Another disadvantage arising from the utilisation of the service of voluntary workers alone, is that no sufficient control can be exercised by the Central Authority to enforce a common policy. A certain amount of latitude is desirable so as to allow scope for individual initiative and experiment. But in the matter of selection of the children to be fed want of uniformity is wholly to be condemned. The diversity in methods that prevails is in effect amazing. In two schools situated almost side by side, and drawing their children from the same streets, the percentage fed may be, in the one case, two, in the other ten, fifteen or even more.[[424]] We have found this lack of uniformity in other towns, since the numbers fed depend very largely on the views taken by individual teachers, but in London there is superadded the diversity produced by the divergence of views of the different Care Committees. In one Care Committee the socialist element will be predominant. In another the work may be done on strictly "C.O.S." lines; the meals are regarded simply as a form of relief, and the feeding-list is cut down to the lowest limit.[[425]]
The County Council has not found it possible to lay down any uniform rule for the guidance of the committees.[[426]] Though, in a small number of cases, the committee professes to have a scale, usually that laid down by Rowntree,[[427]] in practice this is a very rough criterion, frequently departed from, and the cases are all virtually decided on their merits. Moreover, the policy of the same Care Committee even will not always be a consistent one. The decision as to any particular case will vary with the presence or absence of particular members of the Committee.
Where children from the same family attend different schools—a frequent occurrence in London—meals may be granted at one school and refused at another. The County Council have issued elaborate regulations for ensuring that in such cases each Care Committee concerned shall know what the others are doing.[[428]] But though many Care Committees do communicate with one another, or notify cases to a Mutual Registration Committee, the County Council's instructions are frequently disregarded. The secretary of one committee informed us that during the whole time of her secretaryship—a period of over a year—she never once received any notification from another committee. Even where the cases are notified, it by no means follows that the several committees concerned adopt the same plan of action; often we have found that the one committee did not know in any particular case what the result of their notification had been. One secretary even told us that though all the committees in her district mutually notified cases to each other, this was solely for information; they pursued their own policy, merely noting that some of the children of the family were receiving meals at another school.[[429]]
To the parents this diversity of treatment of similar cases can only appear as capricious. Successive visits by the Care Committee visitors from different schools, all making the same enquiries, are a needless source of irritation to the parent, while being at the same time unnecessary expenditure of time and energy for the visitors. Attempts have been made in some districts to put an end to this waste of energy and overlapping. In Camberwell, two or three years ago, it was decided that the Care Committee visiting should be organised by streets instead of by schools. The Care Committees of the different schools all sent on their cases to the secretary of the organisation, who referred them to the visitor for the particular street.[[430]] This scheme worked very well for about eighteen months, but was then given up chiefly because the secretary could not continue the work. Now three Care Committees in this district have been amalgamated, so as to secure some measure of uniformity.[[431]] In a few other districts also, the Care Committees for groups of schools, though nominally separately appointed for each school, are in effect composed of the same people. Quite recently an attempt to prevent overlapping has been made by the County Council on a larger scale. In Whitechapel the Council have provided a Central Office where case papers will be kept, and paid assistants have been appointed who will notify to each Care Committee any assistance which is being given to the brothers and sisters of the children with whom they are dealing.
(e)—The Provision for Paying Children.
The County Council from the first has not looked with approval on the proposal that meals should be provided as a matter of convenience to parents who are willing to pay for them. "Only cases of exceptional hardship," declared the Education Committee, "e.g., children of widowers or of widows who are compelled, owing to their work, to be away from home all day—should be so dealt with."[[432]] In such cases payment must be made in advance and a week's notice be given, the full cost of the meals being charged.[[433]] Consequently, in most schools we find that no parents or only an insignificant number are voluntarily paying for the meals.[[434]] But that there is a certain demand for such provision is shown by the number of applications received where the Care Committee encourages such a plan. In one school, for instance, we were informed that a number of parents paid; sometimes when the children had been receiving free meals the parents wished the children to continue having them when the home circumstances improved, and were quite willing to pay the cost. In such cases they preferred the children to go to the Cookery Centre, this being looked on as superior to the feeding-centre. In another district we were told that, though there was a demand on the part of the parents, this was not encouraged, partly because the staff of supervisors was inadequate to cope with larger numbers. There is frequently an unfortunate difference in the treatment of the paying and the non-paying children. At one centre, for instance, the "necessitous" children are placed at one table, and are supplied with food provided by the Alexandra Trust; the paying children are placed at another and are given food cooked at the Cookery Centre. At another school we were told that the paying children were fed at one end of the room, the necessitous children at the other; incidentally the paying children had to stand, since there were no chairs available, while the necessitous children sat on forms. In several schools the parents pay for milk or codliver oil when this is recommended by the doctor. In at least one school, however, we were told that though some of the parents would be willing to pay for this milk, it was too much trouble to collect the money, so no payment was asked. In one or two schools milk is provided for any child who likes to pay a halfpenny, and this provision is very largely taken advantage of.
In the special schools for mentally defective children, where the provision of meals is carried on on the same lines as in the ordinary elementary schools, the proportion of children who pay for the meals is greater, since, owing to the distance from school of many of the children's homes, provision has to be made for non-necessitous as well as necessitous. In the Cripple Schools special provision has for many years been made by the Cripple Children's Dinners Committee. This body provides the food, the County Council supplying the apparatus and attendance. Dinners are supplied for all the children at a charge of 2d. each. The parents appear thoroughly to appreciate the provision made, and the great majority of them pay the full cost, only a few of the children receiving the dinner free or at a reduced price.[[435]]
(f)—The Service of the Meals.
The results of the half-hearted fashion in which London undertook the responsibility for its underfed children are seen nowhere more clearly than in the arrangements made for serving the meals. The County Council seems to have been actuated throughout rather by the desire to keep the expense down to the minimum than to supply the children with the most suitable food and to see that the meals were served under civilising conditions. In the early years after the Council took over the provision, the Local Committees were left to make the best arrangements that they could. Little encouragement was given them in any endeavour to provide wholesome and varied meals under conditions likely to exercise an educational influence over the children. Still less was any attempt made to enforce such a policy. The reports are almost silent on this aspect of the question, though the scanty references which are to be found show a far from satisfactory state of affairs. In 1908, for instance, it was reported that at thirty schools, where 3,090 children were fed, plates and mugs were not provided. "This has meant generally," reports the Executive Officer, "that the children brought their own mugs and ate the food out of their hands." In twenty other schools insufficient provision was made for washing up the utensils used and, "as food was served to the children in successive relays, two or more children used each drinking vessel or plate before it had been washed." "The usual meal has been a dinner of soup (sometimes containing meat), with, in certain cases, a form of pudding as an alternative. In the great majority of cases this was the daily meal for months without variety."[[436]] The Care Committee organisers, in their Report on the Home Circumstances of Necessitous Children in the same year, remark that, considering "the poor accommodation and the inferior quality of the meals often provided for the children," together with the fact that the highest average number of meals per child was 4·4 per week, it could not be expected that there would be much noticeable improvement in the physical condition of the children."[[437]]
Since the formation of the Local Associations of Care Committees in 1909 conditions have improved, but they are still far from satisfactory. As we have already mentioned, these Associations were formed in order to introduce some measure of uniformity into the work of feeding the necessitous children of the metropolis. They were from henceforth to be responsible for the arrangements made for the actual serving of the meals. The selection of a suitable centre rests with them, and it is their duty to arrange for the requisite supply of food and for the proper service of the meals and supervision of the children during the meal time.