About 1880 another motive for school meals emerges. Public opinion began to be aroused on the subject of over-pressure. It was said that far too many subjects were taught and that the system of "payment by results" forced the teachers to overwork the children for the sake of the grant. It was pointed out that not only was it useless to try to educate a starving child, but the results might be positively harmful. Numerous letters from school managers, doctors and others appeared in _The Times_. "In dispensary practice," writes Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake, "I have lately seen several cases of habitual headache and other cerebral affections among children of all ages attending our Board Schools, and have traced their origin to overstrain caused by the ordinary school work, which the ill-nourished physical frames are often quite unfit to bear. I have spoken repeatedly on the subject to members of the School Boards, and also to teachers in the schools, and have again and again been assured by them that they were quite alive to the danger, and heartily wished that it was in their power to avert it, but that the constantly advancing requirements of the Education Code left them no option in the matter."[20] Footnote 20: _The Times_, April 15, 1880. Speaking of the children at London Hospitals, Dr. Robert Farquharson writes: "Ill-fed and badly housed and clothed, exposed to depressing sanitary and domestic conditions, these poor creatures are frequently expected to do an amount of school work of which their badly-nourished brains are utterly incapable. I have long been familiar with the pale, dejected look, the chronic headache, the sleeplessness, the loss of appetite, the general want of tone, caused undoubtedly by the undue exercise of nervous tissues unprovided with their proper allowance of healthy food." Such children "are by no means inclined to shirk their lessons; they are frequently much interested in them; but, feeling the responsibility of class and examinations keenly ... they become sleepless and restless, and rapidly lose flesh and strength." (_Ibid._, April 19, 1880.)