The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Feeding of School Children, by M. E. (Mildred Emily) Bulkley

2. It is interesting to note that the impulse for the formation of this society came indirectly from France. In 1848 a commission of medical and scientific men had been appointed by the French Government to enquire into the causes of diseases, such as scrofula, rickets, and impoverishment of blood, to which children of the poor were exposed, and which produced so much mortality. The Committee reported that in their opinion the diseases were caused by children not having animal food, and might be checked by their having a meal of fresh meat once a month. Owing to political events no action was taken on this report, but it made a great impression on Victor Hugo, and some fourteen years later (in 1862) he started the experiment of giving dinners of fresh meat and a small glass of wine, once a fortnight, to forty of the most necessitous young children of Guernsey. This experiment was declared to be very successful. Many children suffering from the above diseases had been cured, "and the physical constitution of nearly the whole of them sensibly improved" (Punch, January 16, 1864). This description concluded with a suggestion that a similar scheme might be initiated in London. The Destitute Children's Dinner Society was the result. (Charity Organisation Review, January, 1885, p. 23.)

3. Report on Metropolitan Soup Kitchens and Dinner Tables, by the Society for Organising Charitable Relief, 1871, p. 57.

4. The Times, December 5, 1867.

5. Ibid., November 1, 1870. The following year the Charity Organisation Society reports approvingly that the Destitute Children's Dinner Society "cordially accepts and endeavours to act up to the principle that 'to relieve destitution belongs to the Poor Law, while to prevent destitution is the peculiar function of charity.'" (Report on Metropolitan Soup Kitchens and Dinner Tables, 1871, p. 57.)

6. The cost of a meal was generally 4d., 5d. or 6d.

7. The Times, April 15, 1868.

8. We have only found one case where the dinner was given as often as three times a week. (See letter from John Palmer, Hon. Sec. of the Clare Market Ragged Schools, ibid., October 16, 1871.)

9. Thus a dinner given by the Refuge for Homeless and Destitute Children to pupils of St. Giles and St. George, Bloomsbury, consisted of boiled and roast beef, plenty of potatoes, and a thick slice of bread, the portion given to each child being abundant. (Ibid., November 27, 1869.)

10. Ibid., December 5, 1867.

11. Ibid., March 26, 1869.

12. Report of Ragged School Union for 1870, quoted in Report on Metropolitan Soup Kitchens and Dinner Tables, 1871, p. 58.

13. Letter from the Treasurer of the Destitute Children's Dinner Society, The Times, April 15, 1868.

14. In that year (1868) dinners were given during nine months, being discontinued only from July to September, but in subsequent years they appear to have been provided during the winter months only.

15. "At the present season, when the energy of the School Board visitors is filling the schools with all the poorest of the poor street Arabs, the need of such a society as this is more than ever felt." (Letter from the Committee of the Destitute Children's Dinner Society, The Times, December 12, 1872.)

16. London School Board, Report of Special Committee on Underfed Children, 1895, Appendix 1, p. 5.

17. Report of Inter-Departmental Committee on Medical Inspection and Feeding, 1905, Vol. II., Q. 304.

18. London School Board, Report of Special Committee on Underfed Children, 1895, Appendix 1, p. 6.

19. Mr. Mundella in the House of Commons, Hansard, July 26, 1883, 3rd Series, Vol. 282, pp. 577-9. "The effect on the health of the children," writes the Rector of Rousdon in January, 1885, "may be well exemplified by the most recent illustration—viz., that in the third week of December, though whooping-cough had been, and still was, prevalent among them, and the weather was damp and raw, the entry on the master's weekly report was, absentees, 0—that is, every child on the register had appeared on the Monday morning and paid for its week's dinners. Probably such a circumstance in a rural school district (with radius of a mile and a half at least) in the height of winter is unprecedented." (Sanitary Record, January 15, 1885.)

