"The Importance of a Well-Advised and Comprehensive Scheme in the Selection of Children ... under the Education (Provision of Meals) Act," by Victor J. Blake, in _Rearing an Imperial Race_, edited by C. E. Hecht, 1913, p. 25.
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]
Board of Education, Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools in England, 1908, p. ii.
Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act up to March 31, 1909, prefatory note by L. A. Selby-Bigge, p. 6.
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]
Report on the Working of the Education (Provision of Meals) Act for the year ended March 31, 1910, pp. 8, 9.
It is encouraging to note that there has since been, generally speaking, an improvement in the service of the meals. But "there are still areas in which the educational possibilities of the meals have not been realised, or, if realised, have not received the attention which they deserve"[252]--a statement which we can amply corroborate.