XII
In this brief sketch of suggested remedial measures, I have confined myself entirely to those measures which have been successfully tried elsewhere. I have simply tried to correlate the constructive work in child saving which has thus far been accomplished into something like a definite and comprehensive policy. Discussion by earnest men and women who have given the matters dealt with careful and patient study will, doubtless, show the need of many changes, both in the direction of modification and of extension. The important thing at the present time is to secure an intelligent discussion of the whole problem of the duty of society to the child, and I venture to hope that the foregoing may help in that direction. While I have insisted mainly upon the legislative aspect of the problem, I am not insensible of the importance of individual responsibility and effort. Much of the child labor of to-day, for example, is due to the carelessness and indifference of purchasers’ forever demanding “cheap” goods; and a recognition on their part of all the monstrous wrong and tragedy hidden in that word “cheap” would do much to diminish the evil.
We need in our modern life something of that spirit which prompted David to pour out upon the ground the precious cooling draught his brave followers, at the risk of their lives, brought him from the well by Bethlehem’s gate. The water had been obtained at too great a cost, the risking of human lives, and David could not drink it.[[185]] We need that spirit to be applied to our social relations. Those things which are cheap only by reason of the sacrifice, or risk of sacrifice, of human life and happiness are too costly for human use. While it is to a large extent true that there is no problem which depends more completely upon collective action, through the channels of government, it is also true that there is abundant room for well-directed private effort. The coöperation of all the constructive forces in society, private and public, is necessary if the children are to be saved from the evils by which they are surrounded, and the future well-being of the race made possible and certain. Here is the real reconstruction of society—the building of healthy bodies and brains to insure a citizenship free from physical and moral decay, worthy of liberty and aspiring to brotherhood.
[H]. Charities.
[I]. See Appendices [A] and [B].
V
BLOSSOMS AND BABIES
There is an affinity between children and flowers. To me the sight of a blossom often suggests a baby, and the sight of a baby often suggests a favorite flower.
Many a mother singing lullabies to the baby at her breast calls it her “blossom.”
And children, healthy children, are fond of flowers.
I once saw a boy of ten who didn’t know what a flower was. He knew what each card in a pack was, and he wasn’t afraid of a policeman. But he was afraid of a grassy and daisy-spangled field. London had destroyed for him all sense of kinship with Nature.
But most children, even city children, love flowers. The country child loves familiarly as it loves its own mother, but the city child loves and worships. Yesterday I saw a group of little girls with their noses pressed flat against a florist’s window. “My, ain’t they sweet!” they cried in chorus.
If only the flowers could know!
Some sympathetic and leisured ladies have formed themselves into a guild to give such children as I saw at the florist’s window growing flowers to tend and love. I do not know the ladies. We live in the same city, but in a different world.
And yet we have some things in common, these good ladies and I. Perhaps many things, but chief of all a love for children and flowers. In our different worlds, so little alike, this love flourishes with equal freedom. My wife loves blossoms and babies, too, but she is not a member of the guild. Its meetings are not held in our world.
The guild got together 10,000 little children from the tenements of this great city of New York. To each child a potted plant was given, in the hope that its presence would brighten the home, and its care “refine” and “spiritualize” the child.
Good, generous ladies of the guild!
And from each child was exacted the promise that upon a given date at the end of a full year, the plant should be brought back and placed upon exhibition. Ribbons were promised as prizes to those children whose plants should be in the most flourishing condition.
The year passed. The day of the exhibition arrived. Richly gowned women, calling themselves “patronesses,” were there. They went in luxuriously equipped automobiles to smile and be condescending toward children who went in rags and were hungry.
But not all the children to whom the year before they had given flowers were there. Some of them had drooped during the summer and died like flowers in parched ground.
And many of the plants were withered and dead, too.
What an exhibition, to be sure! Geraniums without fragrance. Geraniums which a year ago bore deep, rich, green leaves and bright scarlet blossoms, were now straggling and wretched, with pale-green—almost white—stems, with poor, sickly-looking little leaves and with no flowers. And many a pot containing only a withered and rotted stick, with maybe a little note, “Please, ma’am, it died because our rooms is dark.”
Some of the richly gowned women wept as they looked at the long rows of pitiful flowers, and at the long rows of withered and dead flowers.
Wept? I wonder why.
I wonder if they wept because they began to appreciate faintly how poverty withers and oppresses all life; or only because the sight of so many dead flowers, and flowers worse than dead, overwhelmed them? Or had they heard the flowers tell their sad little histories?