20. The Times, April 15, 1880. Speaking of the children at London Hospitals, Dr. Robert Farquharson writes: "Ill-fed and badly housed and clothed, exposed to depressing sanitary and domestic conditions, these poor creatures are frequently expected to do an amount of school work of which their badly-nourished brains are utterly incapable. I have long been familiar with the pale, dejected look, the chronic headache, the sleeplessness, the loss of appetite, the general want of tone, caused undoubtedly by the undue exercise of nervous tissues unprovided with their proper allowance of healthy food." Such children "are by no means inclined to shirk their lessons; they are frequently much interested in them; but, feeling the responsibility of class and examinations keenly ... they become sleepless and restless, and rapidly lose flesh and strength." (Ibid., April 19, 1880.)

21. "That good feeding is necessary for brain nutrition does not need to be demonstrated or even argued at length ... it must be evident that the position in which education places the brains of underfed children is that of a highly-exercised organ urgently requiring food, and finding none or very little. These children are growing, and all or nearly all the food they can get is appropriated by the grosser and bulkier parts of the body to the starvation of the brain.... It is cruel to educate a growing child unless you are also prepared to feed him." (Leading Article, The Lancet, August 4, 1883, Vol. II., pp. 191-2.)

22. Hansard, July 26, 1883, 3rd Series, Vol. 282, p. 597.

23. Ibid., p. 598.

24. The Times, September 16, 1884.

25. School Board Chronicle, December 13, 1884, pp. 628-9.

26. "It is now admitted that children cannot be expected to learn their lessons unless they are properly fed." (The Times, Leading Article, December 13, 1884.)

28. Charity Organisation Review, January, 1885, p. 25. As we shall see (post, p. 19), their fears in this respect were realised.

29. The Times, Leading Article, January 20, 1885.

30. The School Board Chronicle, December 13, 1884, p. 627.

31. Such voluntary agencies were established, for instance, at Hastings (about 1882), at Birmingham and Gateshead (in 1884), at Carlisle (in 1889).

32. School Board Chronicle, December 13, 1884, pp. 629-630.

33. Ibid., p. 628.

34. The Times, December 16, 1885.

35. Thus at Liverpool, about 1885, the Council of Education resolved to offer grants to School Managers for the supply of needful appliances for penny dinners, provided that "the payment of a penny should absolutely cover the cost of each dinner, so as not only to avoid pauperising the recipient, but also to render the scheme entirely self-supporting." (Report of Special Sub-Committee on Meals for School Children, in Minutes of London School Board, July 25, 1889, p. 383.) At Birmingham the School Board allowed a voluntary committee to erect kitchens on the school premises. (London School Board, Report of General Purposes Committee on Underfed Children attending School, 1899, p. 253.) At Gateshead, in 1884, the School Board arranged for a supply of dinners in the schools in the poorest parts of the town. (Report of Select Committee on the Education (Provision of Meals) Bills (England and Scotland), 1906, Q. 4101.) In London, the School Board in 1885 resolved "that the Board grant facilities to local managers and to other responsible persons for the provision on the school premises of penny dinners on self-supporting principles for elementary school children, where it can be done without interference with school work or injury to the school buildings." (Report of Special Committee on Meals for School Children, in Minutes of London School Board, July 25, 1889, p. 374.) At Manchester, as early as 1879, the School Board initiated a scheme for providing meals. The chairman, Mr. Herbert Birley, had been in the habit of supplying breakfasts to poor children in some of the schools, and on these schools being transferred to the School Board, he induced it to continue the work. (Report of Inter-Departmental Committee on Medical Inspection and Feeding, 1905, Vol. II., Qs. 2745A, 2754, evidence of Mr. C. H. Wyatt.)

36. In Manchester there had been a serious attempt to meet the difficulty. There the Board of Guardians maintained a "Day Feeding School" and gave three meals a day to its out-door relief children for some years between 1856 and 1866. (Report of Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1909, 8vo Edition, Vol. III., p. 148 n.)

