In another direction the school meal may have an educational result of the highest importance. Children in all ranks of life are notoriously conservative in the matter of food and shy of venturing on unknown dishes, but with the poorest class of children it is not only "faddiness" which has to be contended with; the unaccustomed food, however wholesome for the normal child, actually does not agree with these chronically underfed children. As was pointed out at the time of the passing of the Provision of Meals Act, "one great merit of this Act ... will be the teaching and training of a child in the matter of taste. At present it is a well known physiological fact that the slum stomach cannot accommodate itself in a moment to good, wholesome food. The child has been accustomed to tea and jam and pickles, and to food that is often more tasty than nourishing. It will now eat under public and _medical superintendence_ and gradually a pure and simple taste will be cultivated."[523] That this prophecy is in process of being fulfilled may, we think, with justice be claimed. There still exists a certain amount of difficulty in inducing the children to take food to which they are unaccustomed, but that this difficulty can be surmounted by the exercise of tact and attention to individual needs has been practically demonstrated again and again. Over and over again we have been told the same tale, "at first the children would not eat this or that dish, but now they have learned to like it." Especially is this the case with porridge. At first, wherever this was given, it was found that many refused to eat it, but this antipathy was gradually overcome, and the children finally ate it with relish.[524] It is amusing to find that at St. George's-in-the-East, where a porridge breakfast was devised as a test of need, it being thought that no child would come who was not really hungry, the children now like the porridge so much that this diet no longer furnishes a test. Where the children do not learn to eat what is provided, it always turns out, on further enquiry, that the supervisors have failed, either because of the large numbers whom they have to look after or, perhaps, through lack of enthusiasm, to devote that careful and detailed attention to the children without which it is quite impossible to bring about any change. Footnote 523: _Child Life and Labour_, by Margaret Alden, M.D., 1908, p. 108. Footnote 524: Thus, to quote one of many instances, at Bradford, when porridge breakfasts were given in the experiment of 1907, it was found that the first morning thirteen refused to eat it; the next morning only two refused, and after that all ate and enjoyed it. (Bradford Education Committee, Report on a Course of Meals given to Necessitous Children from April to July, 1907, p. 4.)