Fabian Tract No. 120. 


"AFTER BREADJ EDUCATION" 


A PLAN FOR THE 

STATE FEEDING OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 


PuBLISHED AND SoLD sv 

THE FABIAN SOCIETY. 


PRICE ONE PENNY. 

LONDON: 

THE FABIAN SociETY, 3 CLEMENT's INN, STRAND, W.C. 


"AFTER BREAD, EDUCATION." 

The Report of a Committee OJ the SocTety appozided to couszder the 

provision of meals joT' school cluldreu, preswted to the Socz'ety 

ou 27th Jmwary, I9DS, by HlTREHT BLANn, the Chat'nnau of the 

Committee, aud adopted. 

After Bread, Education. 

''AFTER BREAD," said the greatest of the French revolutionary 
statesmen, "education is the first need of a people." The fierce and 
intrepid common-sense of Danton enabled him to see the vital importance 
of public instruction, but it enabled him to see also that 
education is not and cannot be the first need of a people. The first 
need of a people is food; without proper feeding instruction is useless 
and worse than useless-it is indefensible cruelty. Feeding is of 
infinitely greater importance than education; for, in the last resort, 
you can do something with a race that, however ignorant, is healthy 
and physically well-developed ; with anremic degenerates you can 
do nothing, though you provide them with all the scholarshipladders in the world. 

In this country we have established an elaborate system of national 
education. We have passed many stringent enactment , we spendannually a vast sum of public money, to the very laudable end that 
the people shall be properly instructed. That they may be properly 
fed we make no provision at all. No parent, no guardian, no 
local authority, is permitted to leave the education of children to 
chance; we recognize that education is a national concern. But so 
far are we from recognizing that feeding i more emphatically a 
national concern that we do not even allow a local authority to feed 
the most patently tarving child, unless indeed it be a criminal, or of 
criminal's kin. In a word, instead of putting food first and education 
a good second, as Danton sensibly advised, we put education 
first and food nowhere. Our children a k for bread, and we give them 
a "ladder." 

Are the Children Fed ? 

No one who ha made even the most cur ory study of the condition 
of children in elementary chools can doubt the exi tence of a quite appalling 
amount of underfeeding. The evidence given before the RoyalCommis ion on Physical Training in Scotland and on Inter-depart



3 

mental Committees on Physical Deterioration and the reports of 
these bodies furnish abundant proof. Doubtless the word "underfed" 
is one of indeterminate meaning, and no indisputable statistics 
can be obtained. But during the sitting of the Scottish Commission 
witness after witness from all parts of the United Kingdom told substantially 
the same tale, and the Commissioners, whose verdict is all 
the more valuable because their own bias would appear to be against 
State action, bear witness in their report to the widespread nature of 
the evil. The evidence given befor~ the Physical Deterioration 
Committee is more striking still. 

To take one witness among many, Dr. Eichholz, one of His 
Majesty's Principal Inspectors of Schools, put the number of underfed 
children in London alone at 122,ooo, and justified his view by a 
closely reasoned argument from which it is somewhat difficult to 
dissent. He also mentioned a Board School in Lambeth where he 
estimated that 90 per cent. of the children were unfit for work 
because of their physical condition. Even supposing such estimates 
to be exaggerated (an assumption for which there is no solid 
ground), they at least indicate the extent of the evil. 

Improper Feeding. 

Underfeeding does not always arise from insufficiency of the 
actual supply of food. Other causes than chronic poverty deprivethe children of proper nourishment. It must be remembered that 
the parents are often both ignorant and overworked-too ignorant 
to know what is the best food for young children; too preoccupied 
with extraneous labor to be greatly blamed for giving them whatever 
is easiest to obtain and prepare without much reference to its value 
as a.food-stuff. Nearly every m~dical witness before the Scottish 
Royal Commission laid emphasis on this fact. 

The Consequences of Underfeeding. 

It cannot be doubted that the social effects of underfeeding duringthe years of school attendance are marked and disastrous. It is the 
least part of the evil that all teachers testify to the impossibility of 
teaching an underfed child, that no effective physical training is 
possible without proper nourishment, that Mr. Legge has testified 
before the Royal Commission that "underfed children are positivelyinjured by even light exercises," and Dr. Dukes that" bare subsistence 
diet becomes starvation diet when mental and bodily work are added" 
The worst and most menacing feature is the irrefutable evidence 
physical unfitness among the working classes. 

The Physique of the People. 

