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The Feeding of Children attending Public Elementary Schools.
THE FEEDING OF CHILDREN ATTENDING PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.
688 to be
those of parents who are unable to feed their children, not because of unwillingness to do so or because they cannot afford to do so, but simply because they themto be out at work all day. Dr. MACNAMARA, selves whose personal experience as an elementary school teacher ,and a member of the late London School Board entitles him to be listened to on this matter with every respect, was. very insistent upon the necessity for strengthening parental responsibility. He gave an outline of his own personal
endaagered if delivery be attempted per vias naturales. namely,
If such a view is to be acted upon generally then it will be incumbent -upon the operator to consider very seriously his duty to the mother and -to her unborn child and to hold well defined views upon the moral questions which are involved in the decision of the patient for or against sterilisation and upon the further surgical question which arises if she decides to
run
have
the risk of another Csesarean section whether he is to
aim at the
production
of extensive
utero-parietal
adhesions
not. As we have indicated, our opinion is that the surgeon unless in very exceptional circumstances should advise against sterilisation, and as the danger of any subsequent operation of the same kind would appear to be lessened
proposals
or
their presence he should aim deliberately at the production of extensive utero-parietal adhesions.
by
The
Feeding of Children attending Public Elementary Schools.
ON March 2nd the Elucation (Provision of Meals) Bill its second reading in the House of Commons and was referred to a Select Committee. We have upon occasions commented on the previous report of Lord LONDONDERRY’S Inter-departmertal Committee which was appointed to consider certain points arising out of this question, and there is without doubt a consensus of opinion that it is mere waste of time and energy to try to teach a starving child. But the discussion of the question involves the consideration of problems which affect the very foundations of our present social order, and although these questions are outside our province yet we cannot consider the main question without at least a reference to such problems. The Bill now before the House of Commons is very short-in fact, for all practical purposes it consists of one claus, for the first clause deals with the short title and construction. The operative clause is Clause 2, " the principal Actbeing the Education Act of 1902, as extended by the Education (London) Act, 1903. Clause 2 runs as follows :When the local education authority, for the purposes of Part III. of the principal Act, resolve that any of the children in attendance at any public elementary school within their area are unable by reason of lack of food to take full advantage of the education provided for them, the local education authority shall take such steps as they think fit to provide food for such children (and, if the local education authority think fit, for any other children in their schools) under such regulations and conditions as the local education authority may prescribe, including, if they so resolve, the making of a charge to recover the cost from the parent or guardian, provided that no provision of food under this Act shall be deemed to be parochial relief.
passed
The debate in the House of Commons was of great interest and among many noteworthy speeches the most noteworthy were those delivered by Sir HENRY CRAIK, Sir WILLIAM
Bill-namely, that any children in the schools by the local authority. We have ui-ed the "apparently"because we think it possible that the
word framers of the clause had in mind the cases to which Sir WILLIAM ANSON referred in his able criticism of the Bill1
THE LANCET, Dec.
2nd, 1905,
p.
1629, and Jan. 20th, 1906, p. 174.
follows
:-
Dr. MACNAMARA proceeded to mention the ezntines scolaires which exist in Paris and provide eight million meals for .E75,000 (of these more anon). Such a scheme in London, he calculated, would not cost the rates a farthing in the £ . We cordially agree with much that Dr. MACNAMARA said, but his economical estimate fails to reassure us. We can all remember the time when the education rate was never to be more than 3d. in the £. It is now Is. 7d. However, that point is not eaac;,ly within the scope of THE LANCET. Nor are we here concerned with the conflicting social principles as to whether the State or the parents should be responsible for the feeding of children whom the The main point is the State compels to go to school. absolute necessity, on grounds of health, that children attending school should receive suitable food, if the attempts to educate them are not to be made of no effect, and if the physique of the coming generation of adults is not to suffer from the attempts to improve its mental capacities. The Bill leaves it in the hands of the local authority "to take such steps as they think fit to provide food for such
I
ANS0N, Dr. MACNAMARA, and Mr. BIRRELL respectively. The first-named laid great stress upon what is apparently a blot upon the might be fed
as
The scheme of those who favoured the provisions of this Bill was to feed the child and then to pursue the parent. Personally he would take all the poorer areas of great towns and schedule them, linking the schools in those areas by half dozens. He would then provide a central dining hall for each group of six schcols and give the parents notice that they could go to the offices of the local authorities and buy a book of dinner coupons. They should pay for them if possible; if they were unable to pay they should receive them gratuitously to give them to their children to procure one square meal, instead of permitting them to slouch about the streets picking up the garbage in the gutters. The, teachers and attendance officers should also have coupons to, give to the children ; and when they had provided all this machinery then they should pursue the parent for all that he was worth. If the parent was a drunken, worthless person, then whip him at the cart tail.