For every one of the flowers had a story to tell to understanding hearts.
Yes, madam, that tall, withered geranium stick, which made you weep as you remembered how beautiful its scarlet blossoms had looked the year before, when you gave it to little crippled Polly with the flaxen hair, could unfold a story, if you could but understand it. But it is a story of the tenement, not of your world. And you cannot understand.
But little Polly (who doesn’t understand either) can tell you enough to give you cause for tears. Real tears. Human tears.
I could tell you, for I know the tenement. It is in my world. But let Polly tell.
“When youse gived us th’ prutty flow’r, leddy, I put ’er in our winder so’s all th’ kids ’ud see from th’ street. An’ mamma wus so proud! An’ me little baby bruver jes’ went wild, leddy. An’ when mamma wus washin’, he’d stay so good and call out, so pert-like, ‘Putty! putty!’ An’ mamma said ‘twus a blessin’, ’cause she wus able to do th’ washin’ when baby wus playin’.
“But when winter comed, leddy, yer flow’r an’ th’ leaves wus all dead like, an’ comed off. An’ me mamma said ’twus th’ cold. An’ when I put ’er by th’ airshaft she said ’twus too dark. An’ so yer flow’r jes’ died like, an’ mamma wus so cut up washin’ days, for me bruver wus teethin’ an’ there warn’t no flow’r.
“But mamma said yer flow’r ’ud come up in th’ summer. So I jes’ kep’ waterin’, an’ when th’ fine days comed I put ’er in our winder again. An’ it growed a bit, leddy, an’ mamma an’ me wus so glad! But ’twus allus growin’ a bit an’ then dyin’ like, ’cause, mamma said, we didn’t git no sun in our rooms. An’ I used to cry in th’ nights ’bout that flow’r, leddy!
“An’ when summer comed an’ folks wus sleepin’ ’pon their fire-’scapes, I put yer flow’r outside an’ watered ’er ev’ry day. But when me little bruver wus sick, an’ th’ doctor said he mus’ go to th’ country somewheres, yer flow’r jes’ died an’ dried up like a stick, leddy. Me little bruver died, too, an’ th’ doctor said he’d ’a’ lived if he’d gone into th’ country.
“I’m sorry, leddy, fur yer flow’r. P’raps ’twus ’cause it never went to no country place. I tried me best, leddy, but—”
No, don’t reproach yourself, madam. You didn’t know. How could you know, living in another world? It was really good of you to think of the tenement children, and to give them your flowers.
Poor little children of the tenements! It was good of you to think of them. Their homes are squalid, and flowers do make the home brighter. And their little lives do need the refining and spiritualizing influence of flowers.
But neither the babies nor the blossoms can flourish there. They pine and droop and die together. True, some of them live—babies and blossoms—but how?
You are a woman and you love children and flowers. Tell me, did not the pale, sickly children and the pale, sickly plants impress you as even more saddening than the dead plants—the constant reminders of dead children?
Their slow, prolonged dying is more terrible than death to me. And I love them both, children and flowers.
I honor your tears. They proclaim you to be possessed of a human heart. But you are a misfit in your sphere. Your place is in our world.
You mean well, but your guild is only a toy. The problem is not to be solved so easily. If you would help solve it, you must give something more than plants. You must give yourself.
And this is the work which calls for your service and sacrifice:—
To bring blossoms and babies together where both can thrive. To restore the child-sense of kinship with Nature, that to every child may come the joy of understanding Nature’s eternal harmonies. To bring the freedom and beauty and companionship of beast and bird, flower and tree, mountain and ocean, stream and star, into the life of every child.
A LITTLE FISHERMAN
“Fresh Air Fund” child from a crowded tenement district.
It is a big task, madam; flower shows and ribbons and tears will not fulfil it. If you are serious, you will find more serviceable things to do.
Some there are, the despised builders of Humanity’s temples, who are laboring to give this vast heritage to the children of all the world. They build patiently, for they have faith in their work.
And this is their faith—that the power of the world springs from the common labor and strife and conquest of the countless ages of human life and struggle; that not for a few was that labor and that struggle, but for all. And the common labor of the race for the common good and the common joy will give blossoms and babies the fulness of life which sordid greed with its blight makes impossible.
Are you of the faith of the builders? Are you a builder?
