Taking the three groups of schools together, we find that 1,019 children out of nearly 2,000 were "below normal" in point of nutrition. More than one-half, that is, were suffering from chronic semi-starvation. Of the 1,019, as many as 344 were described as "poor or very poor."
Very instructively Dr Crowley measured nutrition against mental capacity, and showed clearly how often unhealthy minds are the product of unhealthy bodies. Of children of exceptional intelligence, 62.7 per cent. were of good nutrition. Of dull children only 24.9 per cent. were of good nutrition.
Dr Crowley concluded his significant report with these words:
"No increased facilities for higher education or technical instruction can in any way take the place of attention to the physical side of our children. The future of our nation will depend, not on the ability of the few, but on the fitness of the many, and this fitness must be secured at all cost. It is for us as a nation a matter of life and death."
To proceed, anthropometric statistics should be carefully compiled, and a sickness register kept, so that the nation may judge of the progress made in restoring its stature. The teeth would have special attention and the school dentist would work hand in hand with the school doctor. Children need few dosings, but in special cases cod liver oil or a suitable tonic could be administered, as is done in Belgium.
In cases of defective nourishment the child must be fed, whatever the character of the parent. No fears as to the loosening of parental responsibility need stand in the way in this essential matter, for drastic punishment of neglectful parents should go hand in hand with our care of the child. Nothing, in my opinion, is so likely to encourage the feeling of parental responsibility, and to shame careless mothers, as the knowledge that at the school the child is regarded as a valuable commodity. In this connexion it would be well for the Board of Education to insist upon periodical reports, not less frequently than every three months, to parents upon their children. A carefully written report upon the progress of the scholar in all departments would be calculated to stimulate the better feelings of the parent.
The greatest timidity was shown by the Physical Deterioration Committee in dealing with the important subject of underfed children. The report runs:
"By a differentiation of function on these terms—the School Authority to supply and organize the machinery, the benevolent to furnish the material—a working adjustment between the privileges of charity and the obligations of the community might be reached. In some districts it still may be the case that such an arrangement would prove inadequate, the extent or the concentration of poverty might be too great for the resources of local charity, and in these, subject to the consent of the Board of Education, it might be expedient to permit the application of municipal aid on a larger scale."
It is the State that must furnish the "material," not as a matter of charity, but from motives of the purest common sense. The timidity of the Committee is the more remarkable when the evidence presented to them is examined. Dr Eichholz made a special investigation into the conditions of the Johanna Street Board School, Lambeth, as a type of school in a very bad district, and he considers that 90 per cent. of the children are unable, by reason of their physical condition, to attend to their lessons in a proper way. His estimate of the underfed children in the elementary schools of London is 122,000, or 16 per cent. of the whole.[45]
Those alone who have had to do with voluntary free breakfast schemes can have any idea of the terrible hunger of the children who attend them. The hugging of the mug of cocoa, the ravenous swallowing—it cannot be called eating—of the slices of bread, make one shudder to think that, but for such isolated voluntary effort, the poor children would in an hour or so be entering a school at which their attendance is compulsory to—study! And for one helped by voluntary effort how many go hungry to their tasks, utterly unable, through physical weakness, to do their work!