Feeding of School Children, The

The, lunches provided for school children. American readers brought up in a land of abundant food are familiar, it may be, with lunches provided at cost by school authorities as a matter of convenience. Lunch counters are maintained in many large city high schools where a light midday lunch may be had for a few cents. In large European cities thousands of small children come to school without breakfast because there is no breakfast at home. When the public schools of London were opened and the children of the slums were required to attend, this in 1870 and following years, it was found that children by the hundreds were unable to fix their minds for sheer want of food. Permission was obtained to open school kitchens in the basements of the school buildings. Funds were obtained to provide lunches. The affair was managed in systematic manner. Tickets were given the hungry. About ten o'clock the children filed off to the basement, tickets in hand. As they passed a table each child took a tin cup. As they filed past the servers a child proffering one ticket received a generous ladle of hot soup. The holder of two tickets got, in addition, a slice of bread, and the little Croesus with three tickets received a cube of beef to float in his soup. The soup was far too precious for any jostling. The children passed with care to benches, sipped their soup, ate their bread to the tiniest crumb, divided their meat with less fortunate neighbors, and returned to the school rooms,--their wan, pinched faces lit up with at least a ray of childish interest.

There is a Swiss custom that a newly married couple shall make a donation to the school in recognition of their education. The mayor of Paris introduced the custom in 1849. The French Chamber of Deputies, 1867, authorized municipalities to create funds by gift and taxation to relieve the necessities of hungry and ill-clad school children. By 1880-1885 laws were general throughout Europe compelling school authorities to provide meals for hungry children. The practice may be said to prevail in the large cities of Europe. Pains are taken to prevent fraud. First of all, the authorities of Paris have found that nourishing soup, meat, potato, and all the bread a child wants can be supplied for three cents. Parents, particularly mothers out at work, find it convenient to have their children get dinner at school. They are supplied with tickets at cost, and, if unable to pay all, they are encouraged to buy at half price. Children without tickets apply to the principal in private, who sells or gives without question. None are refused. If there be suspicion that the parents should pay, an officer, the same who seeks truants, is sent to the home to inquire. The French teachers eat with the children. Neatness prevails. Paper napkins are used.

Berlin maintains school kitchens in poor districts. Brussels and several cities of Switzerland copy the methods of Paris. Italy has adopted a similar system. The children of certain localities in Piedmont, where they suffer from pellagra as the result of eating spoiled polenta of corn meal, are required to eat at school. Trondhjem, Norway, serves free meals to all children. Birmingham, England, serves free lunches at the extraordinarily low cost to the city (1906) of half a cent a meal. The Oliver Goldsmith School in Chicago is credited with a system of charity meals for poor children.