Page:Solution of the Child Labor Problem.djvu/146

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
139
CHILD LABOUR REFORM.

cation without bread is as useless as education without life.

The school-feeding system usually requires those who eat the school lunches to pay for them if they are able. If they are unable to pay the meals are given free and an investigation is made into the conditions surrounding the home.

A general act in England, "the Provision of Meals Act," empowers local school authorities to establish systems of school feeding and to pay for the meals by levying a specified percentage on the annual valuation of local property.

Under this act, Bradford has adopted a system of feeding its children. As an experiment forty children were fed during the summer of 1907. "The improvement [in the general appearance and carriage of the child] was more or less apparent in all, and very obvious in some of the children who visibly filled out and brightened up." "The reverse process was equally apparent when the children were seen after the summer holiday, during which no special meals had been pro-