children (and, if the local education authority think fit, for any other children in their schools) under such regulations and conditions as the local education authority may prescribe,......" The various local authorities will have no, easy task. Unless all school children are to be fed indiscriminately there is the question of the selection of recipients. Then there is the organisation for the distribution of the meals. The London teachers have done admirable work in voluntarily assisting in the distribution of meals to school children, but since the education committee of the London County Council has decided that they shall assist as part of their teaching duties they are naturally feeling injured. Another point is that there will have to be some visitation of homes such as is undertaken by the members of the caisso des eeoles in France in order that parents who are in real want may be separated from those who are merely shiftless and drunken, and that in either case the children should not suffer. Another point occurs which may seem to be
689 sentimental but it is one of real importance to a child : some measure should be taken so that a child who is fed because his parents are unable or unwilling to feed him should not be earmarked by his schoolfellows either as
Annotations. "
black sheep or as lower in the social scale than LAMB’S tale of themselves. Everyone will recollect the Bluecoat boy who gathered scraps really destined to feed his parents and the undeserved sufferings to which he was subjected by his schoolfellows, because they
Ne quid nimis."
a
"TABLE
D’HOTE
CONSULTATIONS."
"SOME years ago," writes an Italian correspondent, " THE LANCET1 drew attention to a practice as dangerous andirregular’ as it is (or was) but too common-that of considered him to be either unwarrantably hungry or else asking and receiving medical advice across the pharmacist’s counter-and it illustrated its remarks by a disastrous and to be making money by the sale of the said scraps. all too typical case which occurred on the Neapolitan Riviera Mr. BIRRELL, the new Minister for Education, seemed to when an overdose of aconitum napellus’wrought the wellfavour some attempt to imitate the Parisian aantines scolaires. deaths of both parties to the transaction instantaneous nigh What had been done in Paris, he urged, London should also -the "patient"who asked to be prescribed for and the " be able to do. In Paris 10,500,000 meals had been served consulting pharmacist" who had the "courage of his prein 1904 and he thought that a large proportion of them had scription" and experimented on himself with the fatal dose.’ Since then, in such centres as Rome, Florence, been paid for by the parents. We may point out with Bologna, Milan, and other north Italian cities, the legitimate complacency that long ago we foresaw the im- law imposes severe penalties on contravention of the portance of the object-lesson given by this great French statutory conditions under which the pharmacist carries experiment. Consequently we sent our Special Sanitary on business and though the said law is even yet notoriously Commissioner to make full inquiries on the spot. His report contravened the contravention is generally restricted to cases constituted, we believe, the first complete history of the origin of trifling import, far removed from such ’playing with and development of the cantines scolaires that has appeared edged tools’ as ended so tragically in the Neapolitan suburb. There is, however, another form ofirregular’ practice in the English language. It was published in our issue of which the law is powerless to reach-practice for which the sept.man, .lB:lU4-, p. sou, ana nas since consiinuteo. a sort 01 , patient’ is primarily to blame and of which he (or more text-book from which innumerable quotations have been often she) must abide the consequences, as the ’consultant,’ made-for the most part unacknowledged-at the public invariably an amateur, owes allegiance to no school meetings and conferences where the question of meals for but that of his (or her) individual experience. I school children has been discussed. The difficulty, so far as allude to what an Italian journalist has aptly called ’ Table d’Hote Consultations’ or’Winter Garden PrescripEngland is concerned, is that the cantines saolaires, as fully tions,’ exemplified in such cases as the following. An explained by our Commissioner, arose out of the cai.se des invalid alights at a hotel in one or another of the largely 6coles or school funds, founded for the promotion of frequented health resorts on the Mediterranean seaboard and education and recognised by the Stateso far back as 1867. having called in the duly qualified practitioner resident in The friends of education who deal with these funds have the place is skilfully examined and properly advised as to evolved with the times and are now acknowledged representa- his ailment, the advice being usually accompanied with a tives of a public need. They are non-sectarian ; they eschew carefully considered prescription. That same evening the finds himself beside an affable and communicative all idea of patronage. They are inspectors elected by all patient inmate of the hotel, in the winter garden or at the table and sundry who hold the cause of education d’hote, and in the course of conversation discloses the object sacred to subscribe 10 francs or more towards the school funds. of his visit to the place and the symptoms of which he comNo such instrument for the administration of the school plains. His auditor, oddly enough, has come for the very kitchens exists in England, so that the Parisian method same reason ; indeed, this is his third or fourth visit, which is cannot be imitated in its entirety. Still no system has been by no means rnoticé by any medical advice to be had on the spot. Oh, dear no! The remedial or restorative virtues of more successful in maintaining and developing the sense of the climate are of themselves