37. See for instance the evidence given before the London School Board in 1895. (See post, p. 17.)

38. 31 and 32 Vict. c. 122, sec. 37.

39. House of Lords Select Committee on Poor Law Relief, 1888, Qs. 5857, 5858.

40. By an Act of 1876, the Local Education Authority might establish Day Industrial Schools at which one or more meals were provided, towards the cost of which the parents should contribute. (39 and 40 Vict., c. 79, sec. 16.) Very few such schools were established. (See post, p. 119.)

41. The Committee represented the Self-Supporting Penny Dinner Council, the Board School Children's Free Dinner Fund, the South London Schools Dinner Fund, Free Breakfasts and Dinners for the Poor Board School and other Children of Southwark (the Referee Fund) and the Poor Children's Aid Association.

42. The Times, November 16, 1887.

43. Report of Special Sub-Committee on Meals for School Children, in Minutes of London School Board, July 25, 1889, p. 373.

45. Ibid., p. 372.

46. Ibid., p. 377.

47. Seven members of the School Board were placed on the Executive Committee as a kind of informal representation, but in 1899 this number had dwindled to three. (London School Board, Report of General Purposes Committee on Underfed Children, 1899, pp. v.-vi.) There was "no direct touch" between the two bodies, "except the accidental circumstance that Members of the Board might be on the Committee" of the Association. (Ibid., p. 6, evidence of Mr. T. A. Spalding.)

48. London School Board, Report of Special Committee on Underfed Children, 1895, p. vii.

50. Ibid., p. 11, evidence of Mr. W. H. Libby. "I am of opinion," said this witness, "that the children of parents who are in receipt of out-door relief are more in need of our help than others." (Ibid.) "In my experience," said Mrs. Burgwin, "the greatest distress was amongst the children of parents who were in receipt of out-door relief, and free meals should certainly be given to them, for the amount allowed as out-door relief is so small that a family is left practically on the verge of starvation." (Ibid., p. 7.)

53. Ibid., p. 30 (evidence of Mrs. Marion Leon, Manager of Vere Street School, Clare Market).

54. Ibid., pp. 14-15 (evidence of Mr. J. Morgan).

55. Ibid., p. 21 (evidence of Mr. C. H. Heller, Headmaster of Sayer Street School, Walworth).

56. Ibid., p. 30 (evidence of Mrs. Marion Leon).

57. Ibid., p. 41 (evidence of Miss L. P. Fowler).

58. Ibid., p. iii. Even when the dinners were paid for, the payment rarely covered the cost. The same want of success was reported in the provinces. At Birmingham the experiment of giving penny dinners failed completely, and the meals had to be given free. (Report of Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, 1904, Qs. 13238, 13240, evidence of Dr. Airy.) "The experience of all workers in this movement testifies," says Canon Moore Ede, "that the poorest of all—those who are least well nourished—are scarcely touched by the penny dinners." ("Cheap Meals for Poor School Children," by Rev. W. Moore Ede, in Report of Conference on Education under Healthy Conditions at Manchester, 1885, p. 81.)

59. London School Board, Report of Special Committee on Underfed Children, 1895, pp. iv., v. "Under the penny dinner system, we had to provide something to attract the children, as they would not come to the same meal every day and pay a penny for it; puddings and meat pies were provided and varied from day to day. Now they get soup." (Ibid., Appendix I., p. 39, evidence of Rev. R. Leach.) "The soup ... supplied by the National Food Association varies so very little from day to day that it is natural for the children to grow tired of it," (Ibid., p. 22, evidence of Mr. C. H. Heller.)

