In Norway it has been for several years the custom of the school authorities in several municipalities to provide, free of charge, a good dinner for all school children who care to avail themselves of it. The dinners are prepared in a central kitchen-station and sent out in boxes to the various schools, special appliances being used to keep the meals hot. The dinners consist usually of soup, porridge, meat, vegetables, and bread for the ordinary children, and a special dietary for weak, sick, or defective children.[80] This system of free dinners was introduced as a result of a series of experiments made in Christiania. It was found that the number of backward, dull children who came from the poorer districts was much higher than elsewhere, and that they were, as a rule, inferior in physical development. So great was the progress made by the children in several classes in which the experiment of giving them one good meal each day was tried that the school authorities were induced to introduce the system generally into the schools. A member of the Municipal Council of Trondhjem says, speaking of the free school dinner system, “Norway now interprets civilization to mean that society must conspire to save its children from the hostile forces of unequal economic conditions, and to secure for them equal opportunities and helpful conditions for the development of their highest and best gifts.” As a result of a careful study of the problem of how best to deal with the backward child, and a comparison of her own observations with those of teachers and others in Norway and France (where the _cantines scolaires_ have been attended with results very similar to those attained in Norway), a New York teacher in charge of a large class of such children decided to try the experiment of feeding them.[81] “To build up their intellects is the task we have to accomplish,” she said to the writer, “and I have found that that can best be done through building up their bodies first and so securing a decent physical basis to work upon.” The children contribute a cent each per day to a fund administered by the teacher, who provides each child with a cup of warm milk every morning in the middle of the session. Should any child for any reason be unable to contribute its share, it is not deprived of the milk on that account, the small deficit being made up out of the teacher’s own purse. In addition to the milk the children get such of the products of the cooking classes as are suitable for them, three days a week. It is a small experiment, too small indeed to justify any sweeping generalization from it, but it is nevertheless important in that it confirms fully the experience of foreign investigators that a very large proportion of the children who are mentally dull need only to be properly fed in order to enable their minds to develop normally. [Illustration: “FRESH AIR FUND” CHILDREN FROM CITY TENEMENTS ENJOYING LIFE IN THE COUNTRY ]