The widespread existence of such unfitness can hardly be questioned. 
Indeed, Sir Lauder Brunton told the Royal Commission on 
Physical Training that, while the physique of the wealthier classes 
was certainly getting better that of the laboring class seemed to be 
getting worse, and many of the medical witnesses summoned before 
the Inter-Departmental Committee confirm his view. But whether 


4 

or not there is actual degeneration of physique among the workers 
there is indubitably widespread defectiveness. Such defects are verylargely due to insufficient food, especially to insufficient food duringthe years of growth. It seems probable that a child at birth is 
in all classes normally of about the same stamina. The scientific 
evidence given before the Committee was almost unanimous in concluding 
that "the influence of heredity in the form of the transmission 
of any direct taint is not a considerable factor in the production 
of degenerates" and that, as Dr. Eichholz puts it, "Nature gives 
every generation a fresh start." According to Dr. Hutchinson, 
Assistant Physician to the London Hospital, the effects of underfeeding 
are particularly disastrous during childhood. He put the 
critical period between the ages of ten and fifteen, the very period it 
will be noted of school attendance. He refused to regard even the 
period of infancy as of equal importance, for he held that up to the 
age of fifteen or thereabouts the defects produced by former neglect 
could be remedied, and pointed to the rapid improvement ofchildren 
in the Navy and in Industrial Schools in proof of his contention. 
His judgment is to a great extent confirmed by the subjoined tables 
put in as evidence before the Scottish Commission by Dr. Clement 

Dukes. 

TABLE showing the average and mean height and weight, and the 

annual rate of increase, of 7,855 boys and men, between the ages

of ten and thirtv, of the artisan class-town population : 

-

Height, without shves. 

Weight, including clothes of 9 lbs. 

:>, 

"0"' 

o.i 

o.i

..d'

btl 

-5 

.: 

-5

~ 

btl 

-5

.:

-;

... 

e I I £ 

"'

co 

"' 

"' 

"' 

£

£" 

" e 

"

:'=E

"> 

"'

> 

::E"' 

<: 

<:

"


-"


--" 

--"


Ins. 

Ins. 

Ins. 

lbs.

Ins. 

lbs. 

lbs. 

lbs. 

0 

-

50' 52 

66·o

50'50 

66'31 

-

-

-

1·oo

I 

1·oo

51'52 

5I'50 

70'0

69'46 I 3' I 5 

4'0 

2 

1'47 

73'63 I 4'22

I'50

53'50

52'99 

74'0 

4'0

I

2'9+ 

55·so 

2'50 

78.27 4'59
55'93

3 

78'0 

4'0 

I'83 

58'00 

84·61 I 6·3+

5n6 

2'50 

6·o

4 

84"0 

6o·58 

2'82 

6o·5o 

2'50 

!0"0

CJ6'79 12'18

5 

9+'0

I

6 

62'93 

63'00

2'35 

2'50 

108'70 11'93 

1o6·o 

12"0

I

"1'52 

6.f50

I7 

r 16·4o I 7'66 

64'45 

I"50 

I 16·o 

1o·o 

1'02

I8 

1·oo 

6s-so

65'47 

6·o

I23'30 i 0'97 

122'0 

66·o2 

66·oo

19 

0'55 

o·5o 

6·o

128'40 5'08 

128·o 

20 

66"31 

0'29 

66"25 

0'25 

130'60 2'20 

I 32'0 

4'0 

2I 

-

-

-

-

-·


-

66·6o

22 

66·5o 0"25

0'29 

135'40 4'81 

136'0 

4'0

66·68 

o·o8

23-30 

66·5o I 


I 39'00 I 3'58 

138·o 

2'0 

TABLE showing the average and mean height and weight, and the 
annual rate o~ increase, of 7,709 boys and men, between the agesof ten and thirty years, of the most favored classes ot the English 


5 


I 

-;:.:.,

"'..,

~"'C 

.,..c 

1-~

bDO::

<(5 
r: 
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>

I ..: 

Ins. 
IO 53'40 
II 54'9 I 
I2 56'97 
I3 58 '79 

14 6t·t I 

IS 63'47 
I6 66'40 
I7 67'8-t 
I8 68'29 
I9 68'72 
20 69'I3 
2I 69'16 
22 68'93 
23 68'53 
24 68"95 

25-W 6q·o6 

population-public school boys, naval and military cadets, medical 
and university students: 

Height, without shoes. 

-5 

;:: 

" ~ 

Ins. 