60. Ibid., pp. v., viii.

62. Economic Enquiries and Studies, by Sir Robert Giffen, 1904, Vol. I., pp. 398-9.

63. Ibid., p. 419.

64. Ibid., p. 408.

65. A Philosophy of Social Progress, by E. J. Urwick, 1912, pp. 88, 89.

66. London School Board, Report of General Purposes Committee on Underfed Children, 1899, p. ii., par. 1.

67. Ibid., p. vi., par. 29.

68. Ibid., p. iii., pars. 11, 12.

69. Ibid., p. v., par. 25. "School dinners well managed may be made to have an admirable educative effect.... This makes me think that a proper part of the business of the School should be a common mid-day meal." (Evidence of Mrs. Despard, ibid., p. 3.) Mrs. Burgwin was of the same opinion. (Ibid., p. 14.)

70. See, for instance, the suggestions made by Mr. Whiteley (ibid., p. ix.), and the evidence of Mrs. Burgwin and Mr. J. Morant (ibid., pp. 14, 15).

71. Ibid., p. iv., par. 20.

72. Ibid., p. iv., par. 17.

73. Ibid., p. iv., par. 19.

74. Ibid., p. v., par. 21.

75. For some account of the "Cantines Scolaires" of Paris, and the provision of meals in other foreign towns, see Appendix III.

76. London School Board, Report of General Purposes Committee on Underfed Children, 1899, p. vii., par. 35.

78. Ibid., p. xii. Minutes of the London School Board, November 30, 1899, Vol. 51, pp. 1868-72. The Majority Report was rejected by 27 votes to 12.

79. The Times, December 1, 1899.

80. Justice, March 29, September 13 and 27, December 6, 1884.

81. See, for instance, the memorials presented in 1892, 1896, and 1899. (Minutes of the London School Board, November 17, 1892; February 20, 1896; December 7, 1899.)

82. Similar committees had been in existence in several schools for some years.

83. Minutes of the London School Board, March 1, 1900, Vol. 52, pp. 854-5, 905.

84. See Chapter III.

85. Report of Royal Commission on Physical Training (Scotland), 1903. Vol. I., p. 30, par. 162. "If we are going to develop the physical training of children we must be on our guard against overworking them," said one witness, "and, of course, underfed children would be positively injured by even light exercises." (Ibid., Vol. II., Q. 760, evidence of Mr. J. E. Legge, Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools.) "Children can exist, when doing no mental or physical work, on a bare subsistence diet," said Dr. Clement Dukes, "but ... a bare subsistence diet becomes a starvation diet when mental or bodily work is added." (Ibid., Q. 8140.)

86. Ibid., Vol. I., p. 30, par. 165.

87. Ibid., p. 30, par. 167.

88. Ibid., p. 31, par. 172.

89. Ibid., p. 30, par. 168.

90. Report of Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, 1904, p. 66, pars. 332-334; evidence of Dr. Eichholz, Qs. 471-476.

91. Ibid., p. 67, par. 335; evidence of Dr. Eichholz, Q. 476.

92. Ibid., Q. 9974. "The critical age," he considered, was "from 10 to 15." Looking at the enormous improvement in children in the Navy and in Industrial Schools, where they were properly fed, he did not "share the pessimistic view that the mischief is hopelessly done by the time a child reaches school age." He felt certain that "the provision of meals would do a great deal to improve the health and growth and development of the children of the poorer classes." (Ibid., Qs. 9973, 10047-8, 10051, 10006.)

93. Ibid., Q. 3992.

94. Ibid., Q. 452.

95. Ibid., Q. 475.

96. Ibid., Q. 6484. See also evidence of General Sir T. Maurice, Q. 278.

97. Ibid., evidence of Dr. Eichholz, Q. 486.

98. Ibid., evidence of Dr. Collie, Q. 3938.

99. Ibid., Q. 3973.

100. Ibid., p. 69, par. 348.

101. Ibid., p. 72, par. 359.

102. Ibid., par. 362.

104. Ibid., par. 363.

105. Ibid., par. 364.

106. Ibid., par. 365.

107. Report of the National Labour Conference on the State Maintenance of Children, at the Guildhall, January 20, 1905, p. 25.

