592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tites it becomes an absolute necessity. A certain percentage of such 

 boys will be found in every school boys "who, if denied considerable 

 range of choice in their food, will at least fail to thrive in the midst of 

 plenty. 



A boy's chief meal should always consist of two courses, meat and 

 pudding. 1 Many boys, being small meat-eaters, should at least have 

 the chance of " making up " with something further, and good reason 

 can be given why this something should be a well-sweetened pudding 

 or tart ; if containing fresh or preserved fruit, so much the better. All 

 boys as a rule dislike meat fat and leave it on their plates, and it is a 

 barbarous practice to try to make them eat it. 2 And yet the same fat 

 in a different guise, embodied with flour in a well-cooked pudding, they 

 as universally like. All boys, again, love sugar and the juices of fresh 

 vegetables or fruits, and it is a grave mistake not to secure a fair pro- 

 portion of these elements in their daily food. Now, a well-made fruit- 

 pudding or tart combines these several elements in happy proportion 

 and palatable form ; and boys' universal liking for this article of diet 

 is simply the practical expression of the physiological truth that fat 

 and its chemical allies, starch and sugar, together with certain organic 

 acids and salts, are indispensable to the healthy constitution of the 

 blood ; in other words, to the due building np and maintenance of the 

 fabric of the body. 



A boy who has dined at 1 or 1.30 is ready by 6 o'clock for some- 

 thing more than the eternal tea and bread-and-butter. He keenly 

 relishes at this meal some little variety or addition, such as plain home- 

 made cake, or some preserve, or a bit of whatever salad-herb may be 

 in season. The dietetic value of salad-herbs (lettuce, water-cress, etc.) 

 to growing boys is out of all proportion to their cost. Where there is 

 a kitchen-garden (which every school should have), they practically 

 cost nothing. Where they have to be bought, they need not cost 

 much ; and, even if they do, they will be worth the price. 



Should boys have supper? Up to about twelve years of age they 

 rarely need it, for boys of this age by 9 o'clock are ready for bed, and 

 should be in bed ; but from thirteen or fourteen onward boys much 

 dislike being sent to bed so early, and if they do, say, one and a half 

 or two hours' work after tea, they feel the want of, and ought to have, 

 a liirht meal between 8 and 9 o'clock. 



In the dietary above quoted it will probably excite surprise that 

 no beer or other stimulant is allowed either at dinner or at any other 

 meal or time in the day, except in special cases where a boy's health is 



1 Boys seldom care for soup. 



2 1 was myself at a private school an average good one in its day where the rule 

 was enforced that on " pudding-days " no boy who had left any fat on his plate should 

 have any pudding. After a while meat rose in price, and, by way of " choking us off," we 

 were made on these said days to eat the pudding before the meat. This was blundering 

 strategy on the master's part, for he had now no hold upon us, and the meat was of 

 course eaten without any fat at alL 



