be insisted upon from the parents.

"8. That it is undesirable that meals should be served in rooms
habitually used for teaching purposes, and that the Regulations of
the Board of Education should carry this recommendation into
effect.

"9. That whilst strong testimony has been placed before the
Committee to the effect that the teachers have given and are giving
admirable service in the way of supervising the provision of meals
to the children, it is the opinion of the Committee that it ought
not to be made part of the conditions attaching to the appointment
of any teacher that he (or she) shall or shall not take part in
dispensing meals provided for the children, and that the Board of
Education should carry this recommendation into effect."

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Cf. Underfed Children in Continental and American Cities (presented
to Parliament, April 1906).

[21] Cf. _Report on Education_ (_Provision of Meals_) _Bill_, especially
Recommendation 6, Appendix, p. 75.

[22] Cf. Appendix, p. 75.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ORGANISATION OF THE MEANS OF EDUCATION

Throughout we have assumed that it is the duty of the State to see to
the adequate provision, to the due distribution, and to the proper
co-ordination of all the agencies of education, and we have taken up
this position mainly on the ground that neither the adequate provision
nor the proper co-ordination of the means of education can be safely
left to the self-interest of the individual or any group of individuals.
If left to be accomplished by purely voluntary agencies, both the
provision and the co-ordination will remain imperfect, and as a nation
we can no longer neglect the systematic organisation and grading of the
means of education.

But a misapprehension must first be removed. In declaring that all the
agencies of formal education should be under control of the State, it is
not to be inferred that this control should be bureaucratic. In many
minds State control is synonymous with government by inspectors and
other officials of the central authority. But bureaucratic control in a
nation whose government is founded on a representative basis is a
disease rather than a normal condition of such government. In a country
where the sovereign power is vested in an individual or in a limited
number of individuals, bureaucratic control is and must be an essential
feature of its government. On the othe