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ticularly in 'slum areas,' without necessarily involving (if
care and thought be exercised in its administration) undue
intervention by the State in the sphere of parental respon
sibilities or in the duties and influences of any properlyordered
home "
In Willesden children are selected on a poverty basis.
While not in any way suggesting that this basis should be
forgotten, it was not by any means the primary intention
of the Legislature that this should be the basis on which
children should be selected, and it seems to me important,
and, indeed, necessary, that the physical test should be
associated with the poverty test.
By the physical test is meant that primary regard
should be had to the evidences of insufficient feeding, as
shown or indicated by the child, and this should be considered
in connection with the social or economic circumstances
of the parent, before a child is removed from the
feeding list.
Primarily it would be the duty of the teacher, acting
in or without consultation with the Medical Officer, as the
urgency of the case might demand, to place a child on the
feeding list. It would then be the duty of the Medical
Officer to bring before the Committee a report on the case,
dealing with the state of nutrition of the child, and the
economic circumstances of the family, in order that the
Committee might decide as to the advisability or otherwise
of retaining the child's name on the feeding roll.
In order that these social enquiries may be made without
delay, it will be necessary to add a Health Visitor to the
existing staff. At the present time the making of such
enquiries and the keeping of the records of the changes in
home circumstances, is more than one person's, and probably
two persons' work, but under normal circumstances
it is probably less than the full-time occupation of one
Health Visitor. It is, therefore, important that the person