1' 5 r 
2'06 
!'82 
2'32 
2'36 
2'93 
I'46 
0 43 
0'43 
0'4I 
0'03 

c 

QJ 

" 

::E 

Ins. 
53'CO 
54'50 
s6·so 
s8·so 

61·co 
63'50 
66·5o 
68·oo 
68·5o 
68'75 
69'00 

6q·oo 

..c 

~ 

8 

" 


Ins. 

r·so 
2'CO 
2'00 
2'50 
2' 50 
3 co 
1·so 
o·so 
0'25 
0'25 

Ft. ln. 

On commencement 
· · IqH S 4{ 

On completion 2o..f2 , 
. ..\verage 

· t -
Weight, including clothes of 9 lbs. 

,; 

btl 

~ " 

~ 

lbs. 
67'4 
72'9 
80'3 
88 6 
99'2 
IIO'-t 
I2 8'3 
14I'O 
1-t6'0 
148'3 
152'0 
152'3 
I 54'7 
151'7 
'-+9'2 
IS 5'2 

-5

;::

0

... 

" 


lbs. 

5'50 
7'39 

8'27 
I0'61 
1 I '2 I 
17 92 
12'69 
4'97 
2'20 
3'87 
0'27 
2'H 

0'42 

c 

QJ 

" 

::E 

lbs. 
67'0 
73'0 

8o·o 
88·o 
98'0 
IIO'O 
126'0 
1400 
I46·o 
q 8·o 
150'0 
152'0 

154'0 

...: 

~ 

-" ~ 

lbs. 

6·o 
7'0 
8·o 
10'0 
I2'0 
I6·o 
14'0 
6·o 
2'0 
20 
20 

2'0 

The Results of F eeding. 

Quite as striking is the evidence of the raptd improvement in 
every respect resulting from even a few months of decent food. 
Thus the military recruit, who usually discovers at first all the physicaldefects of his class, impro\·es out of all recognition after a very short 
experience of the comparatively regular and sufficient rations of the 
army, as the table presented by Colonel Napier sufficiently shows:-

RoYAL CoMMISSION oN PHYSICAL TRAINING (ScoTLAND). 

MEASUREMENTS OF 
CLASS OF 22 RECRUITS. 
MEASL' I{H1E:-ITS. 

Age. / Height IWeight. Chest. Fore Armr~~~e.r 

,; .,; I 18th II 

g ..c 1 
n. ln. n.

cil ...J 

---~-:


9 2 3314 10 

3' 

3 IO 

2 

8th -I 8~h

ln. n. ln. 

/ 
-Io 


7 

7 

12 

7 

·--

Thisclass 
putiniiO 
atten


dance~. 


6 


Still more noticeable is the improvement of children in Industrial 
Schools. It is a bitterly ironic comment on our chatter about the 
responsibility of the parent and the danger of undermining it, that, 
while we invoke this argument against free meals, we practically 
give a bounty to complete parental neglect by making for the 
children, in Industrial Schools, on training ships, etc., that adequateprovision which we refuse to the child of the responsible worker. 
What is the outcome? Several witnesses, of whom Mr. Wilson Bruce 
was perhaps the most emphatic, testified before the Commissioners to 
the startling difference between the physique of the two classes of 
children, to which testimony Mr. Bruce added the remark that, if 
you gave the children in Board Schools good food and suitable 
clothing (such as those in Industrial Schools receive) "you would 
make a new race of them." No wonder that the Commissioners, in 
their Report, describe this contrast between Board School children 
and the children of parents "who have altogether failed in their 
duty" as "both marked and painful." 

The Faults and Failure of Voluntaryism. 

A much larger proportion of children in the great cities would 
be underfed but for those voluntary agencies which have taken the 
matter in hand. In London, for instance, according to the Report 
of the Special Committee of the School Board in 1895, 122,605 meals 
were given per week to Board School children alone by the London 
Schools Dinners Association, and of these over rw,ooo were givenfree of charge. It may reasonably be presumed that, but for private 
charity, nearly all the children so fed would come to school hungry.

Now it is clear that everything that can be said against the publicproYision of meals, on the ground that it demoralizes the parent and 
saps his sense of responsibility, can be said with equal justice against 
the feeding of children by voluntary subscnplions. Nay, a great 
deal more can be said. The public feeding of children is not charity,
since every parent is directly or indirectly a ratepayer, and, under a 
system of municipal feeding, contributes his part towards the cost of 
the meals. But to feed a man's children by private doles is really 
demoralizing and calculated permanently to injure his self-respect. 
If the children are to be fed and their parents are unable to feed 
them properly, public provision is preferable to private.