APPENDIX A
HOW FOREIGN MUNICIPALITIES FEED THEIR SCHOOL CHILDREN
The problem of the underfeeding of children and its relation to the many and complex problems of health, education, and morality has long been the subject of careful study and experiment on the part of the most progressive municipalities of several European countries.
At the present time it is one of the most vital issues in English politics. When, in the early eighties, Mr. H. M. Hyndman and his few Social-Democratic colleagues advocated the enactment of legislation compelling the municipal authorities to undertake the feeding of the many thousands of children in the public schools, the proposal was derided as “visionary.” To-day, however, it has the earnest support of some of the ablest and most influential members of the House of Commons. Men like Sir John Gorst, ex-cabinet minister, on the Conservative side, and Mr. Herbert Gladstone, on the Liberal side, are united in the advocacy of the Socialistic proposal.
Inquiries made by a Royal Commission, a Special Inter-Departmental Committee, and several local investigating committees in cities like London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Dundee, and Aberdeen, have revealed a most alarming state of affairs. In London, it has been estimated by the leading authority, Dr. Eichholz, there are over 100,000 children of school age who are chronically underfed. The reports from the other cities named are equally serious. Public sentiment has been aroused to such an extent that there seems to be little room for doubting that in the very near future, Parliament will be compelled to enact some measure providing for the feeding of children in the public schools. In the meantime, many thousands of children are being fed by charitable organizations, working in conjunction with the school authorities. In most cases the meals are sold to the children at one cent per meal, with the understanding that if they are too poor to pay, the meals will be given free of charge. It is astonishing to learn that many thousands of the children are found, after careful investigation, to be too poor to raise even one cent.
The experiment which has for some time been tried in Birmingham has attracted widespread attention in sociological circles, not only in England, but throughout Europe. This charity makes no effort whatever to deal with any but the most destitute children, those that, in the words of the Committee, are “practically starving.” The meals are kept scanty and unattractive in order that no child will accept them unless compelled to by sheer hunger. In addition to this safeguard, careful investigations of the circumstances of the children are from time to time made. The meals are given free of charge to the children, and the cost to the committee is less than one cent per meal,—including the manager’s salary of $500 a year. Yet, despite all the restrictions by which it is surrounded, his charity is to-day feeding 2½ per cent of the total child population of the city.
The results of this feeding, poor and insufficient as it is, have been most beneficial, both from a physical and mental point of view. Educationally, I am informed by experienced teachers, the results have been most inspiring. The children both learn and remember better than before. But it is felt upon all sides, that this charity, admirable as it is in many ways, only touches the fringe of the problem, and the demand is made for definite municipal action, upon a much more generous basis, to take the place of private philanthropy. It is difficult, in fact, practically impossible, to form any idea of the extent of such private philanthropy throughout the country. Almost every industrial centre has its “Free Dinner Association,” and in almost every case the authorities find that private effort is inadequate, and that there are many children who cannot afford to pay even one cent for a meal. If the cent is insisted upon, they must go hungry. This is important to us in America, because it has been the experience wherever similar experiments have been tried here. In Chicago, for instance, at the Oliver Goldsmith School, free dinners have been provided for a large number of children for some time past. Here, as in England, it was found that a number of children could no more afford a penny for a meal than they could afford to dine at the Auditorium Hotel.
In Berlin, and several other German cities, children are fed in the public schools upon a plan which provides that those must pay who can, while those who cannot are given their meals free of charge at the public expense. As a rule, however, these German experiments are confined to schools situated in the poorest districts. As yet, the German authorities have not gone so far as to provide meals for all children, irrespective of their circumstances.
Much the same plan is followed in Reggia Emilia, San Remo, and some other Italian cities, though the movement is more widespread in Italy than in Germany. There is one Italian city, however, which has for some time past gone very much farther than any other city that I know of, though his Excellency, the Italian Ambassador at Washington, informs me that there are other Italian cities which have adopted the same plan. Vercelli is a city of about 25,000 inhabitants in the province of Novara, Piedmont. Its fame chiefly rests upon its fine library, which contains a wonderful collection of ancient manuscripts, some of them of fabulous value. In this little municipality, then, the city fathers have for a long time provided free meals for every child attending the public schools, and made attendance at the meals absolutely compulsory as to the school itself! Every child must attend school and partake of the meals, unless provided with a doctor’s certificate to the effect that to attend the classes, or to partake of the school meals, would be injurious to its health. Further, medical inspection is also compulsory, and is accompanied by free medical attendance. The results appear to have been most beneficial physically, and the educational gains resulting from this intelligent, ordered, and regular feeding have been enormous. It is unlikely, however, that such a system will be adopted in the United States for many years to come, notwithstanding its many undoubted advantages.