sufficient to give and mainself-respect and dignity among the children. While theorists tain health and the physician’s prescriptions are as unnecessquabble over the almost impossible task of reforming sary as his fees are high. Personal experience, reinforced worthless parents, the French school authorities have con- by that of others who had just the same symptoms,’ is centrated their energies on the more hopeful task of dealing pressed into the discussion with the result all too common with the children, endeavouring to protect them from that the new arrival is as easily persuaded as any convert to is ignored, and his prebaneful home influences. Mr. BIRRELL thinks that London ’Christian Science,’ the physician almost with as soon as it is should be able to do all. this as well as Paris. It scription silently dispensed a hotel or habitu6 of No pension of invalid resort dispensed. will be difficult and that, perhaps, is only an additional in the but can recall South’ many such cases as that Sunny reason for setting to work in real earnest. The Bill is reported above, while physicians of all nationalities have now referred to a Select Committee and we may hopf , often to find themselves (unwittingly) repeating a prescription by which the now disillusioned patient might long that the various points to which we have alluded wil before have benefited at the hands of the colleague originally be considered in detail. In the report and the minutes o called in. The distrust born of ignorance or inexperience in evidence of the Inter-departmental Committee appointe< l weakly constituted minds, often instigated, moreover, by in 1905 by Lord LONDONDERRY the members of the Com false economy, accounts for the readiness with which so mittee will find the opinions of those best qualified t, many of the invalid public fall victims, in their sojourn on the and in our 6n 1 columns will abroad, to the glamour of the self-important, officious speak subject, they J
1M".
1t"Bt’Bn
^^"
:1,
-
--
Jl
1_’
r>
frequented healthresortsontheMediterraneanseaboard and
sufficiently
,
-
a
full and
M<’7’M.
easily comprehensible description
of the aantint 1 THE LANCET, June 5th. 1897, p. 1558, and March under the heading " ’Cross-Counter Therapeutics."
5th, 1898, p. 685,
688 to be
those of parents who are unable to feed their children, not because of unwillingness to do so or because they cannot afford to do so, but simply because they themto be out at work all day. Dr. MACNAMARA, selves whose personal experience as an elementary school teacher ,and a member of the late London School Board entitles him to be listened to on this matter with every respect, was. very insistent upon the necessity for strengthening parental responsibility. He gave an outline of his own personal
endaagered if delivery be attempted per vias naturales. namely,
If such a view is to be acted upon generally then it will be incumbent -upon the operator to consider very seriously his duty to the mother and -to her unborn child and to hold well defined views upon the moral questions which are involved in the decision of the patient for or against sterilisation and upon the further surgical question which arises if she decides to
run
have
the risk of another Csesarean section whether he is to
aim at the
production
of extensive
utero-parietal
adhesions
not. As we have indicated, our opinion is that the surgeon unless in very exceptional circumstances should advise against sterilisation, and as the danger of any subsequent operation of the same kind would appear to be lessened
proposals
or
their presence he should aim deliberately at the production of extensive utero-parietal adhesions.
by
The
Feeding of Children attending Public Elementary Schools.
ON March 2nd the Elucation (Provision of Meals) Bill its second reading in the House of Commons and was referred to a Select Committee. We have upon occasions commented on the previous report of Lord LONDONDERRY’S Inter-departmertal Committee which was appointed to consider certain points arising out of this question, and there is without doubt a consensus of opinion that it is mere waste of time and energy to try to teach a starving child. But the discussion of the question involves the consideration of problems which affect the very foundations of our present social order, and although these questions are outside our province yet we cannot consider the main question without at least a reference to such problems. The Bill now before the House of Commons is very short-in fact, for all practical purposes it consists of one claus, for the first clause deals with the short title and construction. The operative clause is Clause 2, " the principal Actbeing the Education Act of 1902, as extended by the Education (London) Act, 1903. Clause 2 runs as follows :When the local education authority, for the purposes of Part III. of the principal Act, resolve that any of the children in attendance at any public elementary school within their area are unable by reason of lack of food to take full advantage of the education provided for them, the local education authority shall take such steps as they think fit to provide food for such children (and, if the local education authority think fit, for any other children in their schools) under such regulations and conditions as the local education authority may prescribe, including, if they so resolve, the making of a charge to recover the cost from the parent or guardian, provided that no provision of food under this Act shall be deemed to be parochial relief.
passed
The debate in the House of Commons was of great interest and among many noteworthy speeches the most noteworthy were those delivered by Sir HENRY CRAIK, Sir WILLIAM
Bill-namely, that any children in the schools by the local authority. We have ui-ed the "apparently"because we think it possible that the
word framers of the clause had in mind the cases to which Sir WILLIAM ANSON referred in his able criticism of the Bill1
THE LANCET, Dec.
2nd, 1905,
p.
1629, and Jan. 20th, 1906, p. 174.
follows
:-
Dr. MACNAMARA proceeded to mention the ezntines scolaires which exist in Paris and provide eight million meals for .E75,000 (of these more anon). Such a scheme in London, he calculated, would not cost the rates a farthing in the £ . We cordially agree with much that Dr. MACNAMARA said, but his economical estimate fails to reassure us. We can all remember the time when the education rate was never to be more than 3d. in the £. It is now Is. 7d. However, that point is not eaac;,ly within the scope of THE LANCET. Nor are we here concerned with the conflicting social principles as to whether the State or the parents should be responsible for the feeding of children whom the The main point is the State compels to go to school. absolute necessity, on grounds of health, that children attending school should receive suitable food, if the attempts to educate them are not to be made of no effect, and if the physique of the coming generation of adults is not to suffer from the attempts to improve its mental capacities. The Bill leaves it in the hands of the local authority "to take such steps as they think fit to provide food for such
I
ANS0N, Dr. MACNAMARA, and Mr. BIRRELL respectively. The first-named laid great stress upon what is apparently a blot upon the might be fed
as
The scheme of those who favoured the provisions of this Bill was to feed the child and then to pursue the parent. Personally he would take all the poorer areas of great towns and schedule them, linking the schools in those areas by half dozens. He would then provide a central dining hall for each group of six schcols and give the parents notice that they could go to the offices of the local authorities and buy a book of dinner coupons. They should pay for them if possible; if they were unable to pay they should receive them gratuitously to give them to their children to procure one square meal, instead of permitting them to slouch about the streets picking up the garbage in the gutters. The, teachers and attendance officers should also have coupons to, give to the children ; and when they had provided all this machinery then they should pursue the parent for all that he was worth. If the parent was a drunken, worthless person, then whip him at the cart tail.
children (and, if the local education authority think fit, for any other children in their schools) under such regulations and conditions as the local education authority may prescribe,......" The various local authorities will have no, easy task. Unless all school children are to be fed indiscriminately there is the question of the selection of recipients. Then there is the organisation for the distribution of the meals. The London teachers have done admirable work in voluntarily assisting in the distribution of meals to school children, but since the education committee of the London County Council has decided that they shall assist as part of their teaching duties they are naturally feeling injured. Another point is that there will have to be some visitation of homes such as is undertaken by the members of the caisso des eeoles in France in order that parents who are in real want may be separated from those who are merely shiftless and drunken, and that in either case the children should not suffer. Another point occurs which may seem to be
689 sentimental but it is one of real importance to a child : some measure should be taken so that a child who is fed because his parents are unable or unwilling to feed him should not be earmarked by his schoolfellows either as
Annotations. "
black sheep or as lower in the social scale than LAMB’S tale of themselves. Everyone will recollect the Bluecoat boy who gathered scraps really destined to feed his parents and the undeserved sufferings to which he was subjected by his schoolfellows, because they
Ne quid nimis."
a
"TABLE
D’HOTE
CONSULTATIONS."
