The service of the meals at these Special Schools presents in general a marked contrast to the methods prevailing at the centres for necessitous children. For example, at Birkenhead, where the management of the feeding centres leaves much to be desired,[[357]] the dinner provided at the Mentally Defective School, for all children who care to stay, is served in an attractive and educational manner. One or more teachers are always present to supervise it. The children enter all together and sit down at small tables. The boys and girls take it in turns to lay the tables and clear away afterwards, and help to serve the food. Table-cloths are provided and these are kept remarkably clean. Somewhat similar conditions prevail at Liverpool in the Special Schools for Physically and Mentally Defective Children.[[358]] But it is at a school for feeble-minded children at Bradford that we found the most perfect arrangements. The smallness of the numbers—only some 17 or 18 children being present—allowed attention to be paid to each individual child. The dinner was served in a bright cheerful hall, and the tables were nicely laid by the children, with table-cloths, plants and flowers; these latter the children often bring themselves. Two teachers are always present and preside at the two tables, having their dinner with the children. The children's manners were excellent and spoke volumes for the patience and care exercised by the teachers.
The example afforded by the service of the meals at these special schools might well be imitated by the Education Authorities in providing meals at the ordinary elementary schools.
(i)—The Underfed Child in Rural Schools.
We have confined our investigations almost entirely to the Urban Districts. We must, however, briefly touch upon the question of underfeeding in the country. Here the conditions are different. The problem is not only how to provide for the children who do not get sufficient to eat; there are also to be considered the large numbers who are unable to return home at midday and have to bring their dinner to school with them. Many of these children have to walk long distances, perhaps two miles, three miles, or even more. The long walk necessitates an early start from home; this makes the interval between breakfast and dinner long and the exercise sharpens the appetite. Hence it is of the greatest importance that the midday meal should be adequate. In most cases, however, as the reports of School Medical Officers abundantly testify, the dinner which these children bring with them consists of bread and jam, cake or pastry, with perhaps a bottle of cold tea.[[359]] In a few schools the teachers have organised cocoa clubs, the children paying 1d. or 1-1/2d. per week, which is as a rule just sufficient to cover expenses.[[360]] Incidentally, it is noticed, the weekly payment for cocoa has a good effect on the attendance. "A child having once paid his or her cocoa fee at the beginning of the week seldom stays away from school during the remainder of the week if it can possibly be avoided."[[361]]
Sometimes the teacher encourages the children to bring bottles of milk, cocoa or coffee and sees that they are warmed over the fire before being partaken of.
Occasionally a regular dinner is provided. We have already mentioned the experiment made at Rousdon by Sir Henry Peek in 1876. This has been continued to the present day. A hot dinner is provided daily, consisting of one course, soup with bread and vegetables two days a week, and some form of suet pudding the other three days. About half the children stay for the dinner and pay one penny each, these payments just about covering the cost of the food. The meal is served in a dining-room in the school and the ex-headmaster and the present headmaster voluntarily undertake the supervision.
A somewhat similar plan has been tried at Grassington, in Yorkshire. When, eighteen years ago, the teaching of cookery was introduced, it was resolved to combine with that instruction the provision of a hot midday meal. The children not only cook the dinner themselves, but they take it in turns to order and pay for the materials, thus acquiring the valuable knowledge how to buy. They are taught the value of the different foodstuffs and learn how to make a good substantial dinner at a little cost. A two-course dinner, ample and varied, is provided daily at the school.[[362]] Each child is allowed to eat as much as it wants, but no waste is allowed. Marvellous as it appears, the payment of a 1d. per meal covers the cost of the food.[[363]] The dinner appears to have been intended chiefly for the children who came from a distance, but the parents of the children who live in the village have been glad to avail themselves of the provision, since the school dinner is better than they can supply at home.[[364]] Nearly half the children stay. All the arrangements are, and have from the first been, made by the headmaster's wife, who takes the cookery lesson and serves the meal herself, and the success of the experiment must be very largely attributed to her voluntary labours.
In two schools in Cheshire also, Siddington and Nether Alderley, hot dinners are provided at a charge of 1-1/2d., in the former during the winter months, in the latter all the year round. In both cases the children's payments cover, or slightly more than cover, the cost of the food, the other expenses being borne by voluntary funds.
Such provision is, however, quite exceptional. As a rule no provision whatever is made. "I have only once seen any supervision of the meal on the part of the teachers," writes a late Assistant School Medical Officer for East Sussex; "in fine weather the children generally eat [their dinner] out of doors; in bad weather it is taken in the school or cloak-room in what are often very unhygienic surroundings."[[365]] "There is no doubt," writes another School Medical Officer, "that at some of the schools the conditions in which the children get their midday meal are deplorable."[[366]] "It is only too common a sight," reports the School Medical Officer for Derbyshire, "to see little children sitting in a corner of the class-room, cloak-room or even the playground, munching at thick slices of bread and butter. Under these circumstances," he continues, "it cannot be wondered at that children below the normal development are to be found in our schools."[[367]] In Anglesey the School Medical Officer finds more children badly nourished in the rural areas than in the urban areas; this he attributes mainly to the long walk to school every day, the inadequacy of the midday meal and the hurried manner in which it is eaten.[[368]]
It is indeed essential that in all country schools to which children come from a distance, provision should be made for the serving of a midday meal under proper supervision.[[369]] As Dr. George Finch points out, "the authority which requires the child to spend its day away from home might not unreasonably be expected by the parents to make some provision that its midday meal might be taken under not unfavourable conditions. The parent, however conscientious, cannot adequately deal with the problem, and the provision of suitable cold food is not an easy matter, even in the more well-to-do family."[[370]] The meals should be served as part of the school curriculum and might well be combined with the teaching of cookery as is done at Grassington.