The question how far the teachers should be asked to give their services is a vexed one. On the one hand, where the teacher attends regularly--and regular attendance is essential if the full benefit from the meals is to be derived--this extra work involves a great strain. Especially when the midday interval is only from 12 to 1.30, as in many provincial towns, the time for rest is seriously curtailed. At Leeds "a reasonable time is allowed the teachers in charge for their own midday meal," and they are allowed to arrive late at afternoon school in consequence of this,[281] but we were told that this permission is not in practice taken advantage of, as their late arrival would dislocate the work. Moreover, although the service is supposed to be always entirely voluntary on the part of the teachers, there is always the danger that they may feel under a moral obligation to offer their services. In some cases, the burden seems to fall unduly on a few, only a small minority offering to assist in the supervision, the others taking no share. Footnote 281: Leeds Education Committee, Rules for the Management of Dinner Centres. At Bradford it is noticeable that it is as a general rule the men teachers who supervise the meals; women teachers assist, but the responsibility for the management of the whole centre seems to involve too great a strain upon them. On the other hand, "it is unquestionable that where the teachers are willing to undertake the work, they are, generally speaking, the most competent supervisors. The reason for this is not far to seek. The children, being accustomed to obey the commands of their teachers, are more ready to behave in an orderly and disciplined manner when under their supervision than when a stranger is in charge. Moreover, the teachers' acquaintance with the idiosyncrasies of individual children enables them to keep an eye on those children who are specially in need of food or who need persuasion to make them eat the wholesome food provided."[282] Again, the fact that the teachers are present connects the meal in the child's mind with the school, and so tends to make it more a part of the school curriculum, a lesson in table manners. Without the teacher, Miss McMillan points out, "the whole venture will fail miserably on the educational side." But it is a mistake to ask the teachers to serve the food and wait on the children. Their function should be "to preside and to be the head, and as far as possible the soul, of the daily gathering,"[283] just as at dinner in a secondary school. Footnote 282: Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, p. 280. Footnote 283: _London's Children: How to Feed Them and How not to Feed Them_, by Margaret McMillan and A. Cobden-Sanderson, 1909, p. 11. We have met with this ideal arrangement only at one school--a small "special" school for feeble-minded children at Bradford (see post, pp. 121-2.).