Moreover, experience proves the total inadequacy of the method. 
In London, where it has been developed to the fullest possible extent, 
there is ample evicence that it does not thoroughly do its work. 
Mr. Thomas Chesterton, the Organizing Teacher of Physical Education 
under the London School Board, who is a competent witness, 
declared before the Royal Commission that there were "a greatnumber" of underfed children attending the elementary schools in 
London, and that he was obliged to modify his physical exercises in 
consequence. We have seen that Dr. Eichholz estimates these at 
the astounding figure of I 22,000. The London School Board itself 
admitted IO,ooo, which is bad enough. Nor need we be surprisedthat the voluntary system proves inadequate. The system of the 


7 


London Schools Dinners Association relies upon two things, the 
application of the parent and the report of the teacher. There are 
many parents who have great difficulty in giving their children 
proper and sufficient food, and who are too proud to ask for what 
they regard as charity; while at the same time it is obvious that to 
rely upon the watchfulness, insight and sympathy of the individual 
teacher is to rely on an uncertain quantity, and that even the best 
and most careful of teachers cannot be certain of knowing when any 
individual child is not properly nourished. The voluntary system, 
then, though it has done a good work so far as it has extended, has 
failed to solve the problem. This is the conclusion to which the 
Inter-Departmental Committee came after a long and searching investigation 
of the fact, and we may take that conclusion as final. 
The question remains as to how it can best be solved by the Municipality 
or the State. 

Foreign Experiments. 

I. STATE Aro TO VoLuNTARY AGENCIES. 
In many European countries the State or the municipality comes 
to the assistance of those who are feeding the school children. One 
method, widely adopted on the Continent, is for the public authority 
to make grants in aid of private charitable agencies. This is the 
system in Belgium, in Switzerland, and in Venice and some other 
Italian cities. It is not a conspicuous success. It is to be noted 
that in Zurich, the most progressive of Swiss municipalities, it has 
practically been abandoned; the feeding is under the control and 
management of the municipal authorities, and though private contributions 
are received, they merely supplement the public provision. 
The Zurich policy certainly works more satisfactorily than that in 
vogue elsewhere. Indeed, the other arrangement is in its nature inadequate 
and impermanent. Here our experience of VoluntarySchools should help us. We have seen that when we make a school 
dependent partly on public and partly on private contributions the 
private subscriptions tend to diminish rapidly, and the government 
grants have to be increased to keep pace with the demand. The 
same tendency is visible in the case of the voluntary feeding agencies 
of the Continent-more especially in Belgium. We have had 
to rectify our mistake in the matter of education by putting it 
wholly on the rates; there is no object in repeating our former miscalculation 
when we come to consider the matter of food. 

II. THE FREE FEEDING OF THE DESTITUTE ONLY. 
In the city cf Milan and in many of the provincial towns of 
France meals are given free, and the whole expense is borne by the 
municipality, but only children certified as destitute are fed. Application 
has to be made by the parent, a paper filled up and signed, a 
full statement of the circumstances given; the case is then investigated 
and relief provided or refused. 
At first sight this seems satisfactory, but there are many serious 
objections. 


8 

Firstly, it is by no means certain that under this system the 
children who most need food will get it. It may be very unfortunate 
that parents should put their own sense of dignity before the wellbeing 
of their offspring, but it is an indubitable fact that a great 
many of them do. Few out of the many parents whose children 
do not get sufficient nourishment would be willing to write themselves 
down as destitute; and those who did would often not be 
those who most need and most deserve assistance. 

Secondly, the system would lead to a most undesirable distinction 
(which would in the nature of things be generally known) between 
those children who were fed out of public funds and those who 
were not. The latter class would probably despise the former, and 
many parents whose children need food would keep them away 
from the free meals in order to spare them humiliation. 

' III. THE "CANTINES ScoLAIRES" oF PARIS. 

The Parisian system is better than either of the foregoing. In 
Paris meals are provided for all children without question or distinction. 
A small charge (generally rtd.) is made; but the children of 
parents who satisfy the authorities that they cannot afford this are 
admitted free. No distinction is made as to the food between the 
children who pay and those who do not, and, as admission is byticket, and tickets are purchased or given beforehand, no one can 
know whether any particular child has paid for its meal or not. 

But, though this system removes one objection, it leaves others. 
Many parents, unable to pay for a meal, might even so be restrained 
by pride from making application to have their children fed freely. 
They would very likely doubt the absolute secrecy of the system, and 
would not care to inform even the local authority that they considered 
themselves destitute. The Parisian machinery makes no provisionfor compelling parents either to feed their children properly or to 
allow the authorities to feed them. Generally speaking, the objection 
to the ingenious " cant£nes scolaz1-es" method is that it is so 
framed as to put obstacles in the way of the poorest children attending 
the meals instead of encouraging them to come. 

