School feeding; its history and practice at home and abroad

Front matter

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Preface

This book deals, first, with the history and present status of legislation concerning and administration of meals in public elementary schools in all countries,, and, second, with the physiological aspects of malnutrition during the growing period, its causes, classification, results, the basis of school dietetics on the food needs of the growing child and the scientific construction of menus to fulfil these. Most of this is brought together for the first time and the presentation is non-technical. The sources were many, for the most part answers to letters of inquiry and official documents and reports.

Material on high school lunches has been omitted because this presents quite dififerent problems in education and administration and because the subject has already been widely exploited.

The treatment is primarily informational, controversial matter having been eliminated as far as may be.

During the course of the work, which occupied nearly three years, I had the most cordial co-operation of many people. My thanks are especially due to the following individuals : Dr. Leonard P. Ayres, Dr. Luther GuUck of New York, Mr. H. H. Bonnell, Miss Alice C. Boughton, Miss Mary Leeds of

PREFACE

Philadelphia, Dr. Mary Schwartz Rose of Columbia University, Dr. Ira S. Wile, Miss Kittredge and other members of the New York School Lunch Committee, Miss Haisler and Superintendent Pearse of Milwaukee, Dr. Meyerding of St. Paul, Miss Small of Buffalo, Mrs. Hotchkin of Rochester High School, Miss Cook of Syracuse; and in foreign countries to Miss Helene Simon of Berlin, Dr. Gastpar of Stuttgart, Dr. Tonsig of Padua, Dr. Erismann of Zurich, Mr. Alexander Schiavi of Milan ; and to the following organizations whose officers' responses to requests for assistance often involved the special gathering of material and photographs at obvious cost of time and effort: The American Institute of Social Service, The Nutrition Laboratory of Columbia University, The Sheffield Scientific School of Yale, The Boston Home and School Society, The Philadelphia Home and School League, The British Institute of Social Service, the Education Committee of Bradford, England ; the London County Council, Zentralstelle fiir Volkswohlfahrt, Berlin; to the Prefects of the Departments of France and to the French Consulate of New York City, Det Sociale Sekretariat and Bibliotek, Copenhagen; Centralverein zur Bekostigung armer Schulkinder in Wien (Vienna), Austria-Hungary; Central Bureau voor Sociale Adviezen, Amsterdam ; Centralforbundet for socialt arbete, Stockholm, Sweden, and to Zentralstelle fur Soziale Literatur, Zurich, Switzerland.

Contents

PAGB

Preface v

Introduction 9

Introduction

More and more are we coining to understand that education is for life, and that physical health is essential to full mental and moral development and effective living. To the extent that the body fails to serve the will, the will is paralyzed and the best emotions rendered useless. Mere good wishes can not accomplish much. Little service can be rendered by him who stands forever " shivering on the brink of action." The establishment of the physical health of children has therefore come to be regarded as a most important part of their education. To a very large extent this must depend on right habits of eating. Children must have food in proper quantities and of the right kind, and must eat in the right way at right times. There must always be doubt as to the value of the results of a school day for the child who is listless from want of food or from eating large quantities of indigestible or non-nutritious food.

The custom of providing meals for children at school has, in recent years, become well established both in America and Europe. In America at least the work was begun first in the high schools. For several years mid-day meals have been provided

10 INTRODUCTION

for high school children in many of our cities and larger towns. It is only recently that the more important task of providing meals for the smaller children has been attempted, except in a very few places. At present meals are provided in one or more elementary schools in nearly a half-hundred cities. In Europe, this work was begun earlier than here — in Germany a century and a quarter ago — and the school luncheon is now part of the daily program in the elementary schools of many of the most progressive countries.

There is little doubt that the school luncheon idea, now well rooted in this country, will spread very rapidly, especially in our cities. The reasons why it should are easily understood. In our large cities and smaller industrial towns, many children come to school having had little or no breakfast. Many have eaten their breakfast at a very early hour, some as early as 5 or 6 o'clock, and so become hungry and faint before the noon hour. These children should have a light, wholesome luncheon in the middle of the forenoon. For many there is nothing to eat at home if they return there at the noon hour. Many who find food at home at the noon hour find it cold and must eat it alone. Father and mother and the older children of the family are in the shops or in the mills. In the smaller towns and in country communities many

