(c)—The Demand for State Provision.
Soon after the beginning of the new century the agitation for some form of State feeding grew urgent and widespread. There was no attempt to deal with the matter in the Education Act of 1902, but from about this date onwards the question constantly recurred in Parliamentary debates, a sure indication that the question was interesting others besides the expert and the philanthropist. And to the old motives of sentiment and educational need was added a new motive, a motive specially characteristic of the present century and one which in some other directions threatens to become almost an obsession. This was the desire for "race regeneration," the conviction of the supreme importance of securing a physically efficient people. Formerly the tendency had been to sacrifice the needs of the child to the supposed moral welfare of the family, now the child was regarded primarily as the raw material for a nation of healthy citizens.
The South African war had been partly instrumental in producing this extreme anxiety about physical unfitness, and two public enquiries—the Royal Commission on Physical Training in Scotland, and the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration—furnished abundant proof of the harm which was being done in this direction by the mal-nutrition of school children.
The report of the Royal Commission on Physical Training showed indisputably the necessity for better feeding. On this point a large number of important witnesses were unanimous.[[85]] The Commissioners were, however, cautious in their recommendations. Though fully convinced of the necessity for feeding, they were doubtful as to how far the responsibility for dealing with the need should be placed upon the Education Authorities. "It is matter for grave consideration," they declared, "whether the valuable asset to the nation in the improved moral and physical state of a large number of future citizens counterbalances the evils of impaired parental responsibility, or whether voluntary agencies may be trusted to do this work with more discrimination and consequently less danger than a statutory system."[[86]] On the other hand, they urged, "it must be remembered that, with every desire to act up to their parental responsibility, and while quite ready to contribute in proportion to their power, there are often impediments in the way of the home provision of suitable food by the parents."[[87]] They considered, therefore, that "accommodation and means for enabling children to be properly fed should ... be provided either in each school or in a centre; but, except a limited sum to provide the necessary equipment, no part of the cost should be allowed to fall on the rates."[[88]] The meal should be educational in character. "An obligation for the proper supervision of the feeding of those who come for instruction should be regarded as one of the duties of school authorities."[[89]]
The findings of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration were more definite and striking. To take first the evidence as to the extent of underfeeding, Dr. Eichholz, after careful investigation, estimated that the rough total of underfed children in London was 122,000 or 16 per cent. of the elementary school population. These figures were based on the assumption that all the children being fed at schools and centres would otherwise have gone unfed; but, considering the loose method of enquiry prevalent, this was questionable. The London School Board put the number at 10,000, but this seems to have been grossly understating the case.[[90]] In Manchester, according to the estimate of the Education Committee and the Medical Officer of Health, not less than 15 per cent. were underfed.[[91]] The evidence given was, however, conflicting, and indeed little reliance can be placed on these statistics.
With regard to the effect of underfeeding on the physique of the children, the doctors gave striking testimony. Dr. Robert Hutchison was of opinion that, if a child had not sufficient food during the period of growth, that is during the school years, it would be permanently stunted.[[92]] "Apart from infectious diseases," said Dr. Collie of the London School Board, "malnutrition is accountable for nine-tenths of child sickness."[[93]] Dr. Eichholz pointed out that at Leeds Dr. Hall had found that fifty per cent. of the children in a poor school suffered from rickets, the true cause of which was poor and unsuitable food, whilst in a well-to-do school the proportion was only eight per cent.[[94]] In the opinion of this witness, an opinion "shared by medical men, members of Education Committees, managers, teachers and others conversant with the condition of school children ... food is at the base of all the evils of child degeneracy."[[95]] "The sufficient feeding of children," declared Dr. Niven, Medical Officer of Health for Manchester, "is by far the most important thing to attend to and ... specially important in connection with the Army.... When trade is good," he argued, "you will have to rely for the Army upon this very poor class, and in order to get good soldiers you must rear good children, you must see that children are adequately fed."[[96]]
Such were the arguments on the negative side—on the positive side there was ample proof of the good effects of a regular nutritious diet. Dr. Eichholz referred to Dr. Hall's experiment in feeding poor children at Leeds. "Taking sixty poor seven-year-old children, at the beginning of the period they totalled 455 lbs., below normal weight.... They gained in three months forty lbs. in addition to the normal increase in weight" for that time, "and they looked less anæmic and more cheerful."[[97]] Too much importance must not be attached to these figures since the data on which they are based are not sufficiently known to gauge their value, but that the improvement was very considerable cannot be doubted. Moreover, in the special schools for mentally defective children where meals were regularly provided, the results were astonishing. Dr. Collie told how, "in a large number of instances after the careful individual attention and midday dinner of the special schools," the children "returned after from six to eighteen months to the elementary schools with a new lease of mental vigour. These children are functionally mentally defective.... Their brains are starved, and naturally fail to react to the ordinary methods of elementary teaching."[[98]] "Bad nutrition and normal brain development," he added, "are incompatible."[[99]]
