552 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1021. 



them, comprising a kitchen, a well aired and well heated dining hall 

 and a wash room. The dining hall should be provided with the 

 necessary equipment so that each child inajr have his own plate, drink- 

 ing glass, spoon, knife and fork, and napkin, and so that he may sit 

 comfortably at a table. Absolute cleanliness should reign in the 

 kitchen and the dining hall. 



The menus should be suitably chosen with regard to the age of 

 the children and to the tastes prevalent in the country. The Ameri- 

 cans, in their school " lunches, " have special menus for schools at- 

 tended by Jews and b}^ Italians. The question of meat in the diet 

 of children has aroused numerous controversies. The partisans of 

 vegetarianism are arrayed opposite those who believe in the useful- 

 ness of meat. The conclusion resulting from the discussion among 

 school physicians has been that meat should be given in small quan- 

 tity two or three times a week in the kindergartens, and every day in 

 amounts of 40 to 60 grams to the pupils of primary schools. Meat 

 might be replaced by eggs. Milk, vegetables, and in a general sense, 

 fresh, natural foods, containing vitamins and substances indispen- 

 sable for the building up of tissues, should be made a part of the 

 diet. Finally, the children should be allowed sufficient time for eat- 

 ing ; they should have half an hour for the noon meal. 



Well organized, the school lunch room will have not only a hygienic 

 value but it will fill an educational function — through the choice of 

 foods, through the surveillance of mastication and of drinking, 

 through the washing of the hands before the meal and the habit of 

 eating in a cleanly way, the meal at school will provide instruction 

 in the fundamentals of alimentary hygiene. 



It is the school nurse, with which every modern school should be 

 provided, who would be entrusted with the duty of supervision. 

 She would order the menus, look after the cooking of the dishes, 

 distribute them to the children, and preside at the meal ; she would 

 also forbid the use of wine or coffee in too great quantity and sup- 

 press the brandy which in certain Provinces the parents put in the 

 child's basket. 



The medical inspectors of the schools should supervise and criti- 

 cize the menus, which would be presented to them. In their consul- 

 tations they would prescribe special menus for weak or sick children 

 (extra diet, supplemental meat, vegetable, or milk diets, etc.). 



Thus organized, the school lunch room would be not only a type 

 of economical restaurant but it would become a means of treatment, 

 an example of hygiene, a place of instruction in dietetics. The 

 menus would be an indication which would show the parents what 

 should compose the child's diet. 



The school nurse could do even more by giving, in family con- 

 ferences or in private talks, advice to parents. If her investigation 



