When an application by the parent is obligatory, there is cause for very grave doubt whether the provision of meals reaches all for whom it is intended. Miss Winder has shown that, at Birmingham, out of 22,753 children for whom applications were received during the three years 1909-11, 4,700 were not fed because the parent failed to appear before the Committee. She investigated the circumstances of twenty-eight of these families and came to the conclusion that, "although the small number of families investigated cannot justify an absolutely positive assertion, I think it may fairly be concluded that, on the whole, they are representative of most of the families whose applications are not granted, and that the home circumstances of these families are much the same as those of the families whose applications have been granted."[224] This is the impression gained from enquiries at other towns. At West Ham it is clear that there are children who need the meals, but do not get them because their parents will not apply. The number of "missed" cases does not appear to be large, for the Act is administered in a sympathetic spirit, the Superintendent of Visitors impressing on the Attendance Officers that they should bring to his notice any case where the children appear to be suffering from lack of food. But there are cases where the parents, though they will take the urgency tickets for three meals which the teachers can give them, will take no further action. At one school the headmaster pointed out two boys who looked obviously in need of food and attention generally, but whose father, though out of work, would not apply. In another case he had used his discretion and kept two boys on the list for a month in spite of their parents' failure to renew their application, but he felt obliged at last to take them off though he considered that they still needed the meals. In such cases the Attendance Officers are supposed to visit the homes to find out the cause of the children's underfed condition, and to urge the parents, if necessary, to make application for school meals, but this course does not seem to be by any means always pursued. Footnote 224: _The Public Feeding of Elementary School Children_, by Phyllis D. Winder, 1913, pp. 27, 29, 59, 62.