But even where the system of voluntary payment has been tried, it has been a failure. At Bradford, where a large proportion of married women work in the mills, it was felt that many parents would take advantage of a system by which they could obtain a midday meal for their children at cost price.[313] The Education Committee accordingly sent round a circular to the head teachers asking them to announce to their scholars that a good dinner could be obtained for 2d.[314] The response was disappointing. Comparatively few of the mothers took advantage of the offer, and the result, though the number of paying children[315] seems to be larger than in any other provincial town,[316] can only be described as a failure. This may be partly attributed to the cost. Where there are several children a payment of 2d. per head may be more than the parent can afford. But the main cause of failure is undoubtedly the dislike of the independent type of parent who can afford to pay to sending his children to meals the majority of which are being given free. In fact any system which seeks to combine free and paying meals, the free meals being the chief element, is fore-doomed to failure.[317] Footnote 313: "The needs would be met of a host of children who never got a decent meal." (Councillor North, Bradford City Council Proceedings, February 26, 1907, p. 233.) Footnote 314: Extracts from the Annual Reports of the Bradford Education Committee for the four years ended March 31, 1907, 1908, 1909 and 1910, pp. 14, 16. The charge is now 2-1/2d. Footnote 315: The numbers given in the Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911 (p. 325) are 182, but some of these were paid for by the Guardians. No record, we were told, is kept of the individual children who pay, but the amount received in 1912-13 from parents who voluntarily paid the whole cost was L169 19s. 8d. Thus only some 16,320 meals were wholly paid for, out of a total of 782,979. (Bradford Education Committee, Return as to the Working of the Provision of Meals Act for the year ending March 31, 1913.) Footnote 316: At Finchley as many as two-thirds of the meals are paid for, but the charge is very low, only 1/2d. per meal. We were informed that the price would not cover the cost of food if it were not for the fact that the meat used in connection with the dinners was provided as a voluntary gift. Footnote 317: