 21. Since this date the Committee have accordingly made no attempt to prosecute parents for repayment of the cost.

Footnote 325:

Extracts from Annual Reports of Bradford Education Committee for the four years ended March 31, 1907, 1908, 1909 and 1910, p. 13.

Footnote 326:

At Bradford a child who is underfed through neglect is put on the feeding-list for a month before the bill is sent to its parents, so that it may receive the benefit of the meals for this period at any rate.

The question of dealing with neglectful parents is indeed beset with difficulties. Under the Children Act, 1908, a parent or guardian can be prosecuted for neglecting a child "in a manner likely to cause such child unnecessary suffering or injury to its health." This neglect is defined to mean those cases where the parent or guardian "fails to provide adequate food, clothing, medical aid or lodging," or, if unable to provide the same himself, fails to apply to the Guardians for relief.[327] It is rare for the Local Education Authorities themselves to institute proceedings under this Act. Usually they prefer to refer cases to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Often an improvement in the condition of the child is effected as a result of the visits of this society's inspectors to the home. But when these warnings prove useless, frequently nothing more is done; the society are loth to prosecute, except in extreme cases when they can be practically certain of securing a conviction.

Footnote 327:

8 Edward VII., c. 67, sec. 12.

(g)--Overlapping between the Poor Law and the Education Authorities.

We have already alluded to the neglect of the Guardians to deal with more than an insignificant fraction of the children who are underfed. The attempt made in 1905 to force them to fulfil their responsibility in this respect was, as we have seen, a complete failure, and the duty was therefore cast upon the Local Education Authorities. But even in the few cases where the Guardians have assumed the responsibility by granting out-relief to the family, the amount of this relief is, in the vast majority of cases, totally inadequate. This was abundantly proved by the Report of the Poor Law Commission in 1909. "The children," they reported, "are undernourished, many of them poorly dressed and many bare-footed ... the decent mother's one desire is to keep herself and her children out of the work-house. She will, if allowed, try to do this on an impossibly inadequate sum, until both she and her children become mentally and physically deteriorated."[328] When the mother was careless or neglectful no supervision was exercised by the Guardians to see that even this inadequate amount was really spent on the children. This indictment still holds good to-day. The inadequacy of the relief granted by the Guardians, in all but a few exceptional Unions, has, in fact, become a byword.

Footnote 328:

Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, 1909, 8vo edition, Vol. III. (Minority Report), p. 36.

In the great majority of towns, the Local Education Authority is consequently driven to feed children whose parents are in receipt of poor relief. Thus two authorities deal with the same case, without, in many instances, either of them knowing what the other is doing.[329] Only in a few cases has any attempt been made to prevent this overlapping. For example, at Leicester (one of the few towns, we may note, where liberal out-relief is granted by the Guardians) there has from the first been co-operation between the Guardians and the Canteen Committee.[330] The Relieving Officer refers to the Canteen Committee many applications that are made to him where temporary help only is needed, and the Committee has frequently tided families over a bad time and saved them from recourse to the Poor Law. On the other hand, when a family is receiving out-relief the Canteen Committee refuses to grant food for the children. At Acton a similar policy has been adopted. If parents who are in receipt of out-relief apply for school meals for their children, the Secretary of the Education Committee recommends them to apply to the Guardians for more relief, at the same time himself writing to the Relieving Officer. As a rule the relief is increased in consequence. Meanwhile the teachers are told to watch the children to see that they do not suffer from want of food. At Dewsbury, also, temporary cases are dealt with by the Canteen Committee, but all chronic cases by the Guardians.[331]

Footnote 329:

Occasionally, as we have seen, the Guardians are represented on the Canteen Committee, as at Crewe.

Footnote 330:

First Annual Report of the Leicester Children's Aid Association, 1907-8, p. 4.

Footnote 331:

Report of the School Medical Officer for Dewsbury for 1911, p. 41.

Elsewhere an attempt has been made to prevent overlapping by other means. While the Education Authority undertakes to provide for all the underfed children, an arrangement is made with the Guardians whereby they repay the cost of the meals supplied for all children whose parents are in receipt of relief. The relief is thus given partly in the form of school meals, a plan strongly to be commended, since it ensures that the relief given on account of the children is in fact obtained by them. This plan has been for some years pursued at Bradford. At first there appear to have been complaints that the Guardians were reducing the relief granted, on account of the dinners supplied at school,[332] but the dinners are now given in addition to the ordinary relief.[333] In 1912-13, the Guardians paid L303 to the Education Authority on this account.[334] Even so, there is some slight overlapping, since the Guardians only pay for dinners and in some cases the Canteen Committee are of opinion that a second meal is needed, and consequently breakfasts are granted and paid for by the Education Authority. A similar plan has been adopted at Blackburn,[335] Huddersfield,[336] Brighton,[337] York and Liverpool. In the last named town the arrangement has only recently been made, and is in force in only two of the three Unions into which the town is divided, West Derby and Liverpool. The Guardians have agreed to issue coupons for school meals to children whose parents are in receipt of out-relief, and will pay to the Education Authority 2d. per meal. We were informed that, in the case of the West Derby Guardians at any rate, these coupons would only be given to children whose mothers were out all day. The relief would be reduced in consequence, though not to the extent of the full value of the meal. The Guardians of the Toxteth Union declined to make a similar arrangement, but suggested that the Local Education Authority should inform them when they found children underfed whose parents were in receipt of relief, and they proposed in these cases to increase the relief.[338]

Footnote 332:

Bradford City Council Proceedings, June 16, 1908, p. 395; April 11, 1911, p. 305.

Footnote 333:

Thus the minimum relief for a widow is 4s., with 2s. each for the first two children, and 1s. each for other children. In addition five dinners a week, amounting in value to 1s. 0-1/2d., are given to all children attending school. (Bradford Poor Law Union, Outdoor Relief Arrangements.)

Footnote 334:

Bradford Education Committee, Return as to the Working of the Provision of Meals Act for the year ending March 31, 1913.

Footnote 335:

Report of the School Medical Officer for Blackburn, 1911, p. 218. Out of 59,537 meals given during the year, the Guardians paid for 17,786, or nearly one-third.

Footnote 336:

Report of the Huddersfield Education Committee, 1911, p. 23.

Footnote 337:

Report of Brighton Education Committee for the year ending March 31, 1912, p. 28.

Footnote 338:

For the arrangements made between the Liverpool Education Committee and the Guardians with regard to payment for children admitted as voluntary cases to the Day Industrial Schools, see post, p. 118 n.

Other Local Education Authorities have tried this plan of communicating with the Guardians, in the hope that they would grant adequate relief for the needs of the children, but, finding no such result ensue, have discontinued the practice. At Bury St. Edmunds, for instance, it was found in the winter of 1907-8 that "a large percentage of the families whose children were fed at school were in receipt of outdoor relief of an amount which the Education Authority thought inadequate. The attention of the Board of Guardians was called to the fact, but no steps were taken by them."[339] The Education Committee accordingly continued to feed the children, and we gather that now no communication is made by them to the Guardians. Similarly at West Ham we were informed that the Education Committee used to report cases to the Guardians, but the practice proved useless and it has been given up, except for special cases, where the Guardians will sometimes increase the relief given.

Footnote 339:

Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, 1909, 8vo edition, Vol. III. (Minority Report), p. 166 n.

In a few Unions, as at Leeds, the only result of the Guardians learning that the children are receiving school meals--the need for which points to the conclusion that the out-relief granted is inadequate--is that they promptly reduce the relief, though not contributing to the Local Education Authority anything towards the cost of the meals. They appear to regard the provision of school meals merely as a means of reducing the poor-rates, and casting the burden on other shoulders. Naturally in such circumstances the Local Education Authority does not report cases to the Guardians.

Any systematic arrangement between the two Authorities appears indeed to be exceptional. As a rule there is practically no co-operation, beyond, perhaps, the notification of cases by both authorities to some Mutual Registration Society,[340] or the informal meetings of the Relieving Officers and the School Attendance Officers.[341]

Footnote 340:

Thus at Manchester, the Education Committee and the Guardians send lists of their cases to the District Provident Society, and the Secretary lets each Authority know what the other is doing.

Footnote 341:

It is impossible to give any figures as to the overlapping that exists, since the practice varies so much in different towns, and in many cases no records are kept.

(h)--The Provision of Meals at Day Industrial Schools and Special Schools.

We have already alluded to the power of the Local Education Authorities to provide meals for the children attending the Day Industrial Schools and the Special Schools for the mentally or physically defective. The Day Industrial Schools are intended primarily for children who have played truant from the ordinary schools and who are committed by a magistrate's order. But in the case of widows or deserted wives who have to work all day, or when the father is incapacitated from work by illness or infirmity, or if the father is a widower, the children may be admitted to a Day Industrial School, without an order, as "voluntary cases."[342] When children are committed by a magistrate's order, the parents are ordered to make a weekly payment towards the cost of industrial training and meals.[343] In the case of children admitted voluntarily such payment is also theoretically demanded,[344] but in practice it is, as a rule, impossible to exact it. Thus at Liverpool, though small payments are received from widowers, the condition as to payment has to be waived in the case of widows and deserted wives, or when the father is unable to work through illness.[345] At Bootle we were informed that no payment is received from any of the voluntary cases. The Schools are open from 6 or 7 in the morning to 5.30 or 6 at night and three meals are provided. The dietary is as a rule monotonous, being continued week after week with practically no variation. In point of order, as might be expected, the service of the meals compares favourably with those given to necessitous children, erring rather on the side of over-much discipline. It is, unfortunately, by no means uncommon to find absolute silence insisted on, a regulation which has a most depressing effect. In these Day Industrial Schools the Local Education Authorities have a valuable instrument for providing for the numerous cases where mothers are at work all day and so cannot provide proper meals for their children, or where the children are neglected. This was urged by many witnesses before the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws,[346] and again recently by the Departmental Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools.[347] Very few authorities, however, have taken advantage of this power. In 1911 there were only twelve Day Industrial Schools in England, provided by eight authorities, and eight in Scotland, of which seven were in Glasgow.[348] The total attendance numbered a little over 3,000, the voluntary cases amounting to only 308.[349] These numbers showed a decrease compared with previous years,[350] and this decline has since continued, partly owing to the fact that truancy is far less common now than formerly, partly owing to the provision of meals for children attending elementary schools, which renders the Day Industrial Schools less necessary.[351]

Footnote 342:

Elementary Education Act, 1876 (39 and 40 Vic., c. 79), sec. 16 (4); Children Act, 1908 (8 Edward VII., c. 67), sec. 79; "Day Industrial Schools," by J. C. Legge, in _Proceedings of National Conference on the Prevention of Destitution_, 1911, p. 360.

Footnote 343:

Children Act, 1908, sec. 82 (1).

Footnote 344:

_Ibid._, sec. 79.

Footnote 345:

"Day Industrial Schools," by J. C. Legge, in _Proceedings of National Conference on the Prevention of Destitution_, 1911, p. 361. For many years an arrangement has been in force by which the Liverpool Select Vestry pay the Local Education Authority 9d. a week in respect of each child in their area admitted as a voluntary scholar. (_Ibid._) A few years ago the Guardians of the Toxteth Union agreed, in such cases, where the parent was in receipt of outdoor relief, to increase the relief by 6d. on condition that this was paid to the Education Authority. (_Ibid._, p. 362.) The West Derby Guardians pay a lump sum of L40 a year.

Footnote 346:

Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1909. 8vo edition, Vol. III., p. 165.

Footnote 347:

Report of the Departmental Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools, 1913, p. 62.

Footnote 348:

Fifty-fifth Report on Reformatory and Industrial Schools, 1911, Part I., pp. 28-30; Part II., p. 20. Two of the schools in England have since been closed, and the school at Leeds is shortly to be given up.

Footnote 349:

_Ibid._, Part I., pp. 267-292; Part II., p. 20.

Footnote 350:

_Ibid._, Part II., p. 19.

Footnote 351:

Report of the Departmental Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools, 1913, p. 62.

The arrangements made for providing for the mentally and physically defective children vary in different towns. Sometimes no special provision is made. At Leicester, for instance, the mentally defective children who come from a distance bring their food with them and the caretaker warms it. Frequently, however, a regular dinner is supplied. Thus at Eastbourne dinners are provided at the Special School for dull and backward children at a very small charge.[352] At Bradford some of the children pay 1-1/2d. a meal, others receive it free. At Liverpool a payment of 1s., 6d. or 3d. a week is demanded, according to the circumstances, the meals being given free in special cases.[353] In Birkenhead, too, the charge varies, some paying 1s. a week, some 2d. or 1d. per meal, at the discretion of the teacher; no meals are given free, children who cannot pay being sent to the centre to have their dinner with the necessitous children from the ordinary elementary schools. There appears to be usually little difficulty in collecting payment. At Birkenhead we were told that some difficulty was experienced at first, but the children appreciate the dinners so much now that they beg their parents to give them the necessary pence.

Footnote 352:

Report of School Medical Officer for Eastbourne for 1912, p. 46.

Footnote 353:

The majority pay about 6d. a week. In the case of physically defective children the parent's payment is intended to meet the expenses of dinner, any medicines or dressings that may be necessary, and the cost of conveyance. It does not, of course, nearly cover these charges.

At the Open Air Schools[354] the common meal always forms part of the regular school routine. As a rule three meals a day are provided,[355] and sometimes milk is given in addition in the middle of the morning. Usually some charge is made towards the cost of the meals, varying from 6d. to 3s. per week, according to the parents' circumstances, but in necessitous cases the charge is remitted.[356]

Footnote 354:

In 1911 there were only nine Open Air Schools, maintained by eight authorities. (Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 215.)

Footnote 355:

At Darlington only a mid-day meal is provided.

Footnote 356:

At Norwich the charge varies from 6d. to 1s. 6d.; at Sheffield, from 6d. to 2s. 6d.; at Halifax it may amount to 3s. At Barnsley all the parents are charged 2s. 6d. per week, no children being admitted without payment. At Bradford the meals are given free to all.

The service of the meals at these Special Schools presents in general a marked contrast to the methods prevailing at the centres for necessitous children. For example, at Birkenhead, where the management of the feeding centres leaves much to be desired,[357] the dinner provided at the Mentally Defective School, for all children who care to stay, is served in an attractive and educational manner. One or more teachers are always present to supervise it. The children enter all together and sit down at small tables. The boys and girls take it in turns to lay the tables and clear away afterwards, and help to serve the food. Table-cloths are provided and these are kept remarkably clean. Somewhat similar conditions prevail at Liverpool in the Special Schools for Physically and Mentally Defective Children.[358] But it is at a school for feeble-minded children at Bradford that we found the most perfect arrangements. The smallness of the numbers--only some 17 or 18 children being present--allowed attention to be paid to each individual child. The dinner was served in a bright cheerful hall, and the tables were nicely laid by the children, with table-cloths, plants and flowers; these latter the children often bring themselves. Two teachers are always present and preside at the two tables, having their dinner with the children. The children's manners were excellent and spoke volumes for the patience and care exercised by the teachers.

Footnote 357:

See ante, pp. 95-6.

Footnote 358:

At one of these schools, the mentally defective children were having their dinner in one room, the physically defective in an adjoining room. All the children stay for the meal. The headmistress supervised, assisted by a teacher for the mentally defective, and the school nurse for the physically defective children. Tablecloths were provided for the latter, but not for the former. The dinner was cooked by the children who had been attending the cookery class in the morning; the children laid the tables, and monitors helped to serve the food.

The example afforded by the service of the meals at these special schools might well be imitated by the Education Authorities in providing meals at the ordinary elementary schools.

(i)--The Underfed Child in Rural Schools.

