Interesting figures as to the effects of different dietaries were obtained at Sheffield in 1910. Before this date the meals provided for necessitous children had taken the form of cocoa breakfasts. As an experiment at one school some of the boys were given porridge for several weeks. Their weights were compared with those of a group of other boys who were receiving cocoa breakfasts at school, and also with a group of boys who were being fed at home. The two groups of boys who were fed at school were drawn from equally poor districts, those who were fed at home being somewhat better off. It was found that the boys who were receiving cocoa breakfasts only gained on an average .0451 kilos or 1.58 oz. per week; the boys who were being fed at home gained .0594 kilos (2.09 oz.); while the boys who were receiving porridge breakfasts gained as much as .0942 kilos (3.317 oz.). As a result of this proof of the superiority of porridge diet, porridge breakfasts were substituted for cocoa breakfasts in all the schools.[499] Footnote 499: Report of Chief School Medical Officer for Sheffield for 1910, pp. 26-27. We may quote here striking results observed in the improved physique of the children at a special school for cripple children in London consequent on an improved dietary. A two-course dinner of meat, potatoes and pudding had been previously given, but in the summer of 1901 it was decided to provide a more liberal and varied dietary, _e.g._, more hot meat, eggs, milk, cream, vegetables and fruit. The results were soon apparent. "Partially paralysed children," writes Mrs. Humphry Ward a few months after the change, "have been recovering strength in hands and limbs with greater rapidity than before. A child who, last year, often could not walk at all from rickets and extreme delicacy and seemed to be fading away, and who in May was still languid and feeble, is now racing about in the garden on his crutches; a boy who last year could only crawl on his hands and feet is now rapidly and steadily learning to walk, and so on.... Hardly any child now wants to lie down during school time, whereas applications to lie down used to be common, and the children both learn and remember better." (Letter from Mrs. Humphry Ward, _The Times_, September 26, 1901.) At Brighton it has for the last few years been the practice to weigh before and after the course of meals the children who have been recommended for feeding on medical grounds. At the end of the last session, 1912-13, 269 children who had received meals for nine weeks or more were thus re-examined. It was found that 133 of these, or 50 per cent., no longer needed meals on medical grounds, that is, they had been brought over the average weight for a given height.[500] Footnote 500: Brighton Education Committee, Report on the re-examination of children receiving free meals during the winter session, 1912-13.