SCHOOL MEALS. The feeding of needy children of school age was first started in France by the institution of cantines scolaires. Pioneer work of a similar kind was established at Manchester, Bradford, London and other large towns in the later years of the 19th century. Meals thus provided were usually breakfasts.
The report of the Physical Deterioration Committee published in 1904, and that of the royal commission on physical training in Scotland, published in 1903, led to the appointment by Lord Londonderry of an inter-departmental committee which, in 1905, reported that feeding schemes were in operation in about one third of the non-county boroughs and urban districts, but that little was being done in the county areas. By the Education (Provision of Meals) Act, 1906, local education authorities were empowered to spend money out of the rates and to recover from parents the whole or part of the cost of the meals supplied, ex cept where the parent was unable to pay. These provisions were
consolidated in the Education Act, 1921.
As the chief medical officer of the Board of Education wrote in his annual report (1927), "The problem is not the relief of poverty, but the prevention or amelioration of undernourishment." In that year 389,828 individual children were fed by 173 edu cation authorities in England and Wales; the number of chil dren fed was twice as many as in 1913, while the total number of meals provided was five times as many.
In the United States, school lunches were primarily intended for children suffering from malnutrition, but of recent years, educational authorities in the larger cities have realized that the provision of proper food during the noon intermission for all pupils is now a part of the general educational movement.