Sir John Gorst's Plan. 
Sir John Gorst has put forward a proposal which has the backingof Dr. Macnamara and has received a considerable measure of general 
support. He would have the local authority feed any child that 
appeared to the teacher to be underfed; a small charge would be 
made for this and recovered from the defaulting parent unless the 
parent could show proof of destitution. We can make the pointclear by quoting Sir John's evidence before the Inter-DepartmentalCommittee:In 
the case of every child to whom this ticket has been so given, application 
ohould be made to the parents for the money, and the attendance-officer, or a policeman 
would be better, should go to the house and say : " Your child was fed at school 
this morning, and please to pay 2d. or rd." or whatever it was. In cases where the 
parent, being able to pay, refuses, the amount should be made recoverable by summary 
process. Under the present law, if a child went on having food at the school for a 


9 

fortnight, and the parent, upon being applied to for the money, would not pay it and 
did not feed the child, that would be conclusive evidence of neglect of the family, and 
the man might be prosecuted and sent to prison. 

Now, in spite of the wide acceptance which this suggestion has met, 
to us it seems hopelessly impracticable. It would involve an endless 
succession of police-court summonses, with conflicting medical evidence, 
such as would almost certainly arise as to the exact meaningof such an indefinable word as "underfed." A few deft:ats in the 
courts would have the effect of making the authorities chary of issuing 
summonses against parents and consequently loth to feed the 
children; while, where the prosecutions were many and successful, 
it would make the feeding policy extremely unpopular. Indeed, the 
proposal seems to secure the maximum of public irritation with the 
minimum of public good. 

Mr. Loch, the Secretary of the Charity Organization Society, in 
his evidence before the Committee, pointed to the great difficulty 
once experienced in collecting the school fees as an example of what 
was likely to happen in regard to the cost of school dinners. This 
illustration, which he used as an argument against any kind of publicprovision of meals for the children, is equally valid as an argumentfor universa! free feeding. 

The Case for Free Feeding. 

Our own solution is that all children, destitute or not, should be 
fed, and fed without ~harge, at the expense of the State or Municipality. 
We propose that the regular school course should include at 
least one meal a day. Thus only can we make sure that all the children 
who need feeding will be fed . Thus only can we free the policy 
of feeding from the taint of pauperism. Thus only can the problemof improper feeding be dealt with at all. 

There is a little town in Italy, Vercelli, where this policy is carried 
out with logical completeness. There attendance at the meals is as 
compulsory as attendance at the school, unless a medical certificate is 
produced to show that feeding would be injurious to the child. Perhaps 
one could not here go so far as to imitate this uncompromisingexample of Latin logic-though Vercelli is a conservative municipality. 
But it should certainly be the ordinary rule for children to 
attend the school meals, and if this cannot be effected without compulsion, 
then compulsion should be used. 

Objections. 
Against the policy of universal free feeding here advocated, many 
serious objections are urged. We will take the most weighty, and 
consider quite candidly how far they are valid. 

l. PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
In the first place we are told that if you give the children free 
meals you destroy the responsibility of the parent. The parent, so 
runs the argument, brings a certain number of children into the 
world; it is a social necessity that he should be made, in some way, 
responsible for their upbringing. 


10 

Now this plea, like many others of a similar sort, has lost much 
of its force by reason of the most significant decline in the rate of increase 
of the population, which has smashed Malthusianism and 
brought us face to face with the opposite peril to that which Malthus 
feared. We no longer have any reason to discourage the begettingof children ; we may soon be in the position of France which is 
obliged to seek by all means to encourage it. 

Moreover, it is not easy to see that the argument as to parental 
responsibility is more applicable to the feeding than to the education 
of the children. Already we educate the children free of charge, and 
so, if the argument be sound, relieve the parent of what would 
otherwise be one of his heaviest responsibilities. No serious results 
have followed-parents have not deserted their offspring, homes are 
not broken up. Why should we fear that a free meal will have all 
sorts of calamitous effects upon the national character, when free 
education has clearly done nothing of the kind? 

Lastly, it must be insisted that the provision of universal free 
meals does not destroy parental responsibility, but only communalizes 
it. If you feed destitute children only, there may be something in 
the contention that you are relieving the parent of part of his responsibility, 
but, if all citizens pay for the provision of the meals (from 
rates and taxes, direct or indirect) and all citizens can send their 
children freely to eat the meals, then they are simply providing for 
their children by co-operative methods, and there is no more interference 
with parental responsibility than if all the parents in a 
particular block of tenements agree to start a common kitchen. 