In Christiania, Trondhjem, and a number of other Norwegian cities, the municipality provides all children who desire to avail themselves of it with a nutritious midday meal, irrespective of their ability to pay. The entire cost of the system is met by taxation. This has been felt by the Norwegian authorities to be the simplest and best method of dealing with a grave problem. It avoids the difficulties which inevitably arise when there is a distinct class of beneficiaries created. “Where all are equally welcome none are paupers,” they say. With its simple, homogeneous population, this direct method is admirably adapted to Norway, however little suited it might be to the needs of a cosmopolitan nation like ours. The free dinner is a part of Norway’s admirable educational system, which abounds with features well worthy of being copied. One of these is an arrangement whereby the school children from the cities are taken, twice a month in winter, and three or four times a month in the summer, on excursions into the country. The children from the country districts are, in the same manner, taken into the cities. The railroads have to carry the children at a purely nominal cost, which is also met out of the public funds.
When I applied to one of the members of the Municipal Council of Trondhjem for information as to the working of the school-meals system, he replied: “You can best judge that, perhaps, from the fact that although the scheme was bitterly opposed when first it was proposed by a small group of radicals and Socialists, it is now unanimously supported by all sections. There is now no demand whatever for its curtailment or abandonment. Educationally, we have found that it pays. It is possible now to educate children who before could not be educated because they were undernourished. The percentage of ‘backward children’ has been greatly reduced, notwithstanding that the test is more severe and searching. Economically, we believe that we can see in the system the gradual conquest of pauperism made possible.”
In Brussels, and other Belgian cities, good midday meals are provided for all children who care to partake of them. A small fee, equal to about two cents, is charged for each meal, but those children who cannot afford to pay are given their meals just the same. There is also an excellent system of medical inspection in connection with the schools. Every child is medically examined at least once every ten days. Its eyes, ears, and general physical condition are overhauled. If it looks weak and puny, they give it doses of cod-liver oil, or some suitable tonic. The greatest care is taken to see that no child goes ill shod, ill clad, or ill fed. There is also a regular dental examination in connection with every school at regular periods.
In several Swiss towns the authorities for a long time granted substantial subsidies to private philanthropic bodies, leaving to them the organization of systems for providing school meals and the whole administration of the funds. But this method proved to be very unsatisfactory. It led to abuses of various kinds, and sectarian jealousies were aroused. Moreover, it proved to be a most extravagant method, the cost being disproportionate to the results. Consequently, the practice has been very generally abandoned, and most of the municipalities have adopted the direct management of the school meals as a distinct part of the school system. The plan generally followed is that of Germany. Those who can must pay, but those who cannot pay must be fed.
But it is to France that we must turn for the most extensive and successful system of school meals. Those who, particularly since the publication of Mr. Robert Hunter’s book, Poverty, have advocated the introduction of some system of school dinners in this country, have with practical unanimity pointed to the French Cantines Scolaires as the model to be copied. For that reason, and not less for its own interest, it may be worth while giving a somewhat fuller account of the French system and its history.
The school-canteen idea is a development of an old and interesting custom, borrowed by the French from Switzerland, the little land of so many valuable experiments and ideals. The custom still obtains in Switzerland to some extent, though not so extensively as formerly, of newly married couples giving a small gift of money, immediately after the wedding ceremony, to the school funds as a sort of thanksgiving for their education. These funds are used to provide shoes and clothing for poor scholars who would otherwise be unable to attend school.
In 1849, the time of the Second Republic, the mayor of the second Arrondissement of Paris conceived the idea of introducing this Swiss custom into Paris. Accordingly a fund was created, called the Swiss Benevolent Fund. Before long the name fell into disuse, and we find the caisse des écoles, or school funds, spoken of with no reference to their Swiss origin or to their benevolent purpose. In the latter days of the Second Empire, in April, 1867, the Chamber of Deputies passed a Primary Instruction Law, which was drafted by M. Duruy, the Minister of Public Instruction, providing that any municipal council might, subject to the approval of the Prefect, create in the school districts under its jurisdiction a “school fund.” The object of these school funds was to be the encouragement of regular attendance at school, either by a system of rewards to successful students, or material help in the shape of food, clothing, or shoes to necessitous ones. These funds were to be raised by (1) voluntary contributions; (2) subventions by the school authorities, the city, or the state. Where deemed advisable, several school districts might unite in the creation of a joint fund for their common benefit.