"SOME years ago," writes an Italian correspondent, " THE LANCET1 drew attention to a practice as dangerous andirregular’ as it is (or was) but too common-that of considered him to be either unwarrantably hungry or else asking and receiving medical advice across the pharmacist’s counter-and it illustrated its remarks by a disastrous and to be making money by the sale of the said scraps. all too typical case which occurred on the Neapolitan Riviera Mr. BIRRELL, the new Minister for Education, seemed to when an overdose of aconitum napellus’wrought the wellfavour some attempt to imitate the Parisian aantines scolaires. deaths of both parties to the transaction instantaneous nigh What had been done in Paris, he urged, London should also -the "patient"who asked to be prescribed for and the " be able to do. In Paris 10,500,000 meals had been served consulting pharmacist" who had the "courage of his prein 1904 and he thought that a large proportion of them had scription" and experimented on himself with the fatal dose.’ Since then, in such centres as Rome, Florence, been paid for by the parents. We may point out with Bologna, Milan, and other north Italian cities, the legitimate complacency that long ago we foresaw the im- law imposes severe penalties on contravention of the portance of the object-lesson given by this great French statutory conditions under which the pharmacist carries experiment. Consequently we sent our Special Sanitary on business and though the said law is even yet notoriously Commissioner to make full inquiries on the spot. His report contravened the contravention is generally restricted to cases constituted, we believe, the first complete history of the origin of trifling import, far removed from such ’playing with and development of the cantines scolaires that has appeared edged tools’ as ended so tragically in the Neapolitan suburb. There is, however, another form ofirregular’ practice in the English language. It was published in our issue of which the law is powerless to reach-practice for which the sept.man, .lB:lU4-, p. sou, ana nas since consiinuteo. a sort 01 , patient’ is primarily to blame and of which he (or more text-book from which innumerable quotations have been often she) must abide the consequences, as the ’consultant,’ made-for the most part unacknowledged-at the public invariably an amateur, owes allegiance to no school meetings and conferences where the question of meals for but that of his (or her) individual experience. I school children has been discussed. The difficulty, so far as allude to what an Italian journalist has aptly called ’ Table d’Hote Consultations’ or’Winter Garden PrescripEngland is concerned, is that the cantines saolaires, as fully tions,’ exemplified in such cases as the following. An explained by our Commissioner, arose out of the cai.se des invalid alights at a hotel in one or another of the largely 6coles or school funds, founded for the promotion of frequented health resorts on the Mediterranean seaboard and education and recognised by the Stateso far back as 1867. having called in the duly qualified practitioner resident in The friends of education who deal with these funds have the place is skilfully examined and properly advised as to evolved with the times and are now acknowledged representa- his ailment, the advice being usually accompanied with a tives of a public need. They are non-sectarian ; they eschew carefully considered prescription. That same evening the finds himself beside an affable and communicative all idea of patronage. They are inspectors elected by all patient inmate of the hotel, in the winter garden or at the table and sundry who hold the cause of education d’hote, and in the course of conversation discloses the object sacred to subscribe 10 francs or more towards the school funds. of his visit to the place and the symptoms of which he comNo such instrument for the administration of the school plains. His auditor, oddly enough, has come for the very kitchens exists in England, so that the Parisian method same reason ; indeed, this is his third or fourth visit, which is cannot be imitated in its entirety. Still no system has been by no means rnoticé by any medical advice to be had on the spot. Oh, dear no! The remedial or restorative virtues of more successful in maintaining and developing the sense of the climate are of themselves sufficient to give and mainself-respect and dignity among the children. While theorists tain health and the physician’s prescriptions are as unnecessquabble over the almost impossible task of reforming sary as his fees are high. Personal experience, reinforced worthless parents, the French school authorities have con- by that of others who had just the same symptoms,’ is centrated their energies on the more hopeful task of dealing pressed into the discussion with the result all too common with the children, endeavouring to protect them from that the new arrival is as easily persuaded as any convert to is ignored, and his prebaneful home influences. Mr. BIRRELL thinks that London ’Christian Science,’ the physician almost with as soon as it is should be able to do all. this as well as Paris. It scription silently dispensed a hotel or habitu6 of No pension of invalid resort dispensed. will be difficult and that, perhaps, is only an additional in the but can recall South’ many such cases as that Sunny reason for setting to work in real earnest. The Bill is reported above, while physicians of all nationalities have now referred to a Select Committee and we may hopf , often to find themselves (unwittingly) repeating a prescription by which the now disillusioned patient might long that the various points to which we have alluded wil before have benefited at the hands of the colleague originally be considered in detail. In the report and the minutes o called in. The distrust born of ignorance or inexperience in evidence of the Inter-departmental Committee appointe< l weakly constituted minds, often instigated, moreover, by in 1905 by Lord LONDONDERRY the members of the Com false economy, accounts for the readiness with which so mittee will find the opinions of those best qualified t, many of the invalid public fall victims, in their sojourn on the and in our 6n 1 columns will abroad, to the glamour of the self-important, officious speak subject, they J
1M".
1t"Bt’Bn
^^"
:1,
-
--
Jl
1_’
r>
frequented healthresortsontheMediterraneanseaboard and
sufficiently
,
-
a
full and
M<’7’M.
easily comprehensible description
of the aantint 1 THE LANCET, June 5th. 1897, p. 1558, and March under the heading " ’Cross-Counter Therapeutics."
5th, 1898, p. 685,