INTRODUCTION 11

children live so far from school they can not go home for luncheon and return within the time allowed. They must therefore go without luncheon, or eat cold, unsuitable food brought from home in baskets, buckets, or paper bags. Others who do go home for luncheon can do so only by running home, bolting their food and hastening back to school. In many places in which the parents and older members of the family return for the mid-day meal, it is very inconvenient to adjust the meal-time to the convenience of the children in school. In some cities and towns the school day begins at 8.30 or 9 o'clock, and continues until 1.30, 2, or 2.30, with one or two brief intermissions, usually of only fifteen minutes each. Where this practice obtains, many children go without food until the school day is over, and then go home to a cold luncheon, eaten rapidly and in such order as it can be had, losing altogether the social value of the meal. I have known many school children whose daily schedule of meals consisted of a very light breakfast at 6 or 7, a cold dinner bolted at 2 or 3 o'clock, and supper at 6. Again, many parents, instead of providing a luncheon for their children at school, give them small amounts of money with which to buy food, and which the children spend for unwholesome and unnutritiousi stuff sold at large profits from push carts and at comer stores.

12 INTRODUCTION

These conditions should not — ^must not — continue. The remedy seems to lie in the well-managed school luncheon, which can be made wholesome, educative, and saving in money, in time, and in the health of children.

Because the movement already started will probably continue with accelerated speed, there is all the more reason for a book like this which Mrs. Bryant has prepared after a long and careful study of the subject in all parts of the world. In her painstaking correlation and interpretation of the facts concerning this great new movement, she has rendered a distinct service to the children of America and to all who are interested in their welfare.

The book is practical. The information in regard to what is being done in various countries and cities is reliable. Problems not yet solved and difficulties not yet overcome are frankly admitted and pointed out. The book is not dogmatic. In its full descriptions of experiments and clear statements of results it is illuminating.

P. P. Claxton.

Washington, D. C, February, 1913.

History and Present Status of the School Feeding Movement

School feeding is an educational movement a century and a quarter old, national in scope in many of the important countries of the world and at the present time spreading and developing with wonderful rapidity. The object of the school feeding movement is to supply such facilities as will make it possible for every child to secure an adequate, wholesome noon meal despite the fact that he is attending school. The necessity for special provision to secure this end arises where many of the pupils live so far away from the school as to make it impossible for them to return home at noon, or where there is no adequate warm noon meal awaiting them if they do return. One or both of these conditions may result from any one of a most varying range of causes.

They exist in connection with forms of educational administration which are otherwise most admirable, such as the consolidation of rural schools, and single sessions in high schools in sparsely settled districts. They are found in densely settled portions of great cities, where many mothers are absent from home all day at work. At the other end of the social scale they occur in the homes of the cultured and well-to-do, where parents are frequently absent during the mid-day hours engaged in social and civic work.

It is but rarely that these conditions exist in any very large proportion of the children's homes, but while the proportion is not great, the actual number of children affected in each school system is frequently very large indeed, and the necessity for alleviation then becomes imperative. Society's machinery for meeting this need is school feeding.

GERMANY

The first provision of school meals of which we have record was made in Munich in 1790, when municipal soup kitchens were started by Count Rumford as part of his international campaign against vagrancy. The kitchens were designed to

SCHOOL FEEDING MOVEMENT, 15

meet the needs of the people of all ages, and from the start the school were encouraged to send groups of children to them for a warm meal at noon. This work was long unorganized but never discontinued, and in the seventies the obligation of providing meals was put on the school authorities. From this ancient beginning the school feeding movement spread throughout the German Empire until now it is national in scope, and about half of the cities contribute to support wholly or in part school breakfasts or dinners.

FRANCE

School feeding in France began in 1849, when the National Guard of the Second District in Paris presented to the city the unexpended balance in their treasury with the request that it be used to help poor children get a schooling. This was the beginning of the " Caisses des Ecoles " or school funds which were made obligatory throughout the country in 1882 and are employed among other purposes in maintaining the " Cantines Scolaires " or school restaurants that are now universal in France.

ENGLAND

The founder of school feeding in England was Victor Hugo, who in the early sixties provided warm meals in his own house in Guernsey for th children attending a nearby school, and so gave th initial impetus which led to the establishment i London in 1866 of " The Destitute Children's Din ner Society." During the next forty years simila charitable societies were formed, until in 1905, whe the Provision of Meals Act was under considers tion, there were in London alone no less than 15I voluntary organizations for school feeding and . total of 360 in England. For the most part thes societies were conducted by teachers in the differ ent schools with little attempt at central organiza tion and no aim beyond the immediate relief o acute distress.

The Provision of Meals Act, passed in 1906 gave the Local Educational Authorities permissioi to instal school restaurants as part of the regulai school equipment. This resulted in the rapid de velopment of a system similar to the French Can tines, which by March, 1909, had extended over loc towns and cities.

