Right and wrong as to school feeding / Charity Organisation Society.

Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Right and wrong as to school feeding / Charity Organisation Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/8 page 3
    7 there was permanent impoverishment, in 69 there were temporary causes of distress, and in 19 there was parental neglect. At Glasgow and elsewhere similar inquiries have been made with like results. These inquiries also {throw light on janother point. They show that in places where no such inquiries have been made {the 2 per cent. or so of the children who, as at Birmingham, Sheffield and elsewhere, receive meals represent all, and probably more than all, for whom in that way provision should be made. CONCLUSIONS. We have thus information obtained impartially by different people in different places which proves: (1) That the children who are ‘ underfed’ form a very small proportion of the children at school. (2) That the cause of distress in such cases usually les in the homes, and is not to be found in the mere want of a dinner at school. (3) That for the removal of the cause of distress home treatment, or home and school treatment, is necessary. (4) That the feeding by itself is, in view of the actual causes, often a mere negatwe policy, leaving the child possibly in a mass of trouble’ with the mere {drop of water of a school meal granted him by way of consolation. We thus have a voluntary system of providing meals which in most of the large towns has hitherto met whatever need there has been of this kind. If there have not been school feeding funds everywhere, it does not follow that where they have not been established a need has been left unprovided. On the contrary, it is evident that the need may rightly have been met in quite other ways as well, or even more effectively, than by the supply of dinners:at school. People are inclined to say: ‘The need is enormous; charitable effort cannot meet it. We must fall back on the rates; they are inexhaustible—they can meet it.’ But all these assertions are amiss. The need is not enormous; charitable effort has so far met it, and if in the future more is required of charity, there is no reason to fear that it will not be forthcoming. We need not, therefore, fall back on the rates. And if we do fall back on the rates, as is now proposed, the rates, treated as ‘inexhaustible,’ will be a great burthen to us, while they will not help us to meet the real difficulty.
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image