Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1919 — HOT LUNCH BIG HELP TO CHILD [ARTICLE]

HOT LUNCH BIG HELP TO CHILD

Noon Meal for Youth Which Contains No Hot Dish Considered Back Number. DEMONSTRATION AGENT AIDS Department of Agriculture Officials Planned Easily Prepared Lunches and Taught Teachers How to Cook Simple Foods. No, you didn’t have any hot food at noon when you attended the lift 1 e red school to which you trudged over two miles of roads that always seemed muddy, dusty, hr waist deep with snow. But wouldn’t even a hot cupful of cocoa have doubled your enjoyment of the stone-cold lunch? Few grown-bps eat absolutely cold lunches day after day without grumbling, and yet that is what generations of school children have been supposed to do and to be able to recite brilliantly after stoking their little stomachs with that kind of fuel. Hot Lunches in Rural Schools. This is an age of progress, and what was considered good enough by grandfather is scorned by his grand?, son. Those who were in close touch' with the educational problem, both in the city and country, realized what a hanm cap the child labored under who ate the average school lunch. The hot school lunch was, and Is, the solution of what to do for many an apparently dull child. Packing_ thenoanday limclifor ..the, school children is a very incidental mothers, and the basket’s contents show it. Cold grldflle cakes, left from breakfast;~soda biscuits, slabs of pie, pickles, and other unsuitables form the bulk of the lunch. Then Kitty and Tommy, after eating this, are expected to guess the location of Kamchatka at the'first try. „ Aid of Demonstration Agents. Nearly every school superintendent realized the necessity of changing or supplementing this kind of a lunch, and it was done in many places. The rank and file of, teachers, however, had had no training in dietetics and some of them couldn’t cook at all. Here was where the home demonstration agent’s help was found invaluable* In every state in the Union —almost In every county—the home demonstration agents from the department of agriculture, who work In co-operation with the state agricultural colleges, have helped with the school-lunch problem. They have planned easily prepared lunches, taught how to cook

simple foods, and when more extensive plans were desired, helped the teacher to organize the families of the children attending her school. The United States department of agriculture has a publication which tells how to mase school lunches more attractive anti more nutritious. It is Farmers’ Bulletin 712, and will be sent on request. In most schools all that is attempted to Serve is hot cocoa, soup, or creamed dishes. But in some localities the whole lunch is a community affair, one family sending enough food of one kind for all. Many mothers with two or three lunch baskets to pack prefer Instead to send a pan of baked beans, two loaves of raisin bread, or an entire cake. When this method is followed, the teacher plans so the burden is shared equally. Each family is furnished once a week* with a slip telling what is expected from it on each school day. This works out successfully in localities where the communlty life is strong. ■ Many ways of distributing the work at the school are used. In some localities each child furnishes its own dishes; In others they are provided by the school. A community adopts the plan best fitted to its needs. One of the plans of the home demonstration agents for the ctffhing year is to see that every rural child will have a fair chance to develop into the strong, useful citizen he was intended to be, and they feel the hot lunch is one of the potent factors. Keep Cloth Looking Like New. To have fabrics, after laundering, possess their original appearance, care must be taken with colored materials that they do not fade, and with white materials that they remain snow white. ASlde from this, Suggests the department of agriculture, much depends on the sizing of cloth. Too much stiffening spoils its appearance and too little is quite as bad.* stiffening ordinary clothing. Starch keeps the clothes clean longer and also acts as an absorbent for stain, thus saving wear on the fiber by making excess friction in laundering unnecessary. Manufacturers add other substances besides starch to their finished mixture and their practices have been adopted in home laundry work with success. For instance, borax gives smoothness r paraffin, wax or turpentine give gloss; “and alum a certain degree of pliability. The substance used tn whiten is bluing, which counteracts the yellow tinge. To use any finishing process successfully the mixture must be carefully worked,, into the fabric to insure uniform finish. This is done by dipping in and out of the starch and bluing and rubbing well between the hands.