60 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 263 



Management — finani cial 



Financially, the most elementary method of managing a school lunch is to 

 have each <ihild provide his own food supplies. Such a plan may be worked 

 out so that it results in suitable hot food for each pupil (see page 62), but 

 it always has the disadvantage of imposing on the small children the burden 

 of carrying containers to and from school. This objection also holds true for 

 the thermos bottle, which when filled is an appreciable weight. The younger 

 pupils' hands are small, and it is often difficult for thein to carry containers 

 witlli food any great distance, especially in cold weather. It is better to de- 

 vise some way whereby the children do not need to transport daily much 

 food or any heavy containers. 



In some schools — for example see page 61 — the jjupils take turns in furnish- 

 ing supplies, and then a hot drink or disb in which all share is prepared by 

 the teacher or the older pupils. Such a plan permits a variety of hot dishes 

 without asking a large contribution from any one child. The common hot 

 dish at noon also promotes a feeling of equality and sociability. Frequently 

 each pupil brings from home at the beginning of the school year a cup or a 

 bowl and a spoon, ,so no mioney is required for such equipment. 



A variation of the above scheme is found in the schools wherd the children 

 pay small sums of money wee'kly, in lieu of supplies, and the teacher does the 

 buying for the group. Sometimes the two methods are combined, the children 

 furnishing certain supplies and jiaying smaller sums of money. All these 

 plans work better in small schools than in those wliere the enrollment is large 

 enough to make the labor of preparing food so great as to interfere with the 

 other school work. Nevertheless, any one of them could be made to work 

 well in any of the 370 one-room buildings in the rural towns, for the enroll- 

 ment in a one-teacher school is never large. 



In 13 buildings the food service is subsidized by an outside organization. 

 While this may perhaps be a legitimate way to get a food service started, 

 the a'im should always be the assumption of responsibility by teacher or 

 school authorities. It is only when the food service is an integral part of the 

 school system that it functions regularly year after year, and the educational 

 opportunities to be found in a supervised food service justify tllie assumption 

 of responsibility by the schools. In making a survey such as the one here re- 

 ported, the comment is often heard that "such and such organization used to 

 furnish hot cocoa, but after a couple of years the women got tired of bother- 

 ing with if"; and that school now has no service. There is little place in 

 school food services for the more or less haphazard management of any Lady 

 Bountifid, be it individual or group. This shovdd not be taken to mean that 

 contributions of money, given to the teacher in order that she may buy food 

 or supplies for those children so very poor that they cannot share in the act- 

 ivities of tilie other pupils, are in any sense undesirable. Nor is the giving of 

 funds, through the school authorities, to be discouraged. It is the attempt at 

 regular, long-time management of a sdiool food service by an outside organ- 

 ization which too often proves to be spasmodic and of short duration. 



The financing of a food service is relatively simple in those few schools 

 w'here' the lundi room is managed by the high school home economics teacher 

 as part of her regular routine. In the smaller of such places the food supplies 

 are usually purchased along with those for the cooking laboratory and no 



