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of an average attendance of 1,100 were regarded by the teachers of the various departments as being
insufficiently fed.
Dr. Sears selected certain children who were being regularly fed, others as controls poorly
nourished, and also well-nourished controls, and examined and weighed them monthly, but the numbers
were too few and home circumstances came in to such a degree that the results were indefinite and
within the error of experiment.
Buckingham-street school. At this school Dr. Rowntree took much trouble and ascertained
the rate of increase at each quarter year of age of both boys and girls. He points out
the difficulties in isolating conditions:—"At Buckingham-street one finds great variations in the children;
the majority come from a very poor district which surrounds the school; this district is a small one,
however, and is bounded by a much better part, which provides a class of children who, as regards
physical condition, are above the average, many of them to a considerable extent."
A certain number of children were fed free. The decision as to which were the necessitous rested
entirely with the teachers, who had the advantage of more or less knowledge of the home life of the
children. Children were found in the infants' department who were regarded as " bad cases," while
their elder brothers and sisters had attracted no special attention.
" Any precise data as to the influence for good brought about by the feeding in individual cases
are impossible owing to the small number of cases in which any considerable number of meals had been
given. In only one case had a meal been taken every day, while the majority had had about two or
three per week."
None showed any remarkable increase in weight. A few had remained stationary, as had many
of the normal children, while certain children had actually lost weight, in no case more than a kilo, and
in these no special circumstances could be adduced as the explanation.
An investigation of all the children who had had a large number, over 35 meals, as regards increase
in weight showed that this corresponded closely with the figure obtained for the whole school. There
were so few being fed gratuitously that averages were out of the question ; they had gained in weight,
but there was nothing noted that could be regarded as a wider variation than was found in investigating
the children as a whole.
DENTAL CONDITIONS.
In the report last year allusion was made to the prevalence of dental troubles among children. The
School Dentists' Society which has carried out careful investigations into the conditions of children in
several residential and secondary schools, petitioned the Council in December, 1905. The petition asked
for the appointment of properly qualified dental surgeons to all elementary schools so that dental inspection,
advice, and preventative treatment might be regularly given from the earliest school age. The
inclusion also in the code of instruction, under the head of general hygiene, of a short course of dental
hygiene was suggested
Both among children and the younger teachers, toothache and neuralgia are fruitful causes of
absence from school. Except where pain drives the child to seek relief, neglect of the teeth is almost
universal. It is exceptional to find children who use a tooth brush. Dr. Marion Hunter notes "Among
1,000 children, I found 2 who used a tooth brush," and Dr. Rowntree says " A few older children take
credit for using a tooth brush on Sundays." In spite of the facilities which hospitals offer, he only
found two cases among 6,000 who had had conservative treatment. Dr. Brincker found caries so general
that he only noted those with more than four carious teeth.

Dr. Niall has noted the condition of the teeth in three good class schools in Dulwich (1,645 boys
1,461 girls=3,106 children). Making a simple inspection he found that at 4 years of age 59 per cent.
boys and 55 per cent. girls had apparently no disease present. This proportion decreased up till 9 or 10,
when just less than 30 per cent., chiefly through loss of the milk teeth, appeared superficially to be free
from caries. He alludes to the detailed examinations made by Mr. S. Spokes at Haileybury College,
where 1,300 boys of the average age of 13 were found to be free from caries in only about 3 per cent,
of the cases.
In but few cases of the boys was there any evidence that the teeth were ever cleaned, although
after 9 years of age the incidence of disease appeared Somewhat less among the girls.