Report of Select Committee on Education (Provision of Meals) Bills (England and Scotland), 1906, Qs. 792, 924, 925. By a considerable majority the Conference defeated an amendment that the Board of Guardians should be substituted for the Local Education Authority as the authority for making the provision, but owing to a technical difficulty the main resolution was not put. See also the resolution passed at a conference of the School Attendance Officers' Association, quoted by Mr. Slack in the House of Commons (_Hansard_, April 18, 1905, 4th Series, Vol. 145, p. 533). In Parliament the agitation was led by Mr. Claude Hay, Sir John Gorst and Dr. Macnamara. It was urged that a large part of the money spent on education was wasted. To teach children who were physically quite unfit to receive instruction, was, as Sir John Gorst pointed out, "the height of absurdity."[109] Thirty years' compulsory education had, Mr. Claude Hay declared, resulted in disappointment. "The gain in intelligence was, to say the least of it, equivocal, while the physical deterioration of the people was obvious. The reason was largely that we had taken education as an isolated factor, whereas it was part of an absolutely indivisible unit.... We had assumed that ... the intellect could act independently of all other parts of the total human being. We had ignored the body, the soul and the will, and the result had been a fiasco."[110] Compulsory education involved free meals, but only for the "necessitous child."[111] It was declared that many parents would gladly pay if they were thereby assured that their children were adequately and properly fed.[112] Footnote 109: _Hansard_, July 9, 1903, Vol. 125, p. 194. See also _ibid._, February 14, 1905, Vol. 141, p. 143. Footnote 110: _Ibid._, April 20, 1904, Vol. 133, pp. 782-3. Footnote 111: _Ibid._, p. 784. Footnote 112: _Ibid._, p. 788; Sir John Gorst, _ibid._, July 9, 1903, Vol. 125, p. 196. For some time the Government remained obdurate, and declined to take any action. At last, however, it became clear that something must be done. The findings of the Royal Commission on Physical Training and the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration had created too profound an impression to be ignored. Yet even now the Government were not prepared for legislation. They were of opinion that there still existed a wide divergence of views as to the extent of underfeeding and the remedies to be applied. Accordingly, in March, 1905, another Departmental Committee was appointed to collect further information.[113] Footnote 113: _Hansard_, March 13, 1905, Vol. 142, p. 1185.