ALIMENTARY EDUCATION OF CHILDREN LABBE. 551 



heavy responsibility, for it is often upon the habits, good or bad, con- 

 tracted at this time, that depends the future health. 



Consequently, the parents should watch themselves carefully and 

 correct their own faults. They must avoid having meals at irregular 

 hours, eating too long or too rapidly, hasty mastication, too abund- 

 ant drinking, the abuse of wine, an excess of salt or pepper with 

 which the dishes are seasoned; they must be careful at the table, 

 materially as well as morally. 



The child, indeed, sees every motion ; it retains them and imitates 

 them. If later on it has bad eating habits, it is most often the parents 

 who are to blame. How many people by their unconscious example, 

 sometimes even by conscious persuasion, teach their children at this 

 time to be large eaters, heavy drinkers, food bolters, and by doing 

 so, make of them later obese people, alcoholics, or dyspeptics. Certain 

 diseases such as obesity are less often due to an inevitable heredity 

 than to a vicious, pathogenic education given by the parents. 



For children who go to the kindergarten or to the public school, 

 there is no better means of alimentary education than the school 

 lunch room, provided that it is organized according to the principles 

 laid down by the school physicians. 



It was in 1881 that the first school lunch rooms were established. 

 Since then, they have multiplied in the kindergartens and the pri- 

 mary schools of Paris and of the Provinces. Their aim is to pro- 

 vide a warm meal, composed of two or three dishes, which the child 

 eats with the bread, the dessert, and the beverage which it has 

 brought from home. 



All the children do not participate, but only those whose parents 

 desire it. The meal is free for those without means, and paid for 

 by those who are able to give the 50 centimes which it costs. The 

 expenses of the school lunch rooms are defrayed in part by the 

 price of the paid-for meals, in part by a grant from the Municipal 

 Council. 



This is an excellent undertaking but one whose organization is still 

 imperfect. The medical inspectors of the schools have at different 

 times voiced their criticisms; the lunchrooms exist in only a small 

 number of schools; they function only during the three winter 

 months; the menus are sometimes badly devised, ham, pork, and 

 sausages too often in certain schools replacing fresh meats; finally 

 the lack of space makes it necessary in many schools to serve the 

 meals in the school yard, where the children are exposed to cold and 

 to dust, or, indeed, in the schoolroom itself, where the air is not suffi- 

 ciently renewed. 



It is very important that school lunchrooms be more generally 

 adopted; that there be planned and installed a suitable space for 



