If these considerations are properly appre ciated, it will be obvious how unwise it is to set several courses before children at dinner or any meal. It is only possible for a man, who has his tastes well under control, from a variety of courses to select just so much of this, so much more of a second, so much less of a third, and so on, to make up a total of a meal that does not err on the side of excess; and there are, comparatively speaking, few men indeed who will not so err. If adults behave so, what can one expect of the child? The only right principle, then, on which to proceed is to set before the child one course out of which its meal is to be made, and of which, provided it eats slowly, it is to be permitted to have as much as it wishes. If a second course is provided, it ought to be, so far as labour to the digestive organs is concerned, of a trifling character, and it should be restricted in amount. Such a course might well be made to subserve such purposes as assisting the movement of the bowels, and therefore stewed, preserved, or uncooked fruits are most suitable.
On such principles, then, there should be no difficulty in the diet of the child who has been properly reared from its infancy.
The diet stated on the preceding page as suitable for the child of three is, in the main, suitable for the child of four, five, six, or seven. In the later of these years the chief difference will be that fish or fowl or meat, in one form or another, will more frequently form part of the dinner than in the earlier years, and if at six or seven years a second course is given at dinner, it should be a restricted one of fruit in some form.
An entirely undesirable mixture, however, is that of a soup or broth, rich in vegetables, with a subsequent meat course. It cannot be too frequently insisted on that when soup or broth is given, it should constitute, with bread or potato, the whole meal.
On such lines the child should be dieted till the time comes for it to go to school.
If we assume the child goes to a day-school, returning home about mid-day, in the early years, then no change is required in the diet scheme already set forth. For the child gets the chief meal of the day on its return from school, and there is no reason for any change.
But when, later, the child spends more of the day at school, and gets only an interval of about an hour somewhere between 12 and 2, return ing to school till 4 in the afternoon'or later, then some change of plan is necessary.
It is quite common, if not indeed the general custom, for the child to hurry home during the interval, have dinner, and hurry back to school.
As a rule, also, this is the chief interval of the day, and the only time during school hours the child has for outside games. If the child's home is any distance from school, much of the time may be taken up going and returning, and play is not got; if the home is near, the child grudges every minute spent at the table, and the chief meal of the day is got over as quickly as possible. The worst possible manner of eat ing and manners at table are thus encouraged, which lay the foundation of digestive trouble and other evils in the future. If there are several members of the family, the school inter val is seldom the same for all, and the dinner is thus a meal that comes to be spread over two or three hours, as one child after another comes rushing in, anxious to be served and to rush off again. Dinner ceases to be what it ought to be, a meal to which all the family sit down in comfort and quietness to spend a so ciable and helpful time together. Parents who do not strive to keep this meal of the day as the family gathering of the day do not realize the moral influence that is lost to the family life.
But from the purely health point of view there are two serious objections to the mid-day meal in the circumstances noted. One of these is that if part of the interval is used for play, digestion must be seriously disturbed. Energetic physical exercise cannot be properly indulged in immediately after a full meal. The other objection is that no child is fit to engage in active mental work just after a full meal. The full dinner, then, is inimical alike to active games and to intellectual work, or, to put it the other way about, active games or active intellectual work are incompatible with the digestion of a full meal.
This is a conclusion, not only theoretically sound, but one which experience has forced upon the writer's notice. There is a singularly wide prevalence of digestive disorders among children, a rapidly growing prevalence, and the writer attributes it to the circumstances just considered.
For children, therefore, who are occupied at school till late afternoon, dinner should be pro vided only after school is over. The children can then be trained to tidy themselves properly, to sit down in cleanliness and comfort, to eat slowly, and to cultivate the graces of decent table manners, which so many children, even of the well-to-do classes, conspicuously lack.