· II. "BREAKING uP THE HoME." 

Another argument constantly used against the public provision 
of a mid-day meal is that it would disintegrate the home. Now, 
putting aside the fact that in the case of many of the children the 
"home" is hardly an institution that society need be very anxious to 
preserve, and that it is a little difficult to get wildly enthusiastic about 
those happy English homes where two or three familiies live in one 
room in some foul and pestilent slum, it may reasonably be asked 
why, even in the case of children living under more tolerable conditions, 
there should be any deadly social peril in doing for them what 
is done, as a matter of course, for the children of a large section of 
the richer classes. In many schools of a more advanced type, secondary 
schools, girls' high schools, etc., it is the usual thing for the 
pupils to take their mid-day meal at the school; the arrangement is 
considered convenient, and no dismal consequences ensue. With the 
public schools the case is still stronger; the Eton or Harrow boy is 
kept at school not only for meals but for the whole of the term. 
Yet no one fears for the home life of the plutocracy. 

It may be doubted after all whether it is necessary to regard "the 
home," in the sense in which the phrase is here used, as the final and 
immutable form of social organization. Humanity does not stand 
or fall by the arrangement whereby families take their food 
in segregated cubicles and hang their washing out of their back 


I I 

windows. Domesticity does not centre around the pudding. In 
many parts of the Continent it is the custom for families of the 
working class to dine together at popular restaurants, and, whether 
this be an ideal custom or not, it is doubtful if our own arrangement-
the wife and children in the "home" and the man in the 
public house-is so notable an improvement. 

But in many ways it can hardly be doubted that the provision of 
school dinners would improve the home immeasurably. Common 
meals, provided under proper discipline and in humane surroundings,
would civilize and humanize the children, who would Jearn what a 
dinner ought to be, and, when they grew up, would make better 
fathers and mothers than those who had never received such advantages, 
and in some cases had never been able to escape, even for a 
moment, from the cramped and debasing atmosphere of the slum 
tenement.':' 

III. THE RENT AND WAGES OBJECTION. 
It has been suggested that the public provision of meals for the 
workers' children will tend inevitably to raise the rents and to lower 
the wages of the worker. 
Precisely the same objection may, with equal validity, be urgedagainst every proposal (free education, better housing, cheaper transit, 
to name no others) for lessening upon the shoulders of the underpaid 
classes the intolerable burthen of life. In point of fact, it is not 
difficult to see that, by feeding his children, you in a very real wayincrease the worker's power of resistance to the pressure of his employers. 
In nine cases out of ten it is the hungry child who breaks 
the back of the strike. Many a man and woman valiant enough 
against their own personal suffering are unable to endure the sightof their little ones daily wilting before their eyes. Let them feel 
assured that their children's dinner is secure, and they will continue 
the struggle to a victorious end. 

IV. THE CosT. 
Lastly, it is urged that the expenditure would be ruinous-that 
we could not afford to provide meals for all the children attending 
our public elementary schools. Undoubtedly the expense would be 
considerable. There would, as we shall see, be a good deal of additional 
building required, some capital outlay to start the system, and 
then, of course, there would be the actual cost of the meals, which 
the London Schools Dinners Association calculate to amount to rf-d. 
per meal, but which, if the meals are to serve all children and not 
merely the most destitute, might amount to a trifle more. Yet, 

* This suggestion on the part of our Society is not exactly new. In Fahian Essays, 
published in r8go, Mr. Graham Wallas wrote : "If this generation were wise it would 
spend on education not only more than any other generation has ever 'pent before, but 
more than any generation would ever need to spend again. It would fill the school 
buildings with the means not only of comfort, but even of the higher luxury; it would 
serve the associated meals on tables spread with flowers, in halls surrounded with 
beautiful pictures, or even. as John Milton proposed, fill ed with the sound of music ; 
it would seriously propose to itself the ideal of Ibsen, that every child should be brought 
up as a nobleman. Unfortunately, this generation is not wise." 

12 

while we admit the magnitude of the sum needed, we may safely say 
that it could hardly be more productively spent.