We have confined our investigations almost entirely to the Urban Districts. We must, however, briefly touch upon the question of underfeeding in the country. Here the conditions are different. The problem is not only how to provide for the children who do not get sufficient to eat; there are also to be considered the large numbers who are unable to return home at midday and have to bring their dinner to school with them. Many of these children have to walk long distances, perhaps two miles, three miles, or even more. The long walk necessitates an early start from home; this makes the interval between breakfast and dinner long and the exercise sharpens the appetite. Hence it is of the greatest importance that the midday meal should be adequate. In most cases, however, as the reports of School Medical Officers abundantly testify, the dinner which these children bring with them consists of bread and jam, cake or pastry, with perhaps a bottle of cold tea.[359] In a few schools the teachers have organised cocoa clubs, the children paying 1d. or 1-1/2d. per week, which is as a rule just sufficient to cover expenses.[360] Incidentally, it is noticed, the weekly payment for cocoa has a good effect on the attendance. "A child having once paid his or her cocoa fee at the beginning of the week seldom stays away from school during the remainder of the week if it can possibly be avoided."[361]

Footnote 359:

In East Sussex, for instance, where particulars were supplied by the teachers as to the meals brought by eleven of the children, it was found that the food was totally inadequate, in most cases consisting of bread and butter, or cake, with perhaps a small piece of cheese or an apple. Two children of five years old, who had to walk two miles to school, brought, one of them bread and butter only, the other cake. Three children, who had to walk three and a half miles, brought either cake or only bread. ("The Diet of Elementary School Children in Country Districts," by Dr. George Finch, in _Rearing an Imperial Race_, edited by C. E. Hecht, 1913, p. 29.) In a Bedfordshire school out of 62 children who brought their dinner to school with them, one had an apple tart, three had bread and cheese, while 58 had "bread with a thin layer of butter or lard on it, or else bread and jam, or bread and syrup. This meal was washed down with water, as nothing hot was obtainable." ("How the Family of the Agricultural Labourer Lives," by Ronald T. Herdman, reprinted in _Rearing an Imperial Race_, p. 341.)

Footnote 360:

Thus at Brynconin, where 85 children are supplied daily with cocoa for a weekly charge of 1d., the week's expenditure on cocoa, sugar and milk amounts to 6s. 6d., and the children's payments to 6s. 10d. (Report of the School Medical Officer for Pembrokeshire for 1912, p. 14.) See also Reports of the School Medical Officer for Hampshire (1910), p. 25; for the Isle of Ely (1910), p. 18; for Gloucestershire (1910), p. 53; for East Suffolk (1910), p. 19; for West Sussex (1911), p. 10. Sometimes the cocoa is provided free through the generosity of the teachers. (See Report of Monmouthshire Education Committee on the Medical Inspection Department for 1910, p. 9.)

Footnote 361:

Report of the School Medical Officer for Hampshire for 1910, p. 25.

Sometimes the teacher encourages the children to bring bottles of milk, cocoa or coffee and sees that they are warmed over the fire before being partaken of.

Occasionally a regular dinner is provided. We have already mentioned the experiment made at Rousdon by Sir Henry Peek in 1876. This has been continued to the present day. A hot dinner is provided daily, consisting of one course, soup with bread and vegetables two days a week, and some form of suet pudding the other three days. About half the children stay for the dinner and pay one penny each, these payments just about covering the cost of the food. The meal is served in a dining-room in the school and the ex-headmaster and the present headmaster voluntarily undertake the supervision.

A somewhat similar plan has been tried at Grassington, in Yorkshire. When, eighteen years ago, the teaching of cookery was introduced, it was resolved to combine with that instruction the provision of a hot midday meal. The children not only cook the dinner themselves, but they take it in turns to order and pay for the materials, thus acquiring the valuable knowledge how to buy. They are taught the value of the different foodstuffs and learn how to make a good substantial dinner at a little cost. A two-course dinner, ample and varied, is provided daily at the school.[362] Each child is allowed to eat as much as it wants, but no waste is allowed. Marvellous as it appears, the payment of a 1d. per meal covers the cost of the food.[363] The dinner appears to have been intended chiefly for the children who came from a distance, but the parents of the children who live in the village have been glad to avail themselves of the provision, since the school dinner is better than they can supply at home.[364] Nearly half the children stay. All the arrangements are, and have from the first been, made by the headmaster's wife, who takes the cookery lesson and serves the meal herself, and the success of the experiment must be very largely attributed to her voluntary labours.

