Science in Public Affairs 



be a great pity to do anything to break up the 

 home life which centres round the mid-day dinner. 

 Let us not commit the error of considering the 

 children at school apart from the rest of the family. 

 The family must be treated as a unit. If there 

 were no dinner to be cooked for the children, the 

 mother would often have no proper dinner herself. 

 When there is temporary distress it would seem 

 better to relieve the family as a whole than just 

 those members of it who are attending school. If 

 the distress is permanent for whatever reason, and 

 the parents cannot properly bring up their chil- 

 dren, the proper course is to refer the matter to 

 the Poor Law Guardians. There are, therefore, 

 very great objections to any wholesale system of 

 feeding school children. The last-mentioned Com- 

 mittee have found very foolish methods at work in 

 various districts, and an extraordinary absence of 

 co-ordination, or indeed of any carefully thought- 

 out plans. One gentleman discovers that a number 

 of children in the schools of a certain district are 

 underfed. He makes apparently no inquiries as 

 to whether any other organisation is at work in the 

 district. He collects ^400 or ^500, and organises 

 breakfasts for all the 1400 children to whom the 

 teachers think it wise to give tickets. The break- 

 fasts cost about one penny per head, and each 

 child receives a mug of coffee with milk, a roll, 

 and a piece of cheese. The gentleman says in his 

 evidence : " That is rather a strange meal, but 

 I am very fond of cheese myself, and it was 

 my choice that we should give the children the 



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