108. Report of Select Committee on Education (Provision of Meals) Bills (England and Scotland), 1906, Qs. 792, 924, 925. By a considerable majority the Conference defeated an amendment that the Board of Guardians should be substituted for the Local Education Authority as the authority for making the provision, but owing to a technical difficulty the main resolution was not put. See also the resolution passed at a conference of the School Attendance Officers' Association, quoted by Mr. Slack in the House of Commons (Hansard, April 18, 1905, 4th Series, Vol. 145, p. 533).

109. Hansard, July 9, 1903, Vol. 125, p. 194. See also ibid., February 14, 1905, Vol. 141, p. 143.

110. Ibid., April 20, 1904, Vol. 133, pp. 782-3.

111. Ibid., p. 784.

112. Ibid., p. 788; Sir John Gorst, ibid., July 9, 1903, Vol. 125, p. 196.

113. Hansard, March 13, 1905, Vol. 142, p. 1185.

114. Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Medical Inspection and Feeding, 1905, Vol. I., p. vii.

115. Ibid., pp. 54, 55, pars. 182, 186, 189. The total number of these agencies was 140. Of these 71 were permanent (i.e., had been in existence over a year), 24 were new, and 45 were intermittent in their operations.

116. Ibid., pp. 78-80, pars. 290-293.

117. Ibid., p. 79, par. 291.

118. "At present," declared one witness, "the funds are wasted through their being distributed over too large a number of children.... At one school ... the headmaster asked the boys whether they would like to have their ticket this week or next week." (Ibid., Vol. II., Q. 1780, evidence of Mr. T. E. Harvey.) At Norwich, a child received a meal only once a week. "There was no system of feeding the children regularly. They had to take it in turns." (Ibid., Q. 4228, evidence of Mrs. Pillow.) At Hull it was "a rough rule given to the teacher" that a child should be fed every other day. (Ibid., Qs. 6157, 6158, evidence of Mr. G. F. Grant.) See also evidence given by Mrs. Adler (Qs. 135-136), Mrs. Burgwin (Q. 446), and the Rev. J. C. Mantle (Q. 2452). It was even urged by Mr. Hookham, of Birmingham, that the insufficiency of the provision was a positive advantage. The fact "that there are more children wanting meals than can get them ... is the main safeguard against imposition." Without this safeguard, he declares, "you will lose the evidence which the children give against one another when imposition takes place, which I think is the most valuable of all evidence" (Ibid., Q. 1253.)

119. Ibid., Vol. I., pp. 75-76, pars. 280-281. The meals given at Bradford were continued all through the year, and so were the breakfasts given by Mr. Hookham at Birmingham (ibid.).

120. Ibid., p. 59, par. 208.

121. Ibid., p. 75, par. 279.

122. Ibid., pp. 84, 85, par. 306, secs. 3, 4.

123. Ibid., p. 85, pars. 5, 6.

124. Ibid., pp. 60, 61, pars. 210, 215.

125. Ibid., pp. 62, 85, pars. 220, 306 (secs. 9, 10).

126. Ibid., p. 66, par. 236. So far as the committee could discover, "the question of malnutrition and underfeeding has attracted very little attention in connection with medical inspection. There appears to be no area where the Medical Officer works in close touch with the organisations for the feeding of children." (Ibid., p. 25, par. 97.)

127. Ibid., p. 68, par. 242.

128. Ibid., p. 71, par. 258.

129. Ibid., p. 58, par. 205. This was already being done in some rural schools. At Siddington, for instance, a hot dinner had been supplied for the last two years, the parents' payments more than covering the cost of the food. (Ibid., par. 202.) We have already alluded to the experiment at Rousdon, where dinners were provided throughout the year in a specially provided dining-room, as a part of the school organisation. Here the cost of the food was not quite covered by the parents' payments. (Ibid., par. 203.)