While, however, there is no foundation for the doctrine that every extension of public provision results in a slackening of energy on the part of the individual, it is, none the less, possible that this may be the result of the particular kind of provision which consists in the supplying of meals to school children. In the event of that being proved to be the case, it is by no means easy to say what policy should be pursued. Public authorities, it may be argued, should cease to provide school meals. To this answer, which is at first sight plausible, there are two objections which are together almost insuperable. The first is that Education Authorities are under a legal obligation to provide education for the children in their charge and to carry out medical inspection with a view to discovering their ailments; while they may, if they think fit, provide medical treatment for them. They owe it to their constituents to spend their money in the most effective and economical manner. Education given to children who are suffering from want of nourishment not only is ineffective, but may be positively deleterious. When the extent of malnutrition is known, is it reasonable to expect the Authorities deliberately to shut their eyes to the fact that so far from benefiting the children who suffer from it they may be positively aggravating their misfortunes? If it be replied, _ruat coelum fiat justitia_, let the children suffer in order to improve the moral character of their parents, an Education Committee may not unfairly retort that it is elected primarily to attend to the welfare of the children, and that the wisdom of elevating parents, who _ex hypothesi_ are demoralised, at the cost of the rising generation is, at any rate, too problematical to justify it in neglecting its own special duties. Moreover, even assuming that public bodies were willing to apply to the education of children the principles recommended in 1834 for the treatment of "improvidence and vice," there is no reason to suppose that they would succeed in averting the "pauperisation" which is dreaded. No fact is more clearly established by the history of all kinds of relief administration since 1834 than that the effect of refusing to make public provision for persons in distress is merely to lead to the provision of assistance in a rather more haphazard, uncoordinated and indiscriminate manner by private agencies. A purely negative policy is systematically "blacklegged" by private philanthropists. Rightly or wrongly the plain man finds his stomach turned by the full gospel of deterrence; with the result that, while the English Poor Law is nominally deterrent, enormous sums are spent every year in private charity in London alone; that in 1886 the Local Government Board recommended local authorities to provide relief for certain classes of workers apart from the Poor Law, on the ground that the Poor Law, for whose administration the Local Government Board is responsible, is