The Feeding of School ChildrenBulkley, M. E. (Mildred Emily)
History
The Feeding of School Children
Bulkley, M. E. (Mildred Emily)
School children -- Food
(ii) We will consider next the plan to which we have already alluded,
the provision of meals, free and without enquiry, for all children who
like to come, it being understood that the meals are intended only for
"necessitous" children, _i.e._, those children who through poverty are
unable to obtain an adequate supply of food at home. Those who aim at
making this provision in some way deterrent suggest a breakfast of
porridge, the time of the meal and the nature of the food providing a
test of need. "As the man inside the workhouse must not have better, but
a decidedly worse, treatment than the man outside, so if the food be
nourishing but not too palatable it may chance that only the truly
necessitous may apply."[538] Children who can obtain food at home will
prefer to do so. But it is found in practice that it is not only the
children who can get sufficient food at home who are deterred by such a
device, but that the "truly necessitous" also refuse to come. Such a
system, in fact, defeats its own ends. It is futile to provide meals for
all underfed children and at the same time to make that provision so
deterrent that those for whom it is intended decline to avail themselves
of it. Even if there is no intention of making the provision deterrent,
the idea that the meals are meant only for necessitous children will, in
fact, make it so; many parents will prefer to feed their children at
home on a totally inadequate diet rather than disclose their poverty by
sending them to the school meals. The "poverty test" in fact, in
whatever form it may be applied, will exclude numbers of children whom
it is desirable to provide for.
Footnote 538:
"A New Poor Law for Children," by Rev. Henry Iselin, in _Charity
Organisation Review_, March, 1909, p. 170.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account