It would naturally be expected that the School Medical Officer would be consulted about the dietary as a matter of course,[[240]] but this is by no means invariably the case. At Birkenhead, for instance, the School Medical Officer has no voice in the planning of the menu. At Stoke-on-Trent the School Medical Officer reports in 1911 that, "with the exception of the Fenton district, the medical staff does not appear to have even been consulted on the matter of dietary."[[241]]
Where the meals are given at restaurants, the dietary is almost invariably unsatisfactory, adequate inspection being impossible.[[242]]
The most elaborate dietary is probably that adopted by the Bradford Education Committee. In 1907, after the Education Committee had adopted the Provision of Meals Act, but before arrangements had been made to feed the children out of the rates, an experiment was made in feeding forty children for fourteen weeks. The dietary was carefully planned so that, while containing the requisite amount of proteid and fat, it should not be beyond the purse of the ordinary parent in normal times.[[243]] This dietary is still in force, a few alterations having been made which experience showed to be advisable. The menu is varied, according to the season, winter, summer, and spring or autumn. The same meal is not repeated for four weeks.[[244]] At Portsmouth again, where the dietary is drawn up by the Medical Officer of Health and the School Medical Officer, a different meal is given every day for three weeks.[[245]] In most towns, however, the same menu is continued week after week, with some slight variation in the summer. The same meal is given on the same day in the week so that the children learn to know what meal to expect, and in consequence the attendance is often considerably smaller on days when the dish is unpopular. Sometimes the food will vary very little even from day to day. Though served under various names, soup, stew or hash, it is really almost precisely the same. Some authorities supply only one course, others two. In some towns a child is allowed to have as much as it wants, in reason; in other towns only one helping is allowed as a rule, though, if there happens to be any food over, this may be distributed among the children.[[246]]
Occasionally special provision is made for the infants. Thus, at York, milk and bread is given in the middle of the morning to infants who are on the feeding list, it having been found that they could not digest the ordinary dinners. But as a rule, though in well managed centres the infants are placed together at special tables, so that they can be better supervised and taught how to eat, there is no separate dietary for them.
Where only breakfasts are provided there is, of course, less room for variation. Generally cocoa or coffee is given, with bread and butter, margarine, dripping, jam or syrup. At Bootle pea soup is given one day a week. In several towns porridge is provided, either alternately with the cocoa or coffee breakfast, or every day. At Sheffield, where a cocoa breakfast used to be given, porridge was substituted at one school as an experiment; it was found that the boys who were fed on porridge increased in weight at double the rate of the boys who received only the cocoa breakfast; as a result porridge breakfasts were substituted in all the schools.[[247]]
(iii) Preparation and Distribution of the Meals.
In a few cases the Local Education Authority has equipped a kitchen for the preparation of the food, and makes arrangements for distributing it to the various centres. At Bradford all the meals, with the exception of those for schools in outlying districts where arrangements are made with local caterers, are cooked at a central kitchen and distributed in special heat-retaining boxes to the different dining centres by motor vans. Manchester, Birkenhead and other towns also have their own central kitchen. Sometimes, as at West Ham, a kitchen is attached to each of the centres; or occasionally a cookery centre is utilised for the preparation of the meals. Sometimes, as at Leeds and Portsmouth,[[248]] the Local Education Authority provides the kitchen and a caterer prepares the food. Frequently, however, all the arrangements for the preparation and the distribution of the meals are in the hands of caterers.
(iv) The Service of the Meals.
From the first great stress was laid by the Board of Education upon the educational aspect of the meals. "The methods employed in the provision of meals should be not merely such as will secure an improvement in the physical condition of the children, but such as will have a directly educational effect upon them in respect of manners and conduct."[[249]] "The school dinner may ... be made to serve as a valuable object-lesson and used to reinforce the practical instruction in hygiene, cookery and domestic economy."[[250]]
In many cases this advice was totally disregarded. The second report on the working of the Act contains many examples of the utter lack of discipline prevailing in some centres. In one case "no attempt to teach orderly eating was made; there was a certain amount of actual disorderly conduct, throwing bits of food at each other and so forth." In another case where the meals were served in a small outhouse in the playground, the "table was a low locker.... On this a newspaper was spread, and there was hardly room for more than six children to sit round it. Other children sat on low benches where they could, holding their bowls on their knees ... about fifty partake of the dinner, but there is not room for more than twelve at a time, and then it is a scramble.... The food (Irish stew and bread) was good but everything else was as bad as could be." At another centre, we read, "the dinner is eaten in a perfect pandemonium of noise. Nine charwomen of a rather low type attend to about 470 children."[[251]]