FOOD FOR THE POOR

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1732, 10 May 1905, Page 59

FOOD FOR THE POOR

STARVING SCHOOL CHILDREN. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, April 2. Tho question whether meals should bo provided at the ratepayers’ expense for those children who are sent to our primary schools with empty or inadequately filled bellies has been discussed academically for several years. It has now been raised in a practical manner. A committee has been appointed to inquire into the whole question of tho nourishing of our heard school children, with a view to ascertaining what proportion of the children attending our State-supported schools are regularly underfed and whether it is necessary for the ratepayers to become directly responsible for tho provision of bodily sustenance for those youngsters who, owing -to parental poverty or neglect, arrive at school with the pangs of hunger gnawing at their vitals. That a very considerable proportion of tho children attending the Statesupported elementary schools in many of our largo towns are half-starved is a stern fact. In many instances this undoubtedly arises from the sheer inability of their parents to provide a sufficiency of wholesome food for their offspring, hut. it is to be feared that parental neglect is at the root of tho trouble in tlio majority of cases. The question the committee will have to help us to decide is an extremely difficult one. Wo are all agreed that it is the nation’s duty to prevent children suffering, whether that suffering arises from parental poverty, neglect, or viie. So far as feeding the children of our elementary schools is concerned that matter is easy of solution. Wo can make sure that the children get enough to eat by the simple pPbcess of providing breakfast, dinner and tea for them out of the rates, but by so doing we should undoubtedly ho running the risk of incurving the greater evil of destroying wholesale the sense of parental responsibility in a class whose fecundity is in inverse ratio to their means, and whoso sense of personal responsibility in regard to their children has already become dangerously relaxed by the operation of ill-regulated philanthropy. Soane of tho difficulties of the problem the committee will be called upon to help us to solve were disclosed by the inquiries of a London School Board Committee appointed some years ago to inquire into-.this very question of th 0 underfeeding of children. Some very curious facts were brought to light then. There were cases of mothers who failed to provide dinner for their children on washing days simply because it was inconvenient for them to do so, and they knew that free dinners were provided at school for children who asked for a ticket. Tho philanthropic providers of these free meals bore witness that on those days when jam-roll figured in tho menu the number of ‘'starving” children became quite ahiwmu.l. but suffered a grievous diminution when lentil soup and bread was the main attraction. 'Evidence was also produced to show that children wee beaten by their parents for neglocu iug to take advantage of the free school dinners on days when it would have

been more convenient to tho mother For them to “dine out,” and for dinina at school when dinner was provided.

for them at home. In fine both parents and children took advantage of tho free school dinners when it suited their respective- convenience or taste. If Mrs Jones didn’t feel like cooking dinner for “the kids” she instructed them to got tickets, and if Johnny Jones sighted jam-roll in the school offing ho needed no instructions to evade tho less appetising spread at home. The committee, indeed, got ample evidence to show that free meals at schools were a strong incentive to parental irresponsibility and youthful artfulness. Ono of the members remarked in his individual report: “It comes to this. If you feed the poorest either at th o cost of the rates or of voluntary funds you offer a direct incentive to the next poorest to ease the burden on his slender exchequer by taking advantage of the relief given to his neighbour without any derogation in status. The home of the labouring man is never so well plenished but what ho could do with a few additional luxuries, anci if lie knows that, come what may, his children will find food, why should he deny himself of an extra, half-pint of beer, or an additional ‘screw of baccy’ ?” Tho problem of feeding the underfed school children without further weakening tho sense of parental responsibility among a certain class of men and women bristles with difficulties, and its solution, would seem to involve the reform, by forcible means or otherwise, of the parents.