In his presidential address to the annual conference of the
National Union of Teachers last Saturday, Mr. R. J. Patten laid striking emphasis on the Social activity for which the school serves as a centre today. As he said, the work of the teacher is now a great social service. It is therefore only natural that teachers should show some concern over the Government's programme to promote physical fitness and the methods of carrying it out. Mr. Patten expressed the teachers' sympathy with the plan, but added certain valuable reservations. If its aims are to be achieved, it must, as the White Paper itself said, be supplemented by provisions to secure proper nutrition, decent housing and working con- ditions. No doubt the as yet unpublished part of the Government's programme will provide for such measures ; Mr. Patten, for his profession, showed a natural anxiety, which others share, that they should be made public. He pointed out that, if the present generation is to benefit by the Government's proposals, local authorities must show greater speed in carrying them out. Even more necessary is it that the powers to give free meals to necessitous children should be exercised by the too local authorities, many of them in the depressed areas, which have still not made use of them.
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