Footnote 362:

For sample menus, see Appendix I., p. 236.

Footnote 363:

For instance, the cost of the food for the dinners for twelve weeks amounted to L7 9s. 8d., and the children's payments to L7 9s. 5d. On cold snowy mornings hot cocoa is provided before morning school for all the children. The cost of this is, we gather, borne entirely by the headmaster and his wife.

Footnote 364:

_Yorkshire Post_, July 9, 1908.

In two schools in Cheshire also, Siddington and Nether Alderley, hot dinners are provided at a charge of 1-1/2d., in the former during the winter months, in the latter all the year round. In both cases the children's payments cover, or slightly more than cover, the cost of the food, the other expenses being borne by voluntary funds.

Such provision is, however, quite exceptional. As a rule no provision whatever is made. "I have only once seen any supervision of the meal on the part of the teachers," writes a late Assistant School Medical Officer for East Sussex; "in fine weather the children generally eat [their dinner] out of doors; in bad weather it is taken in the school or cloak-room in what are often very unhygienic surroundings."[365] "There is no doubt," writes another School Medical Officer, "that at some of the schools the conditions in which the children get their midday meal are deplorable."[366] "It is only too common a sight," reports the School Medical Officer for Derbyshire, "to see little children sitting in a corner of the class-room, cloak-room or even the playground, munching at thick slices of bread and butter. Under these circumstances," he continues, "it cannot be wondered at that children below the normal development are to be found in our schools."[367] In Anglesey the School Medical Officer finds more children badly nourished in the rural areas than in the urban areas; this he attributes mainly to the long walk to school every day, the inadequacy of the midday meal and the hurried manner in which it is eaten.[368]

Footnote 365:

"The Diet of Elementary School Children in Country Districts," by Dr. George Finch, in _Rearing an Imperial Race_, edited by C. E. Hecht, 1913, p. 109.

Footnote 366:

Report of the School Medical Officer for Hampshire, 1910, p. 24.

Footnote 367:

Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 284.

Footnote 368:

_Ibid._, pp. 283-4.

It is indeed essential that in all country schools to which children come from a distance, provision should be made for the serving of a midday meal under proper supervision.[369] As Dr. George Finch points out, "the authority which requires the child to spend its day away from home might not unreasonably be expected by the parents to make some provision that its midday meal might be taken under not unfavourable conditions. The parent, however conscientious, cannot adequately deal with the problem, and the provision of suitable cold food is not an easy matter, even in the more well-to-do family."[370] The meals should be served as part of the school curriculum and might well be combined with the teaching of cookery as is done at Grassington.

Footnote 369:

As we have seen, the Inter-Departmental Committee on Medical Inspection and Feeding in 1905 recommended that managers of country schools should arrange, during the winter at any rate, to provide either a hot dinner or soup or cocoa for children who lived too far away to go home at mid-day. (See ante, p. 38.)

Footnote 370:

"The Diet of Elementary School Children in Country Districts," by Dr. George Finch, in _Rearing an Imperial Race_, edited by C. E. Hecht, 1913, p. 109.

Conclusions.

It may be useful now to sum up the main points which emerge from the foregoing description. The proposal, which we shall discuss in the final chapter, to make the midday meal a part of the school curriculum, to be attended by all children who wish to avail themselves of the provision, would obviate many of the difficulties that arise under the present system. Meanwhile we may point out some ways in which improvements can be effected, apart from this more drastic proposal.

1. Since the Provision of Meals Act is only permissive, Local Education Authorities are allowed to remain inactive in spite of the fact that children in their schools are underfed, and that no adequate provision is made by voluntary agencies. It should be made obligatory on the Local Authority to take action in such a case.

2. The limitation of the amount which may be spent on food by the Local Education Authority to the sum yielded by a halfpenny rate restricts operations in some towns, and prevents provision being made for all the necessitous children. This limitation should be removed.

An alteration of the law in these two directions would merely assimilate the powers and duties of the English Education Authorities to those already conferred on the Scottish School Boards by the Education (Scotland) Act of 1908.[371]

Footnote 371:

See post, pp. 237-8.