There was indeed, as the Committee pointed out, "a general consensus of opinion that the time had come when the State should realise the necessity of ensuring adequate nourishment to children in attendance at school ... 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."[[100]] In a large number of cases such voluntary organisations would be sufficient for the purpose, "with the support and oversight of the Local Authority," and, as long as this was so, the Committee would "strongly deprecate recourse being had to direct municipal assistance."[[101]] But in cases where "the extent or the concentration of poverty might be too great for the resources of local charity ... it might be expedient to permit the application of municipal aid on a larger scale."[[102]] As a corollary to the exercise of such powers on the part of the Local Authority, the law would have to be altered to make it more possible to prosecute neglectful parents.[[103]] The Committee were also in favour of establishing special schools of the Day Industrial School type in which feeding would form an essential feature. To these definitely "retarded" children might be sent.[[104]] They recommended that the funds for these experiments should be found through the machinery of the Poor Law,[[105]] for they were anxious to guard the community from the consequences of "the somewhat dangerous doctrine that free meals are the necessary concomitant of free education."[[106]]
Following on these reports came a strenuous agitation in Parliament and in the country. The National Labour Conference on the State Maintenance of Children, held at the Guildhall in January, 1905, declared unanimously in favour of State Maintenance "as a necessary corollary of Universal Compulsory Education, and as a means of partially arresting that physical deterioration of the industrial population of this country, which is now generally recognised as a grave national danger. As a step towards such State Maintenance," the conference called upon the Government to introduce without further delay legislation enabling Local Authorities to provide meals for school children, the cost to be borne by the National Exchequer.[[107]] The National Union of Teachers, at a largely attended conference at Llandudno in the same year, were agreed as to the urgent need for legislation.[[108]]
In Parliament the agitation was led by Mr. Claude Hay, Sir John Gorst and Dr. Macnamara. It was urged that a large part of the money spent on education was wasted. To teach children who were physically quite unfit to receive instruction, was, as Sir John Gorst pointed out, "the height of absurdity."[[109]] Thirty years' compulsory education had, Mr. Claude Hay declared, resulted in disappointment. "The gain in intelligence was, to say the least of it, equivocal, while the physical deterioration of the people was obvious. The reason was largely that we had taken education as an isolated factor, whereas it was part of an absolutely indivisible unit.... We had assumed that ... the intellect could act independently of all other parts of the total human being. We had ignored the body, the soul and the will, and the result had been a fiasco."[[110]] Compulsory education involved free meals, but only for the "necessitous child."[[111]] It was declared that many parents would gladly pay if they were thereby assured that their children were adequately and properly fed.[[112]]
For some time the Government remained obdurate, and declined to take any action. At last, however, it became clear that something must be done. The findings of the Royal Commission on Physical Training and the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration had created too profound an impression to be ignored. Yet even now the Government were not prepared for legislation. They were of opinion that there still existed a wide divergence of views as to the extent of underfeeding and the remedies to be applied. Accordingly, in March, 1905, another Departmental Committee was appointed to collect further information.[[113]]
The reference of this Committee made it clear that the Government had no intention of allowing the rates to be utilised for the supply of food. In the matter of feeding, the Committee were merely to enquire into the relief given by the various voluntary agencies, and report "whether relief of this character could be better organised, without any charge upon public funds."[[114]] The Report was, therefore, mainly concerned with questions of administration. A careful and elaborate account was given of the existing agencies all over England, the methods employed, the sums expended, and the kind of relief given. Evidence was received from representatives of all the more important societies in London and the provinces. It was found that outside London feeding agencies existed in 55 out of the 71 county boroughs, in 38 out of the 137 boroughs and in 22 out of the 55 large urban districts.[[115]] In addition to these there were numerous efforts of a spasmodic character, school meals being often started hastily during some special emergency. The Committee estimated that the total amount spent on the provision of meals in England and Wales was approximately £33,568, of which £10,299 was spent in London.[[116]] But these figures were "very far from representing the full amount of money spent out of charitable sources."[[117]] No account was taken of the innumerable philanthropic agencies existing all over the country, such as Soup Kitchens, District Visiting Societies and the like, who were incidentally spending large sums on the provision of food for school children. Moreover, the impracticability of obtaining returns from all the feeding agencies and the varying methods in which their accounts were made up, made any exact computation impossible.