WIDE EXTENT

From these early beginnings in Germany, France and England, and with the various objects of charitable relief, promoting hygiene and encouraging

SCHOOL FEEDING MOVEMENT 17

school attendance, the work of school feeding has spread, until now, grown beyond the local issue, it has received national recognition and been made the subject of national legislation in France, Switzerland, Holland, Great Britain, Denmark, and Bavaria. It is national in scope with support by the municipalities in Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Austria, and Belgium. It has been started in Spain, Russia, and the United States.

PROMINENCE OF MOVEMENT

The movement for school feeding is by no means an obscure one, and during the past two decades has been the subject of serious and extensive investigation in most of the countries mentioned. In England the Provision of Meals Act came as a crystallization of public opinion that had been shaping for forty years and had been tremendously stimulated by the activities of four Parliamentary Commissions appointed to investigate the physical condition of the people.

In Germany the problem was first given wide publicity in 1890 when a National Congress was held to discuss problems concerning vacation colonies for school children. At this convention it was agreed that if children were to receive permanent benefit from their country outings they must be assured good food all the year round. In 1897 the Social Democrats introduced a bill in the Reichstag providing for school feeding in cities, but this was defeated on the ground that such a measure would increase the migration of the people to the large cities. Recently, however, since England has passed her national act, the subject has been extensively studied in Germany, and there is now serious and widespread agitation for national legislation.

BEGINNINGS IN AMERICA

As in the case of many other educational adjuncts, the United States has been slow in following the lead of the European countries in adopting school feeding. Long after it had passed the experimental stage in Europe, it was still regarded as a startling innovation here. Purely charitable work was undertaken as early as 1855, when the Children's Aid Society in New York City began to furnish free lunches for the children of the Industrial Schools.

Almost from the beginning of his superintendency of the New York schools. Dr. William H. Maxwell

SCHOOL FEEDING MOVEMENT 19

has urged the installation of lunches in the elementary schools, where all who wish may buy at cost a warm, nourishing noon meal. Since 1908 lunches in the elementary schools have been conducted by the co-operative efforts of the educational authorities and a committee of social workers, physicians, and teachers.

The Starr Center Association started penny lunches in two Philadelphia schools over fifteen years ago; a work that with the co-operation of other societies has continued and grown until at present there are more than ten schools with some form of school lunch.

After two years of agitation and investigation, the Board of Education in Chicago in the fall of 1910 appropriated $1200 for the experiment of installing lunches in six city schools. It is too early to speak of results. Recent reports show that the meals are a success so far as they may be measured by the attendance and the children's interest.

In twenty-seven other cities in fourteen different States, women's clubs, teachers, and school doctors have organized to introduce lunches in the elementary schools, and in at least twenty other places the matter is being considered.

Though there have been no legislative enactments providing for school lunches in American cities, at least one important step in this direction has been taken in Massachusetts. This takes the shape of a bill favorably reported by the Committee on Education of the Lower House in the Session of 1912 and provides that school boards shall be empowered to expend school funds for the support of lunches in elementary school systems.

SUMMARY

1. School feeding began in Germany. It is a century and a quarter old in Europe and more than half a century old in America.

2. It is a movement national in scope in fifteen important countries.

3. School feeding is provided for in the national legislation of six countries.

4. The movement has attained great momentum in America in the last twenty years, and school lunches now constitute a part of the elementary schools systems of thirty American cities.

There is no longer any question as to whether or not we must seriously face the school lunch problem. School lunches already constitute an important part

SCHOOL FEEDING MOVEMENT 21

of the systems of elementary schools in our largest American cities, and nothing is more certain than that the movement will rapidly extend in the next few years. The problem confronting those who have at heart the welfare of American public schools is no longer " Shall we have school lunches?" but rather, " How may we best g^ide this movement so as to develop all of its potential benefits and at the same time avoid possible dangers? "

II Physical Deterioration and Malnutrition in England

The children of a country are the capital of a country, and it is in the use and value of its capital that we may discern a nation's wisdom. — Eakl Beauchamp, 1902.

Shortly before the close of the Boer War, Major-General Frederick Maurice of the British Army startled his countrymen by announcing that only two men out of every five who wished to become soldiers were physically fit for army life.^ In Maurice's own words, it was " a vital matter . . . to enquire what is the meaning between the five and the two. Does it mean that the class which necessarily supplies the bulk of the ranks in our army consists in this large proportion of men physically unfit? If so, what are the causes of this fatal condition of things, and are they remediable? "

This roused the country to an eager consideration of its blood and brawn, and a series of search-

' Maurice, Sir Frederick, The National Health, in The Contemporary Review, January, igo2. See also A. Watt Smyth in his " Physical Deterioration, its Causes and the Remedy", ch, i.

ing investigations into the physical make-up of the nation followed.