But the law of 1867, so far at least as the school funds were concerned, was little more than a pious expression of opinion in favor of an idea. Three years later the Franco-Prussian war broke out with its fury and devastation, and, as war always does, set back all reforms. Not till 1874, three years after the terrible bloodshed of the Paris Commune, was anything done. Then the district of Montmartre and one or two others raised funds. Montmartre is a district of some 200,000 inhabitants, which has always been characterized by a strong radical or socialistic sentiment. From a pamphlet issued by the managers of the school fund in that district, soon after its establishment in 1874, it appears that they paid little attention to the subject of giving prizes, deeming it of more importance to provide good strong shoes and warm clothing for the poorer children. Next, it seems, they undertook to provide outfits for some girls who had won scholarships at the École Normale (Normal School), but were too poor to dress themselves well enough to attend that institution. So, from the very first, the idea of using the school funds to provide children with the necessities of life prevailed. As a result there was soon developed a nucleus of bodies dealing with poverty as it presented itself in the area of educational effort, and, what is equally important, public opinion was being educated and accustomed to the idea. It was, therefore, an easy transition to compulsory provision for the feeding of children. In 1882 a law was passed compelling the establishment of school funds in all parts of France, but leaving the application of such funds still at the discretion of the authorities. So it happens that the caisse des écoles are universal in France, but the cantines scolaires are by no means so. The latter are, however, quite common throughout France, and by no means confined to Paris. There is no official record of the number of districts in which canteens have been established, because the districts are not obliged to make returns showing how their school funds are expended.
Since the state now makes education compulsory, and itself provides the means of enforcing the law, the managers of the school funds do not have to devise schemes to induce a regular attendance at school. They are therefore free to use their funds in such manner as seems to them best calculated to promote the health of the children. This they do mainly by the following means: (1) Free meals, or meals provided at cost; (2) provision of shoes and clothing where necessary; (3) free medical attendance; (4) sending weak, debilitated, and sick children to the sea-side or the country, homes being maintained, or in some cases subsidized for the purpose.
This last-mentioned feature of the French plan is most interesting. It appears to have been adopted as a result of favorable reports upon the working of a similar plan in Switzerland. The managers of the Montmartre fund, for instance, purchased a great mansion with a magnificent park, and to this delightful spot, not many miles from Paris, the children are sent in batches and kept for two or three weeks at a time, much to their physical betterment. There are several of these “school colonies” maintained by the various school funds of Paris, and the City Government subsidizes them to the extent of about $40,000 a year. The custom of providing a special grant, or subsidy, in aid of these colonies is quite common throughout the whole of France. The importance of these health-building institutions and the provisions made for the medical care of sick children cannot be overestimated. To give an idea of what is meant by medical care alone, it is only necessary to refer to a recent inspection in the New York public schools. Out of 7000 children examined, fully one-third were found to be suffering from defective eyesight, while more than 17 per cent suffered from defects so serious as to interfere with their chances of ever earning a living, as well as with their general health. A similar investigation in the public schools of Minnesota recently showed that there were 70,000 children with defective vision of the most serious nature, less than 10 per cent of whom were provided with glasses. In a very large number of cases the parents are simply too poor to buy glasses. Such children would, in Paris, be provided with the necessary glasses and oculist’s care out of the school funds. And there would be no suggestion of pauperism about it, no humiliation; it is the child’s right. Medical inspection is thorough, and the American witnessing it is very apt to feel ashamed of the farcical “inspections” so common in his great and wealthy country.
