this law of compulsory education is forced on them, not for their good or for their pleasure, but for the safety and progress of society and for the sake of economy in the administration of the laws in the matter of poor relief and crime."[30] Amidst all the discussion on the needs and morals of the poor from the standpoint of the superior person, it is refreshing to find so honest and sympathetic a criticism. Footnote 26: "It is now admitted that children cannot be expected to learn their lessons unless they are properly fed." (_The Times_, Leading Article, December 13, 1884.) Footnote 27: _Ibid._ Footnote 28: _Charity Organisation Review_, January, 1885, p. 25. As we shall see (post, p. 19), their fears in this respect were realised. Footnote 29: _The Times_, Leading Article, January 20, 1885. Footnote 30: _The School Board Chronicle_, December 13, 1884, p. 627. The outcome of this lengthy public discussion was a great increase in voluntary feeding agencies all over the country about the year 1884.[31] At the Conference of Board School Managers and Teachers in that year, Mr. Mundella stated that, since he referred in the House of Commons to the Rousdon experiment, provision for school meals was being made in rural districts to an extent which he could hardly believe.[32] In London the Council for Promoting Self-supporting Penny Dinners was established and the movement spread rapidly. In August, 1884, there were only two centres where penny dinners on a self-supporting basis were provided. By December such dinners had been started in thirteen other districts.[33] Footnote 31: Such voluntary agencies were established, for instance, at Hastings (about 1882), at Birmingham and Gateshead (in 1884), at Carlisle (in 1889). Footnote 32: _School Board Chronicle_, December 13, 1884, pp. 629-630. Footnote 33: _Ibid._, p. 628. Meanwhile the promoters of free meals continued their work unabashed. The Board School Children's Free Dinner Fund declared in 1885, "our work does not cross the lines of the penny dinner movement. It was started before that movement and has been in some cases carried on side by side with it, its object being to feed those children whose parents have neither pennies nor half-pennies to pay for their dinners. Free dinners are restricted to the children of widows, and to those whose parents are ill or out of work."[34] The _Referee_ Fund now supplied schools over a large part of South London and had always given free meals. In most provincial towns, whether the dinners were nominally self-supporting or not, necessitous children were seldom refused food on account of inability to pay. Private philanthropists saw the suffering and tried to alleviate it, not enquiring too closely into the consequences. Footnote 34: _The Times_, December 16, 1885.