Attention was first turned to the schools. Immediately after the publication of Maurice's statement the king appointed a commission to find out what means of physical training was provided in the schools and what further education was needed to improve the national physique and to build up the national army.

The Royal Commission on Physical Training examined the opportunities for physical education in all grades of institutions from the universities down. They came to the conclusion that, so far as the elementary schools were concerned, the trouble was not with the lack of gymnastic drill, but with the bodily condition of the children themselves. In many cases they were simply too weak to be trained physically. In Edinburgh, for example, where no less than 30 per cent, of the children in certain districts were under-nourished, it was found that the method of gymnastics followed was not only doing no good, but actual harm.

In contrast to the conditions in the regular public schools came reports of the rapid development of army and navy recruits in the training schools where full regular meals were as prominent and important a feature as was military drill. Surgeon-General Don submitted evidence showing that young boys gained from five to seven pounds in weight and an inch in chest girth after seven weeks of army life.

Wherever food was provided as in the case of special schools for the physically and mentally defective, or in industrial schools for truant or neglected children, physical training was reported to have good results. Indeed the children in the industrial schools were in many ways the physical and mental superiors of children of the same social grade in the regular elementary schools. Commenting on this fact, the Commission said : " These institutions certainly give to the boys or girls who come under their influence advantages as regards physical conditions which are not open to the children of independent and respectable though very poor parents." ^ The difference between these two classes of children was both marked and painful.

With this and a mass of similar evidence before them, the Commission became convinced that, " among the causes which tell against the physical

"Report of the Royal Commission on Physical Training, p. 30, par. 164.

welfare of the population, the lack of proper nourishment is one of the most serious " ; and that " the question of the proper and sufficient feeding of children is one which has the closest possible connection with any scheme which may be adopted for their physical and equally for their mental work." They accordingly recommended the general establishment of school lunches for which the children would pay a small fee as they had formerly done for their instruction.

Though the evidence presented by the Commission on Physical Training was valuable and suggestive so far as it went, they did not even try to answer the question the British public was asking, which was, " Is our race deteriorating, and if so what are the causes ? " A year later a new investigating body, known as the Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, was appointed to study the general social and economic causes for the alleged deterioration of certain classes, and to point out means of diminishing it.

The new commission consulted sixty-eight witnesses, men and women from all parts of Great Britain, who were either officially connected with the government in school, factory, or town administration, or else members of well-known institutions of charity and education, and all of them were intimately acquainted with the daily lives of the masses of the people; thirty-seven were physicians.

The first hopeful finding was that there was no hereditary taint apparent that might cause a progressive degeneration of the people. Each new generation started life with a new lease of energy. But shocking conditions of life were found, that for large numbers more than counterbalanced the strength at birth. It was upon these conditions and the possibility of their betterment that the Commission dwelt.

Bad as were the other destructive factors, such as congestion of population, unsanitary dwellings, involuntary unemployment, infant mortality, drunkenness, etc., none was more prominent than the chronic malnutrition, found at all ages, in town and country.

This malnutrition was specially marked among school children, although the decrease in breast feeding and the absence of a good milk supply were responsible for much bad feeding earlier. Nevertheless people seemed to understand the feeding of infants and little children better than that of older ones. When the children began to go to school they were left to shift for themselves at meal times, and usually adopted the adult habits of tea and coffee and highly seasoned canned food.

Dr. Eichholz, one of the most prominent witnesses, declared that the following was a fair description of the dietary of thousands of city children: "Their breakfasts are nominally bread and tea, and the dinner nothing but what a copper can purchase at the local fried fish shops, where the most inferior kinds of fish are fried in reeking cotton-seed oil." Milk and fresh vegetables were unknown quantities, while meat was almost lacking, except perhaps at the Sunday dinner, when it was of a poor quality. In short, the Commission found that the food was bad for three reasons: first it was insufficient; second it was irregular; third it was entirely unsuitable in quality, and was specially lacking in cell-building elements.

At the same time the strain of school work, added to the demands of rapid growth, made the subject of food during the school period of intrinsic importance. Indeed, Dr. Hutchison, the well-known English dietitian, gave as his opinion that the most critical time of a child's life, so far as its nutrition goes, is the school period — ^between ten and fifteen years. This being the case, Dr. Hutchison added that " looking at it purely scientifically, it would be an extremely important thing to ensure to every child at school a sufficient and proper meal."

