MORE MILK!

Evening Star, Issue 18812, 10 December 1924, Page 1

MORE MILK!

school campaign ik hew south WALES. WONDERFUL RESULTS ACHIEVED. During the past two years some experiments of great interest have been conducted in the State schools situated in the poorer localities of Sydney, with a view to ascertaining the direct effect of a regular supply of milk upon children up to fourteen years of age (states the Sydney representative of the Melbourne ‘Age’). It has been stated by Dr Harvey Sutton, a graduate of Melbourne University, and now Chief Medical Officer attached to the Department of Education in New South Wales, that out of 300,000 school children probably 30,000 suffered from malnutrition. That was duo so much to the poverty of the families concerned as to the bad grouping of foods. Milk was really one of the cheapest of foods, because jt contained what was deficient in other foods given to children. Dr Sutton informed the writer that the mineral salts so necessary for bone construction, such as lime and phosphates, and proteins, were abundant in milk, pud supplied the vitamiues that were the great stimulant to growth. Professor Hopkins, of Cambridge,, had convinced the scientific world of the great value of vitamiues to the system, and that fact was not now really disputed. The milk age, particularly from one to five years, and right up to fourteen, was the time when_ growth needed those constituents contained in milk. It was remarkable, but true, that pjperiments had shown that children who drank milk freely grew at twice the rate of children who did not, whether they belonged to poor or wealthy families. The average consumption of milk in Sydney was .4 pint per head of the population. The Board of Trade, at the basic wage inquiry, bad allowed for two pints for two adults and four children, but each child should at least have a pint of milk a day, and if possible two pints. The people needed to be educated up to the value of milk. Some said it was not drunk because the price was high. Experiments had shown that when the price fell parents did not take the milk. Nor was it true that children would not drink milk. It had been found in the schools that were supplied with it that only one in 300 declined to take it. The practice in “ milk ” schools was to receive the milk from a vendor at about 10.30 in the morning, and distribute it in pannikins at playtime. Each child lined up and got the pannikin full, and then drank it at leisure. THE DAILY RATION.

Perhaps to 3lr Eric Birks, secretary of the more milk campaign in. Now South Wales, may be given most credit for work done cheerfully during the last two years to help the children to get their daily mill; supply, although Dr Richard Arthur, M.L.A., must bo given credit for fostering the movement in its infancy. Mr Birks has written a most interesting book called ‘More 3li!k in .Sydney,’ and the writer has been privileged to see advance proofs, which were full of most convincing facts, backed up by figures, to show that to Hie child mill; is life itself. 3lr Birks has been empowered by the Min -: - , ' v r of Health to act as a- sort of godfather to the “Milk in (ho Rchool” movement, and lias been also entrusted with confidences of the Country Milk Suppliers’ Association to deal in all matters affecting ilia supply to the schools at nominal rates. His book confirms the statement made by Dr Riittnn that most families take two pinto per day, and that what the children get is chiefly through the medium of puddings or in tea. Cooking, by the way, .spoils the dietary functions of milk, as it does with other vitamiues. Mr Birks informed the writer that parents do not realise how essential milk is to the child. In tiro more milk campaign which he organised a procession included twentynine motor cars loaded with the chubbiest, healthiest, ami jolliost lot of children that the work! could find. They were exclusively drawn from twenty-nine different Stale schools that had at that time supplied milk to children. Now fortyseven schools serve it daily to approximately 5,000 children, and the number is increasing.

3lr Birks holds that vigorous propaganda is necessary to make parents realise how important it is that their children should benefit by the new movement. _For 5d paid over to the teacher every Friday a child will be given one pint of milk daily for each school dav of the succeeding week. In sonic schools “good fairies’’ will pay an extra 5d for some other clflld whose parents may be in distressed circumstances, and the teachers may, and do, give the precious fluid to little ones who have no one at all to help thorn get it. Nor do the other children know which pay and which do not. Those schools keep carefully prepared charts, which show the weight and height of the child before taking the milk and while taking it over a period of six months. ASTOUXDING RESULTS. The experiment was begun two years ago at Blackfriars School, near Redfcrn, a poor quarter of .Sydney, with twenty of the most impoverished little ones that tho school provided. Tho results were astounding. Their weight increased by an average of over 31b in that time, which was greater than the increases shown in Great Britain under similar conditions. Cheered with their success, the more milk campaigners set out to establish a chain of schools where tho milk service might bo put into operation. In a few monllie Ryrinnnt, Botany. Alexandria, and Rozcile took the matter up through Parents’ and Citizens’ Associations, and 3lr Birks now has the satisfaction of seeing nearly fifty large schools and over 5,C00 children benefiting from the scheme, which aims to include all schools.

Statistical charts kept in milk schools in poor quarters of Sydney from November, 1922, to February, 1923, showed that the children waxed fat and healthy. In one school, where 104 received Lorn Buz to lOoz milk daily, they mooed sjlb m six months. The, writer had the privilege of seeing the original set ot Blacklnara charts. Those showed a bov ot cicvon who weighed 57Jlb, after taking smv-eeven pints of milk in four momhs. wcni. up to 641 b, a gain of 6Jlb. Another tad of seven years, who weighed o9ilb. alter taking sixty-two pints, increased to —a gain of 51b avoirdupois. A tiny tot of four, who weighed 27|lb, took thirtyone and a-quartev pints of milk in the four months, and placed 3Jdb more weight to her credit; while a little girl who had been in the big world two years longer consumed thirty-three and a-lialf pints, and gained nearly 21b, going up from 321 bin weight to 33|lh. 1 n some schools wholesome biscuits are also given.