This was the opinion of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Medical Inspection and Feeding in 1905. (See ante, p. 37.) "If no distinction is made between the paying children and the non-paying children," declared one witness, "I feel sure that the Birmingham artisan would not send his children. He would not let them go to receive a meal in regard to which it was not known whether it was given free or not." (Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Medical Inspection and Feeding, 1905, Vol. II., Q. 1246, evidence of Mr. George Hookham.) See also the evidence given by Mr. F. Wilkinson, the Director of Education for Bolton. (_Ibid._, Qs. 3115-3119.) In the Special Schools for mentally or physically defective children, where the dinner is provided more as a part of the school curriculum than as a "charity" meal, there is not, as we shall see, much difficulty in inducing the parents to pay for the meals.[318] In rural districts also, where the children are in many cases unable to go home at midday, the system of paying dinners has more chance of success.[319] Footnote 318: See post, p. 120. Footnote 319: See post, pp. 123-5. Turning now to the question of the recovery of the cost from unwilling parents, the Provision of Meals Act, it will be remembered, laid down that the Local Authorities should require payment unless satisfied that the parents could not pay, and the cost might be recovered summarily as a civil debt. In practice this has been found very difficult to accomplish. It is impossible to tell from the returns how much of the L1,570 received from parents in 1911-12 was contributed voluntarily, and how much recovered after compulsion, but the amount recovered must necessarily be very small.[320] Footnote 320: The amount recovered _after prosecution_ in 1911-12 was L42 10s. 6d. for the whole of England and Wales, London accounting for more than half this sum. (Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1911, pp. 325-7.) To this we must add the amount recovered with more or less difficulty, but without prosecution.