Sooner or later, in one way or another, the State must always 
suffer for underfeeding its children. If a child grow up underfed 
the chances are heavy that it grows up an inefficient worker and a 
bad citizen. Unable to earn his living by adequate labor, such a 
man drifts into the workhouse, the prison, or the asylum, where 
the State is obliged to support him. And this direct charge is by 
no means the heaviest price that the community has to pay. It 
has to pay indefinitely in the demoralization of its citizens, in the 
consequent instability of their character and inefficiency of their 
work. Such men fall an easy prey to drink, partly because their 
characters are weakened, partly because the underfed are notoriously 
susceptible to alcohol. Thus the price goes on mounting up till we 
ha\·e to pay the sum for which we could feed decently every child in 
the islands with something like four or five hundred per cent. interest. 

The cost will be great, but the expenditure will be thoroughly 
productive; and large productive expenditure is from the enlightened 
Socialist point of view the only expenditure worth the incurring. 
Sir Oliver Lodge has well summarized the conditions of goodeconomic government as "private thrift and public expenditure." 
At present more than £6oo,ooo,ooo of the national income goes in 
the form of unearned rent and interest to support an idle class who 
spend it mainly on profitless and demoralizing luxuries. If the cryingneed of food for the children supply us with a powerful motive 
for getting some of this enormous tribute for public purposes, such 
opportunity should not be allvwed to pass. 

How to Meet the Cost. 
It would be both unwise and inequitable to throw the whole of 
the cost of school dinners on the local rates. Our present system of 
rating has gra\·e defects, and, even if it were reformed, there would 
still be a gross injustice in throwing upon poor boroughs, where 
a very large number of children would have to be fed, the whole cost 
of feeding them, and let ting off rich boroughs, with few children of 
the elementary school class to provide for, with a burden comparatively 
light. 
Some of the money should be raised by local taxation-enough 
to give the citizens and authorities of the locality a sense of their 
responsibilities and a direct interest in the matter. But the bulk 
shuuld be raised by national imposts and transmitted to the local 
authorities in the form of government grants. The national reyenue 
so required should be obtained by an increase and further graduationof the Death Duties, a graduated Income Tax (discriminated againstunearned incomes), and other methods of attacking the unearned 
increment of the rich. 

The National Minimum. 

At present, as has been already pointed out, local authorities have 
no power to provide generally for the feeding of children. But it 


13 

must be insisted that merely permissive legislation, which gives them 
the power without compelling them to use it, will be of little avail. 
It is no more defensible in principle that a local authority should be 
allowed to starve its children if it pleases than that a parent should 
be allowed to do so. And in this case the practical disadvantages of 
permissive legislation are enormous. 

If you make it a matter of choice whether a municipal authorityshall feed its cllildren or not, you make it at once a probable issue 
at elections. Suppose a p'rogressive local authority undertakes the 
task ; suppose (surely no improbable supposition) that the reactionary 
party seizes the opportunity to raise the cry of "ruinous extravagance," 
and turns its opponents out of power at the next election. 
The result would be that the children would be fed one year and 
unfed the next, and that their physical and moral welfare would be 
made contingent upon the chances of an electoral contest : an 
intolerable state of things. 

Moreover, while it is likely that many local authorities would 
voluntarily undertake the task of feeding the children under their 
charge, it is quite certain that many would not, and among the dis-
sentient districts would be those where the want is most acute. Take 
the rural areas, for example. Does anyone dream that a county,
mainly agricultural, would be induced by anything short of the 
severest governmental pressure to undertake the feeding of the agricultural 
laborer's children. Yet everyone who knows rural England 
knows that there, if anywhere, ought the duty to be undertaken. 

The question of the proper feeding of children is a national 
question if ever there was one. As we have already said, it is more 
important that a child should be well fed than that it should be well 
taught. Yet we do not leave it to the local authority to say whether 
it will teach the child or not. If we did, it can hardly be doubted 
that many local authorities would refuse. We insist upon a certain 
national minimum of education. It is high time that we insisted on 
a national minimum of feeding. 

Half Measures. 
Therefore we maintain that the only permanent solution of the 
problem is the establishment of a national minimum of feeding. 
This, of course, does not mean that we should not support proposalswhich, while they do not concede all that we think needful, go some 
way in our direction, and would, if carried, make easier the full enactment 
of our programme. Thus we should certainly support a measure 
for enabling local authorities to make provision for the feeding or 
children, even though they were not compelled to use their power.
Still more readily should we support such a bill if it were accompaniedby machinery for forcing local authorities, within whose administrative 
areas much underfeeding was known to exist, to make use of 
their powers to check it. Neither of these proposals would solve the 
problem, but they would do much incidental good, and the ultimate 
failure, which we believe would attend them, would strengthen our 
case in demanding a complete national system of feeding. 