In the evidence given before the Committee, we note the same evils prevailing as had been discovered in former years. There is the same diversity in the method of selection and the same inadequate provision. We find still the practice of giving a child a meal two or three days a week only.[[118]] In the great majority of cases the feeding was confined to the winter months, though many witnesses were of opinion that meals should be obtainable in the summer also.[[119]]
The Committee were convinced that, in all county boroughs and large towns, no voluntary agency which extended beyond the limits of one or two schools could be worked properly, except in intimate connection with, if not directly organised by, the Local Education Authority. To avoid overlapping and abuse it was essential that managers and school teachers should be required to supply full information, and only the Local Authority had power to insist on this being done.[[120]] The Committee deprecated "the proneness for starting school meals hastily upon some special emergency."[[121]] It was essential that any organisation for feeding school children should be of a permanent character and provision should be made for enabling meals to be given where necessary throughout the year.[[122]] It was desirable that meals should be obtainable on every school day, and it should be the object of the feeding agency to feed the most destitute children regularly rather than a larger number irregularly.[[123]] The Committee recognised the valuable help which had been given by the teachers. Many of the systems for feeding the children had in fact originated entirely with them, whilst in many more the whole brunt of the work had fallen upon them. But this work involved too great a strain upon the teachers and they should not be required to supervise the meals unless their attendance was indispensable.[[124]] Nor in the matter of the selection of the children should the teachers be asked to do more than draw up the preliminary list. They had no time for visiting the homes nor were they always the most competent persons for making enquiries. The final selection of the children should be in the hands of a Relief Committee, which should be formed for each school or group of schools.[[125]] The increasing attention paid to the medical side of the question is shown by the recommendation that, wherever possible, the advice and guidance of the school doctor should be obtained.[[126]] The Committee refer with approval to the proposal that a system of school restaurants should be established, at which meals could be supplied at cost price. "Not much attempt," they say, "has yet been made through the medium of school meals towards raising the standard of physical development among the children and promoting a taste for wholesome and nourishing food."[[127]] In view of the very divergent opinions expressed by witnesses, the Committee were unable to come to a clear conclusion whether or not such restaurants would succeed, but they would "welcome experiments made in this direction."[[128]] The restaurants, they thought, would probably have to be kept separate from any system of free dinners, for attempts to combine free and cheap meals had always ended in failure. In country districts, where the children often lived at a great distance from the school, the need for school restaurants was distinctly felt. The lunches brought by the children were generally of a most unsatisfactory nature. The Committee were of opinion that the managers should arrange for the provision of a hot dinner, or at any rate soup or cocoa, for those children who were unable to go home at midday. A charge should be made which should at least cover the cost of the food.[[129]]
The report of the Committee was published late in 1905. Meanwhile the Parliamentary agitation had continued. Two Bills were introduced in March by Mr. Claude Hay and Mr. Arthur Henderson.[[130]] These were withdrawn to make way for a resolution moved by Mr. (afterwards Sir Bamford) Slack—"that in the opinion of this House, the Local Education Authorities should be empowered (as unanimously recommended by the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, 1904) to make provision, under such regulations and conditions as they may decide, for ensuring that all the children at any public elementary school in their area shall receive proper nourishment before being subjected to mental or physical instruction, and for recovering the cost, where expedient, from the parents or guardians."[[131]] This resolution marks an important stage in the movement, for it received support from all sides of the House, and was passed by a considerable majority.[[132]] One feature of the debate was new. It was no longer said that the matter should be left solely to private charity. The main point at issue now was whether the money required should come from the Education rate or the Poor rate.[[133]]