3. The selection of the children who are to receive school meals is based, often solely and always primarily, on the poverty test. Little attempt is made to link up the provision of meals with the school medical service. The meals, that is to say, are regarded primarily as a means of relieving distress rather than as a remedy for malnutrition. The numbers selected vary according to the policy of the Local Education Authority and the views taken by the individual head teachers. Nowhere can the selection of the children be said to be satisfactory. In towns such as Bradford, where the Local Authority is determined to search out all cases of children who are suffering from lack of food, the great majority of underfed children are doubtless discovered, but in other towns numbers of such children are overlooked and left unprovided for, while everywhere little or no provision is made for the countless children who are improperly fed at home. We shall discuss in the final chapter the best method to be pursued in this matter of selecting the children.

4. There is great diversity of practice in different towns with regard to the time at which the meal is given, the manner in which it is prepared and served, and the kind of food supplied. Where only one meal is provided, it would appear that dinner is for many reasons preferable to breakfast. The dietary should be varied and should be drawn up in consultation with the School Medical Officer; it should be so planned as to contain a due proportion of the elements which are lacking in the child's home diet, and special provision should be made for the infants. The preparation of the meals should not be left to caterers but should be undertaken by the Local Authority, so that adherence to the approved dietary and a high standard of quality can be assured. The meal should be regarded as part of the school curriculum. It should be served as far as possible on the school premises, and should be attended only by children from that particular school. The children should be taught to set the tables and wait on one another, the tables being nicely laid, with table-cloths and, if possible, flowers or plants. Clean hands and faces and orderly behaviour should be insisted on. Some of the teachers should supervise the meal and should receive some extra remuneration for this service.

5. The discontinuance of the school meals during the holidays has been shown to undo much of the benefit derived during term-time, and it entails unnecessary suffering on the children. The expenditure of the rates on holiday feeding must be legalised. The limitation of the provision to the winter months, as is the practice in some towns, is even more absurd. Local Authorities should be required to continue the school meals throughout the year, if need exists.

6. The sums contributed by the parents towards the cost of their children's meals amount to only a trifling fraction of the total expenditure. The power of providing meals as a matter of convenience for children whose parents are able and willing to pay has been very sparingly used by the Local Education Authorities, as far as the ordinary elementary schools are concerned. In the special schools for defective children, on the other hand, where not infrequently a midday meal is provided for all the children, a considerable proportion of the parents contribute towards the cost. It is difficult to say whether the establishment of School Restaurants in the ordinary schools would be successful. One point, however, seems clear; if the plan is to succeed, the meals must be intended primarily for paying children; if they are provided mainly for necessitous children, parents who can afford to pay will not send their children to any great extent.

In the case of the parents who can afford to feed their children but neglect to do so, the attempt to recover the cost of the meals supplied to the children results as a rule in almost total failure, owing to the extreme difficulty of obtaining conclusive evidence of the parents' ability to pay. An attempt to recover may be worse than useless, for it frequently leads the parent to withdraw his children promptly from the school meals, though their need of the meals continues as great as before.

7. Owing to the inadequate relief usually given by the Boards of Guardians, the Local Education Authorities are in many cases forced to feed children whose parents are receiving poor relief. In only a few towns is any systematic attempt made to prevent this overlapping between the two authorities. So long as the Guardians retain their present functions, the plan adopted at Bradford and a few other towns, by which the out-relief granted by the Guardians is given partly in the form of school meals, the Guardians paying the Education Authority for these meals, might well be extended to other towns. By this plan overlapping of relief is avoided, while it ensures that the relief given to the mother on account of her children is in effect obtained by them.

8. In the rural districts the conditions under which the children eat their midday meal are frequently deplorable. The long walk to school renders it even more important than it is in the towns that the meal should be a substantial one, but the food which the children bring with them is as a rule entirely inadequate. In the few schools where a hot dinner has been provided, the plan has met with marked success, and such provision should be made in all schools. It might advantageously be combined with the teaching of cookery, a plan which is more practicable in the country than in the towns, since the numbers to be provided for are comparatively small.