ADVICE OF HEALTH DEPARTMENT SOUGHT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 11 May 1939, Page 10

ADVICE OF HEALTH DEPARTMENT SOUGHT

“TIN-OPENEII” MOTHERS lUnited Press Association] WELLINGTON, This Day. The practice of some mothers of constantly sending their children to school with cut lunches when their homes were within reasonable distance of the school was condemned by Mr R. Arbuckle (Matamata) at the annual conference of the New Zealand Educational Institute in Wellington recently.

Speaking to a remit from his branch “that the Health Department should make a special plea to parents emphasising the necessity to have their children come home for their mid-day meal whenever possible,” Mr Arbuckle described such parents as “tin-opener mothers” who rushed away to afternoon social gatherings and said that

they were increasing the duties of infant mistresses during lunch-time to a burdensome degree.

Mr E. G. Caigou (Poverty Bay) said that many children rushed home and were back again before the organised lunch-hour was over. It was better for the children to have their lunches at school than to cat their meals in such haste.

Miss M. E. Magill (Wellington): It seems to me to be beyond our function as teachers to castigate parents or to infer that they are not looking after their children. We do not know the individual circumstances and I think we're a little bit out of our province. The committee on pupil welfare reported that it considered that in consolidated and country schools, in city schools in congested traffic areas and in many individual cases, it was impracticable for children to go home at mid-day. The committee recommended that the Health Department be requested to use propaganda to empha-

sise to parents the right type of lunch for children to carry.

The remit was amended to read “that the department should make a special plea tto parents emphasising the necessity for the right type of lunch.” This was carried.