I4 

Proper Feeding. 

We have said that universal free feeding appears to be the only 
way in which the evil of improper (as distinct from insufficient) feeding 
can be removed. At present many children whose parents getfairly good w::~ges cannot feed their children properly, either because 
they do not know what is the best food to give or because they have 
not the time or the skill to prepare it. Manifestly the case of these 
will not be met by any system which feeds only the patently starved 
and destitute child. But it will be met both directly and indirectlyby a universal system ; directly, because the children, whatever they 
get at home, will at least get proper food at school; indirectly, because 
it will serve to educate the next generation of mothers in the 
knowledge of what is the best and most economical way of providingfor their families. This is not the place to go into the very large 
question of what is the ideal diet for a child. All that need be insisted 
on here is that the provisions should be bought and prepared 
under expert advice, and that considerations of cheapness should 
never be allowed to count as against the needs of nourishment. 
Every child should receive at least one solid meal in the middle of 
the day, and perhaps a glass of hot milk on arrival in the morning. 

Accommodation. 

One of the principal difficulties with which the local authoritywill have to battle, especially in London and other large towns, will 
be the difficulty of finding accommodation for so large a number of 
children as will have to be provided for under our suggested arrangement. 
The London School~ Dinners Association has found the 
problem a difficult one, and of course the number of children to be 
fed under the scheme outlined above will be much greater. It 
stands to reason that if the children are to derive any physical or 
moral benefit from the common meals provided by the authoritythese meals must be served under humane conditions. There must 
be plentiful space, comfortable surroundings, and no deficiency of 
light or air. It is also desirable wherever possible that the meals 
should be given at the school, both for disciplinary reasons and 
because the essential connection between the meals and the regularschool course should never be lost sight of. Now in some Board 
Schools the central hall or a covered part of the playground mightperhaps be utilized for the purpose ; in others a slight structural 
alteration in the buildings might provide the accommodation needful. 
But there are many Board Schools and a still larger number of 
Non-Provided Schools where this would be out of the question. In 
such cases the authority must build, and, if the capital outlayrequired should be considerable, a special grant from the central 
government might be made to meet it. Where, for one reason or 
another, it is impossible to extend the school buildings, the local 
authority must obtain some hall or other suitable building in the 
neighborhood and provide the meals there. 

It would simplify the problem of accommodation If the children 
could be given their dinners in relays. Children, unlike Members of 


Parliament, seldom care to linger long over their meals, and it would 
be easy in the time allowed in the middle of the day to feed two sets 
of children, letting the one set play while the other dines. 

Medical Inspection. 

One recommendation, common to the reports of the Scottish 
Royal Commission and of the Inter-Departmental Committee, is of 
great value, and would form an excellent pendant to the feeding 
policy. It is suggested that we might have a much more elaborate 
system of inspection, both local and national, of the physical condition 
of the children. This would certainly be a long step in the 
right direction. If we could get a really trustworthy and systematic 
set of statistics a to the condition of children in all elementary 
schools, it would not only provide ·us with a valuable mass of sociological 
data such as we have never had in the past, but it would also 
enable us to test the success of the feeding policy in the most accurate 
manner available. The children should be examined physically 
by medical experts at stated intervals, and the examinations could be 
checked by the visits of similar medical inspectors employed by the 
Education Department. 

What the Central Authority could do. 

Even though the feeding of children be made compulsory on all 
educational authorities, yet there will be much to be done by the 
central authority in the way of pushing forward the new policy with 
vigor. Some local authorities will probably use their new powers 
effectively; others will be disposed, unless continually kept up to 
the mark, to let them rust, or al best to perform the minimum which 
the law compels. It should be the business of the Education Department 
ystematically to encourage the former, and systematically 
to discourage the latter. This they will have every opportunity of 
doing. The physical statistics already referred to will enable them to 
find out where an improvement in physique is most needed. Theywill also know how much each local authority is spending on the 
feeding policy. Finally, they will have to hand jn the government 
grants a powerful weapon wherewith to enforce the national minimum. 
On the use which they make of these opportunities the 
succe s of the new policy will largely depend. 

Conclusion. 

The initiation of that new policy is required less by our philanthropic 
instincts than by the most urgent demands of national 
husbandry. It is true that the hungry scholar is a crime; but it is 
the worst of national blunders too. Every day on which we suffer 
our children to go to our schools unfed we are ~tupidly squanderingsomething more precious than money, and yet something that 
money will buy-good human material to wit, human brains and 
human muscles on which alone may be founded a commonwealth 
that shall endure. 


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