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THE TEACHERS
One afternoon I happened by a communal school in another crowded quarter of Brussels, and, tho it was vacation, and I knew the principal had been sadly overworked for two years and ought to be in the country, I decided to knock at the bureau to see if he were in.
I had my answer in the corridor, where rows of unhappy mothers and miserable fathers were waiting to see him. Inside there were more. He was examining a little girl with a very bad eye; and I realized why there could be no vacation for the principal!
As I sat there, I heard the noise of marching in the court below, and when I asked what it was, he opened the window for me to see. There were 720 children between six and fourteen years, gaily tramping round and round under the trees, making their “promenade” before the 4 o’clock “repas scolaire” (school children’s repast) which the Relief Organization is now trying to furnish to each of the 1,200,000 children in the free schools of Belgium who may need it—incidentally at an outlay of $2,500,000 a month.
Over 8,500 children in the sixty communal schools of Brussels proper receive this dinner. It is quite distinct from the eleven o’clock meal furnished at the cantines for children below normal health—they may have both—and it is served in the school building. Naturally the school-teachers are carrying a large share in this stupendous undertaking.
For the children, the “repas” is the great event of the day, and, since the vacation, they gather long before the hour. One sees, too, hundreds of little ones on the sidewalks before the Enfants Débiles dining-rooms, as early as 8 A.M., clutching their precious cards and waiting already for their eleven o’clock potatoes and phosphatine.
This school is also a communal soup center, tho the teachers have nothing to do with the distribution. Every day from 2,500 to 3,000 men and women line up—worn, white enamel pitchers in one hand, cards in the other, to receive the family ration of soup and bread.
As I passed one morning, I saw a little bare-legged girl sitting on a doorstep opposite. Her mother had evidently left her to guard their portion, and she sat huddled up against the tall, battered pitcher full of steaming soup, her little arms tight about four round loaves—which meant many brothers and sisters. The father was in the trenches. She sat there, a slim, wistful little thing, guarding the soup and bread, the picture of what war means to women and children.