Few figures were given to show the precise number of children in the schools who were markedly affected by bad feeding. Dr. Eichholz made the statement that in London there were not fewer than 122,000 children who were underfed, that is, 16 per cent, of the entire school population. In Manchester 15 per cent, were reported underfed. Dr. Kelly, Roman Catholic Bishop of Ross, asserted that, " In the South of Ireland it is commonly the case that children come to school underfed." There was a good deal more similar evidence, mostly in the form of general remarks about the wide extent of malnutrition in the schools.

With one exception, the witnesses were agreed that bad food was the most serious of all the factors making for degeneracy, particularly juvenile degeneracy. They agreed with Dr. Eichholz that " food is the point about which turns the whole problem of degeneracy," and with Dr. Mackenzie, that " of the three selective agencies determining national development, housing, occupation, and feeding, unquestionably the most important is feeding.

Although the poverty and ignorance at the bottom of malnutrition and other evils might be combated only by widespread social legislation and reform, nevertheless the Commission was convinced that the problem as it touched the school might be directly attacked, and, like the earlier commission, they proposed that school lunches be introduced. " We have got to the point," said one witness, " where we must face the question whether the logical culmination of free education is not free meals in some form or other, it being cruelty to force a child to go and learn what it has not the strength to learn."

The members of the Commission, however, were not in entire agreement with this witness, and they therefore suggested that the lunches be maintained wherever possible by private funds, and that the school authorities should be allowed to interpose where these failed, to supply the meals from the public funds.

The situation before the public now was this: The two commissions which had started out to answer Major General Maurice's question had shown that the physical condition of the people at large was in need of careful attention. This applied most of all to the food of the people, and to that of the children in particular. Both commissions had recommended school meals as a partial remedy, and as a step in the larger campaign against the forces of deterioration.

It remained to find out just what was the exact need for school feeding and what was being done already by private individuals in the matter before proceeding to organize meals on a public basis. A special Commission was appointed to look into the matter of medical inspection of schools and the voluntary provision of school meals throughout the country. The bulk of their attention was devoted to the subject of school feeding. They sent inquiries to all the local school authorities throughout the country to find out just how many schools were equipped with the lunches, and how these were run. In addition they examined thirty-five witnesses, all of whom were actively engaged in the work of school feeding, most of them being school officers as well.

The report of this Commission was published in

November, 1905.' It was found that there were no less than 355 separate organizations for school feeding in 146 places, town and country, that were serving meals of some sort anywhere from three weeks in winter to four months, to about 100,000 children. Some of these organizations were old — the earliest one dating from 1866 in London.

The Committee on the Medical Inspection and Feeding of Children did not attempt to find out how many children were in need, nor to estimate the efficiency of the existing organizations in meeting the need. This was left for the Select Committee that considered the Provision of Meals Bill, presented in Parliament a few months later, which was designed to give the schools direct responsibility for feeding the children when necessary.

The Select Committee on the Provision of Meals Bill went over the reports of the three earlier commissions, and examined besides twenty-eight witnesses, all of whom had had experience with school meals either as teachers and superintendents, school doctors, members of charitable societies, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, etc.

'Report of the Interdept. Com. on Med. Inspection and the Feeding of Children Attending Public Elementary Schools.

As the final passage of the Bill came as a result of the findings of this Commission, especially in regard to the inadequacy of the existing provisions, we shall consider them somewhat in detail.

VOLUNTARY FEEDING SOCIETIES

The work of the private societies may be illustrated by the following description given before Parliament by Dr. Airy, who had had charge of the Birmingham Free Dinners Association for twenty years.*

" We began with the idea of giving penny dinners to children who could pay for them, thinking, in our ignorance, that that would suffice for the need of the poor population. We speedily found that we were doing a rapidly declining business among the wealthier classes, and that there were thousands of children who could not pay a penny under any circumstances. We therefore reduced the price to a halfpenny, still intending them to be self-supporting or nearly so. We were then confronted with the revelation that there were hundreds of children in every district in Birmingham who

* Minutes of Evidence before the Select Committee on the Educational (Provision of Mbals) Bill, 1906, p. 132.

could no more pay a halfpenny for a dinner than they could find change for half a sovereign. We therefore at once determined to give up all idea of self-support, and we resolved to make it a charity and devote it, until we saw our way a great deal further, to keeping alive (I think that is the best expression I can use) the very poorest children who either got nothing at all for dinner, or, if they got anything, only got a bit of bread with a little grease, perhaps, scraped on it. We made a careful census of the city, and in Birmingham at that date (1886) we reckoned that there were from 2,500 to 3,000 children who were in a normal state of semi-starvation. In addition to that we had to reckon for the margin that there always was from any exceptional cause of unemployment. We did our best to (satisfy is hardly the word) meet as far as we could the needs of those children."