For a long time, whenever food was given the managers of the school funds simply issued coupons, or orders upon some restaurant, entitling the holder to so many meals at a given cost. Usually some teacher or charitable worker was deputed to accompany the child to see that it actually got what it was intended to get. There was no system. But in 1877 the Prefect of the Seine appointed a commission to study the question, raised by some Socialists, of how good a warm meal might be provided in the schools at a low cost. Most of the managers of the school funds treated the matter in a very lukewarm, indifferent sort of way, and the commissioners reported that all they had been able to ascertain was that good meals could be provided at an average cost of twenty-five centimes (five cents) each. So the matter dropped and was not again heard of until the trying winter of 1881. Then it was suggested that, purely as an experiment, the children of school age whose parents were receiving poor relief should be fed. The managers of the Montmartre school fund at once volunteered to undertake the experiment, and their example was soon followed by others. They did not long confine the meals to the children of pauper parents, but at an early stage of the experiment extended it so as to include all children. The example of Montmartre was very soon followed, and within a year there were fifteen canteens which had served between them 1,110,827 “portions.” One-third of these “portions” were meat, each weighing twenty grammes, one-third were bowls of soup, and the other third portions of vegetables, these varying with the season. The number of portions paid for by the children was 736,526, and the number given to children too poor to pay, 374,301. It should be said, perhaps, that a most searching investigation was made to make sure of the inability of children’s parents to pay. The total cost of the meals was 59,264 francs, of which amount the children paid 36,776 francs. After a while, when they had gathered experience in the management of the canteens, the managers found that it was possible to increase the size of the portions of meat and, at the same time, to cut down expenses by nearly 50 per cent.
Nowadays the cost of a meal, consisting of a bowl of good soup, a plate of meat, two kinds of vegetables, and bread ad libitum, is fifteen centimes (three cents). That is the sum paid by the children, and I have been assured over and over again by those in charge of various canteens that it is more than sufficient to pay the cost. There would be a not inconsiderable profit if all children paid for their meals, but that is not by any means the case. When a child’s parents are too poor to pay the full price, and that fact has been ascertained by the investigators, they are permitted to pay less, even as little as two and a half centimes, or half a cent. The policy is to encourage as many as possible to pay the full price, or such sums as they can muster. But the very poor are never turned away, and in the poorer quarters thousands of children are fed gratuitously, especially in winter, when in Paris, as elsewhere, there is more distress due to sickness and interrupted employment. In the poor quarter of Eppinette the children’s fees amount to only about 20 per cent of the cost, while in the wealthier quarters they amount to 75 or even 85 per cent. In an ordinary industrial district, like Batignolles, the children pay about 45 per cent on a yearly average.
The Municipal Council of Paris makes an annual subsidy to cover the natural deficit of the canteens. These deficits vary from year to year, but the total subsidies required for the three years, 1901–1903, amounted to $200,000. In connection with this question of financial management there are two items worth noticing. One is the fact that private subscriptions to the school funds show a great falling off now that in practice they have become incorporated in the municipal government. It has not been found that citizens are willing to contribute to the funds now that the city has assumed responsibility for them. The other fact is that the expenditure in poor relief on account of children is very much less. Children have always served as the best of all reasons why poor relief should be given. Now, when that plea is made by an applicant for relief, he or she is referred to the school canteens, where the children are sure of being fed.
I fancy that I can hear some good reader’s mocking sneer at the idea of being fed at a “common, socialistic trough.” Well, I can only say that, having eaten meals in two or three of the schools, I much preferred them to an average American restaurant “Regular Dinner” at twenty-five cents. Everything is as neat and clean as it could possibly be, and the cooking—well, it bears out the reputation of the French as the master-cooks of the world. There is, apparently, no “graft,” and that is probably due in large part to the fact that the meals are not confined to pauper children, who might, alas! be badly served with impunity. From the first it has been one of the chief aims of the authorities to keep the canteens free from the taint of pauperism. The children of the well-to-do are encouraged to attend—not, indeed, by direct solicitation, but by making the meals and the surroundings as attractive as possible. And the plan succeeds very well. No child knows whether the child next it has paid for its dinner or not. Small tickets are issued, each child going through a little box-office, which only permits of one being in at a time. If a little boy or girl claims to be too poor to pay for a meal ticket, no questions are asked, the ticket is issued, and the child’s name and address noted. By next day, or at most in two days, inquiries have been made. If it is found that the parents can afford it, they are compelled to pay the full price and to refund whatever sum may be due to the canteen for the meals their child has had. If they are found to be really too poor to pay, tickets are issued to the child for as long as it may be necessary. In such cases the account is not charged against the parents. No distinction is made between the tickets of those who pay and those who do not, and it is thus practically impossible for the child who has paid for its meal to jeer at its less fortunate, dependent comrade. Thus the self-respect of the poorest children is preserved,—a most important fact, as every one who has studied the problems of charitable relief knows.
