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.
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.)
241. Annual Report of the School Medical Officer for Stoke-on-Trent for 1911, p. 56.
243. See Bradford Education Committee, Report on a Course of Meals given to Necessitous Children from April to July, 1907, p. 7.
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.
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.
247. Report of Chief School Medical Officer for Sheffield, for the year 1910, pp. 26, 27. See post, p. 190.
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.
249. Board of Education, Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools in England, 1908, p. ii.
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.
251. Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act for the year ended March 31, 1910, pp. 8, 9.
252. Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 278, 279.
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.)
255. Report of Bootle School Canteen Committee, 1911-12, p. 10.
256. Ibid., p. 11.
257. Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 272.
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.
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.
260. In April, 1913.
261. Annual Report of the School Medical Officer for Stoke-on-Trent, 1912, p. 23.
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.
263. Some were sent to the depôts of the Food and Betterment Association.
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.
265. Ibid., pp. 11, 12, 19.
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.)
267. MS. Memorandum on the Feeding of School Children, by the Liverpool Fabian Society, 1908.
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.
269. In the secondary schools, the poorer children are allowed to act as monitors, being given in return a 3d. dinner free.
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.
271. Leeds Education Committee, Rules for the Management of Dining Centres.
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.
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.
274. Report of the West Ham Education Committee for the year ended March 31, 1912, p. 52.
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.
276. Second Quarterly Report of the Children's Aid Association, November, 1907, to February, 1908, p. 3.
277. Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, p. 17.
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.
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.
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.
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.
282. Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 280.
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.).
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.
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.)
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."
287. Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, up to March 31, 1909, p. 48.
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.)
289. Ibid., p. 254.
290. Ibid., pp. 254-5; Report of West Ham Education Committee for the year ended March 31, 1910, pp. 45-6.
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.
292. Report of Bradford Education Committee for the year ended March 31, 1908.
293. See letter from Bradford Ratepayers Association, in Bradford City Council Proceedings, August 10, 1909.
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.)
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.
296. Ibid. for the year ended March 31, 1912, pp. 50-1.
297. The East Ham Echo, August 22, 1913.
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.)
299. Minutes of the London County Council, February 2, 1909, p. 121; Minutes of the Education Committee, November 23, 1910, p. 991.
300. Hansard, March 27, 1911, 5th Series, Vol. 23, pp. 1074-5.
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).
302. Hansard, March 28, 1912, 5th Series, Vol. 36, p. 598.
303. Hansard, July 22, 1913, Vol. 55, pp. 1910-11.
305. This may be through lack of funds, as at East Ham (see ante, p. 56), but is not always due to this cause.
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.
307. Report on Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, p. 41.
308. Ibid., p. 42.
309. Ibid., p. 33.
310. The amount was £1,570 out of a total of £157,127. (Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 332.)
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.
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.)
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.
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 £169 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.)
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.
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.)
320. The amount recovered after prosecution in 1911-12 was £42 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.
322. Report of the West Ham Education Committee for the year ending March 31, 1912, p. 54.
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.)
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.
325. Extracts from Annual Reports of Bradford Education Committee for the four years ended March 31, 1907, 1908, 1909 and 1910, p. 13.
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.
327. 8 Edward VII., c. 67, sec. 12.
328. Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, 1909, 8vo edition, Vol. III. (Minority Report), p. 36.
329. Occasionally, as we have seen, the Guardians are represented on the Canteen Committee, as at Crewe.
330. First Annual Report of the Leicester Children's Aid Association, 1907-8, p. 4.
331. Report of the School Medical Officer for Dewsbury for 1911, p. 41.
332. Bradford City Council Proceedings, June 16, 1908, p. 395; April 11, 1911, p. 305.
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.)
334. Bradford Education Committee, Return as to the Working of the Provision of Meals Act for the year ending March 31, 1913.
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.
336. Report of the Huddersfield Education Committee, 1911, p. 23.
337. Report of Brighton Education Committee for the year ending March 31, 1912, p. 28.
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.
339. Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, 1909, 8vo edition, Vol. III. (Minority Report), p. 166 n.
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.
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.
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.
343. Children Act, 1908, sec. 82 (1).
344. Ibid., sec. 79.
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 £40 a year.
346. Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1909. 8vo edition, Vol. III., p. 165.
347. Report of the Departmental Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools, 1913, p. 62.
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.
349. Ibid., Part I., pp. 267-292; Part II., p. 20.
350. Ibid., Part II., p. 19.
351. Report of the Departmental Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools, 1913, p. 62.
352. Report of School Medical Officer for Eastbourne for 1912, p. 46.
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.
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.)
355. At Darlington only a mid-day meal is provided.
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.
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.
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.)