FOOD OF RURAL CHILDREN 99 



Carver is a long, narrow town, with the three settlements of North, Center, 

 and South Carver, each having its schoolhouse, its grocery, and its post office. 

 The smaller places. East and West Carver, are scarcely more than clusters of 

 houses about the crossroads. The old one-room schools have been abandoned 

 and partial consolidation has taken place. North Carver has a three-teacher 

 school for children in the first four grades; South Carver a two-teacher school, 

 also for the first four grades. For the four upper grades there is only one 

 school, with four teachers, located at Center Carver. Bus service is provided 

 to bring the children back and forth to all three school buildings. The town 

 maintains no hig'h school. 



Southtvick 



Southwick lies along the western part of the southern border of the state, in 

 the valley of the Connecticut River. Its population in 1925 was 1,267, with 

 native whites, American negroes, Poles, Swedes, and Italians the predominat- 

 ing nationalities. It is an agricultural town, devoted chiefly to tobacco and 

 dairy farming. The only settlement of any size is Southwick Center, on the 

 main highway five miles from the city of Westfield. 



At the time of the survey Southwick was still using the old one-room schools. 

 Scattered throughout the town there were 11 such buildings, every one inade- 

 quate and unsuitable. Two rooms on the first floor of the town hall were also 

 used for school rooms. In nine schools anywhere from 5 to 8 grades were 

 being taught by one teacher. In two a beginning at centralization had been 

 made, utilizing the bus service maintained to take pupils to high school in 

 Westfield. One of these schools had only first and second grade pupils; the 

 other, third and fourth grade. 



In fairness to Southwick, it should be stated that in the spring of 1927 an 

 appropriation was voted for the purchase of a site and the erection of a mod- 

 ern elementary school building, at Southwick Center, to accommodate all the 

 pupils of the town; and for the establishment of a system of transportation 

 when the building is ready for use. It is hoped that after the school year 

 1927-28 the old buildings will be no longer needed for school purposes. 



The two towns compared 



The two towns. Carver and Southwick, have many points in common. Not 

 only are their total populations nearly the same, but also the proportions of 

 native white stock. Both economically and intellectually, few marked differ- 

 ences could be discovered by the investigator. The estimates of general family 

 intelligence and economic status, made at the time of the home visits, are 

 shown in Tables 1 and 2. 



Each town has but one resident physician, no dentist, and only one part- 

 time school nurse. 



The elementary school enrollment of each of the towns averages 275. Carver 

 has the larger floating element in its school population, as many of the Portu- 

 guese move away when the cranberry season ends in the late fall, frequently 

 returning after Easter. At the time of the survey Carver had 70 "black" 

 Portuguese school children but only one American negro; Southwick, 15 of 

 negro blood, most of them living in one section of the town and consequently 

 attending the same school. 



Inasmuch as this survey of food habits was limited to white children, the 

 distribution of the American negroes and "black" Portuguese is without sig- 

 nificance. Because of the differences in racial habits, physical characteristics. 