Another highly important factor is the presence of the teachers at the meals. Fully 90 per cent of the teachers use the canteens more or less regularly, though there is absolutely no compulsion in the matter. They prefer to do so on account of the cheapness and wholesome character of the meals. I have myself sat down to a three-cent dinner in the company of a well-known member of the Chamber of Deputies, a Professor of Languages, and several teachers, each one of us having gone through the little box-office and bought his ticket in exactly the same manner as the most ragged urchin. All the children are provided with cheap paper napkins, and the presence of the teachers is a sort of practical education in table manners. The canteen serves, therefore, as a great educational and ethical force as well as a remedy for one of the worst evils arising out of the national poverty problem. The cantine scolaire is a great institution, well worthy of careful study.
If, as the evidence gathered by Mr. Hunter seems to show, we have at least two million underfed children in the public schools of the United States, victims of physical and mental deterioration, the time must come, and the sooner the better, when we must deal with the problem. Some of the Utopians among us would doubtless like to see the all-embracing compulsory system of Vercelli adopted, but it is most likely that we shall find the French methods better suited to our needs.
Note.—I am indebted to the publishers of my Underfed School Children—The Problem and the Remedy, Charles H. Kerr and Company, of Chicago, for permission to reproduce the foregoing paper in this volume.
APPENDIX B
LETTER TO THE ROYAL ITALIAN AMBASSADOR AT WASHINGTON FROM THE CHIEF OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF VERCELLI, ITALY, DESCRIBING THE SCHOOL-MEALS SYSTEM
Note.—I am indebted to the Italian Ambassador at Washington, his Excellency Mayor des Planches, for permission to use the following letter. The translation was made for me by Mr. Teofilo Petriella, of Cleveland, Ohio, an Italian journalist.—J. S.
Vercelli, September 13, 1905.
The school year, 1904–1905, just over, was the fifth since the school lunch (refezione scolastica) was introduced in our City Elementary Schools, at the complete expense of the Municipality.
The school lunch is distributed every day during the whole school year. Limited, at the beginning, only to the city schools, it has been extended, since the school year 1901–1902, to the suburban and rural schools.
To-day, therefore, all the male and female pupils of all the classes of all the elementary schools, in both city and suburbs, take part in the lunch. There are 65 schools with 91 classes, attended by an average of 2500 boys and girls.
The lunch consists of bread with another victual (pane e companatico). Each pupil gets a very good loaf of first quality wheat bread, weighing 140 grammes for the IV and V classes;[[K]] 120 grammes for the III class; and 100 grammes for the first two classes.
The victuals served with the bread are: On meat days, raw salt meat (salame crudo) in rations of 14 grammes, alternated with cooked salt meat (salame cotto) in rations of 20 grammes.[[L]] On fish days, cheese (either Bernesa or Fontina alternated) in rations of 20 grammes. All is of first quality, and this is daily ascertained by an inspection on the part of the Steward and the Officer of the Board of Health.
Each ration costs from seven to eight cents of a franc.[[M]]
Every school morning each teacher, within 15 minutes of the commencement of school (from 9 to 9.15), ascertains the number present by roll-call, fills out an order in three copies, keeping for himself the one attached to the stub and sending, by the ushers, the other two to the City Steward.
The Steward keeps one of these duplicate copies for the office accounts and registrations, while sending the other back to the teacher, along with the requested rations in a closed basket.
The office of the Steward, after having received all the requests from all the teachers, as above said, and after having classified same by degree, locality, and number, sends the orders of purchase to the different supply-contractors.
At 10 o’clock, in a suitable place, under the direction and supervision of the City Steward, the baskets are made up, one for each class. The baskets, once ready, are automatically padlocked—the teacher having the necessary key—and forwarded by proper servants to the several suburbs, while others take the rest, on pushcarts, to the city school buildings.
The School Trustees of the respective boroughs, the Principal and the Steward in the City School, visit the different classes to make sure of the regular and exact proceeding of the beneficent institutions.
So much, answering your favor of August 15th.
Truly yours,
The Mayor, per the Chief of the Board of Education, Cero Lucca.
[K]. Twenty-eight grammes equal one ounce avoirdupois. The children in classes IV and V get loaves, therefore, weighing five ounces each.
[L]. Salame, here translated “salt meat,” is really the best kind of salted dry sausage made of pork sirloin.
[M]. One U. S. dollar equals about 492 francs; 100 Italian cents equal one franc, so that one cent of a franc equals about one-fifth of an American cent.