AVnrir of Hfviews, SOj'if'J'i 



Leading Articles. 



389 



THE FEEDING AND SCHOOLING OF THE 

 NATION. 



The Countess of Warwick writes on physical dete- 

 rioration in the Fortnig/itly Review. She rejoices 

 that even militarism has yielded the good of calling 

 attention to the need of a healthy nation. 



9u PER CENT. TOO ILL-FED TO BE TAUGHT. 



She cites from the recent Committee of Inquiry 

 certain ugly facts. In London — 



Br, Eichholz. Inspector of Scliools. foaud tliat ib one 

 school in a ver.v bad district "90 per cent, of tile children 

 are unable, by reason of their ph.vsical condition, to 

 attend to their work in a proper way. while 35 per cent., 

 durins; six months of the year, from Octoljer to Marcli, 

 require feeding." He estimated the numlwr of actually 

 underfed chililren in London schools ae approximately 

 122.000. or 15 per cent, of the elementary school population. 

 This does not cover the number of cliildren impropeHy fed. 



She quotes the obvious conclusion of the Com- 

 mittee: — 



'■ With scarcely an exception, there was a general con- 

 sensus of opinion that the time has come when the Btate 

 should realise the necessity of insuring: adequate nourish- 

 ment to children in attendance at school; it was said 

 to lx> tlie height of cruelty to subject half-starved cliildren 

 to the prciiesses of education, besides bein^ a short-sighted 

 po!ic,\ . in th.it the profirress of such children is inadequate 

 and disiippointing:: and it was further the subject of 

 general agreement that, as a rule, no purely voluntary 

 association could successfully cope with the full extent of 

 the evil." 



THK MIDDAY MEAL. 



She shows the absurdity of urging that parents 

 should stint themselves of necessary food in order to 

 feed their children, or of imagining that there is 

 danger of pauperising while " well-to-do people's 

 children are fed and clothed at Christ's Hospital 

 School out of endowments stolen from the poor.'' 

 No one thinks that parents are pauperised by their 

 children receiving maintenance scholarships. The 

 Countess herself insists: — 



For widowers, widows, women separated from their hus- 

 bands, or with sick or cripple<l husbands, and for mar- 

 ried women going to work, as often happens in the North 

 of England, it would be an Incalculable blessing for the 

 children to have their midday meal at school, and it is 

 the midday meal that is, on the whole, most important. 

 Wliere the choice is actnnllv to lie between a scant break- 

 i.isl or ,1 scant dimier-. the l.armer is probably the less 

 evil. It is after the exhaustion of the morning's work 

 and confinement, and just before the physical exertion of 

 playtime, that a good meal has the greatest value. 



■ OtIE DEADLIEST OOMPETITOES." 



On the question of expenditure she drives home 

 the fact that " our deadliest competitors are not those 

 who rely on immature and untrained labour, but 

 those who best equip their workers for a place in the 

 nation's workshops '; not Russia, Italy, Spain and 

 Turkey, but America. Germany and industrial Swit- 

 zerland. It is no mere coincidence that the English 

 county with the largest proportion of child-workers 

 has also the record figures for crime, drunkenness 

 and disease. She suggests, therefore, that the age 

 of compulsory elementary school attendance should 

 be raised to sixteen years, subject to certain exemp- 

 tions, based, not as now, merely on abilitv to pass a 



CHILI) given standard, but mainly on the destination of the 

 scholar when,leaving. She concludes with this cogent 

 question : — 



.\deqaat* nourishment for our chiUlreii, immunity from 

 exhausting and mechanical employment at the most critical 

 period of adolescence, an extension of educational in- 

 ilucnoes — can there be any objects of expenditure more 

 likel.v than these to repay themselves a thousand-fold in 

 the improved vigour and intelligence which form the only 

 sure basis of a nation's greatness? 



REYNARD THE FOX. 



A few months ago there was published in the 

 Mcrairc dc France an interesting study, by Remy de 

 Gourmont, of the Fables of La Fontaine. This has 

 been followed by another interesting literary paper, 

 in the Bibliotheque UniverseUe of January and Feb- 

 ruary, on Master Renard. In this article S. Grand- 

 jean gives an outlio'- <<{ th'- h!<^"rv nf t)i,- Rcvn.ird 

 llycles of stories. 



A MEDI.EVAL IIEUO 



111 Anri<-nt Greece and Ancient Rome the Reynard 

 poems usually assumed the lyric form. Popularised 

 by JEso^ and the Hindoo fabulists, they were re- 

 vived in the Middle Ages in quite a new form and 

 character, especially in Central Europe. 



The principal mediaeval Reynard romances have 

 been grouped into three great cjcles. First we have 

 " Reinhardus," a Latin poem of the second half of 

 the eleventh century. It runs to about 6600 verses, 

 and includes fifteen fables, in which the Fox and 

 the Wolf (Isengrim) play the leading parts. 



IN GERMAN DRESS. 



The German romances, entitled '' Reinecke," are 

 numerous. The oldest, by Heinrich der Glichesaere, 

 belongs to the t\velfth century. Only fragments of it 

 remain. " Reinaert de Vos," a Flemish poem, be- 

 longs to the same period. In the thirteenth cen- 

 turv it was completed by Willem Utenhove. 



Glichesaere's poem accidentally fell into the hands 

 of Goethe, who transcribed the romance of the 

 twelfth century into the language of the eighteenth 

 century, and in 1794 published his famous "Rein- 

 ecke Fuchs,' a vigorous satire on the political and 

 religious society of his time. 



MAITEE RENARD. 



The French cycle is much more extensive and 

 complete than the others, comprising 30,000 verses. 

 In '' Reinhardus '' and '' Reinecke " the compositions 

 form a definite whole. The French Renard poems 

 are an agglomeration of more than thirty distinct 

 works, written bv different writers at different 

 jjeriods. The majority of them belong to the thir- 

 teenth century. They have been divided into thirty- 

 two branches. The last is a violent satire on the 

 mendicant friars, whom the author covers with 

 ridicule. The whole Reynard epic is, in fact, a 

 great satire on the feudal system, and Goethe's 

 Reinecke is the most perfect type of the hero. 



