Note 58 — Chapter I · THE HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT FOR THE PROVISION OF SCHOOL MEALS

Ibid., p. iii. Even when the dinners were paid for, the payment rarely covered the cost. The same want of success was reported in the provinces. At Birmingham the experiment of giving penny dinners failed completely, and the meals had to be given free. (Report of Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, 1904, Qs. 13238, 13240, evidence of Dr. Airy.) "The experience of all workers in this movement testifies," says Canon Moore Ede, "that the poorest of all—those who are least well nourished—are scarcely touched by the penny dinners." ("Cheap Meals for Poor School Children," by Rev. W. Moore Ede, in Report of Conference on Education under Healthy Conditions at Manchester, 1885, p. 81.)