A long correspondence has been going on in the Times
on the diet in public schools, which is said to be insufficient and badly cooked. The utility of the discussion has been a little dimin- ished by the reluctance to mention establishments, but there can be no doubt that the complaint is very general, and more or less well founded. Groveiuglads at groat public schools, for whom their fathers pay from £120 to 2200 a year, constantly complain of being half-starved. Indeed, the schools admit the complaint, for most of them allow "extra diet," for an extra charge. The representatives of the schools defend themselves by alleging that they supply sufficient meat,—which is true ; and that boys are dainty,—which is only true thus far. Boys are exceptions ally dainty about badly cooked food, but they are dainty from instinct, not from wilfulness. Scores of them cannot eat fat, or uuden.done meat, or greasy food, or washy vegetables, even when they are hungry, and it is in the cooking that the great schools fail. The cooks want more management, and in half the schools a house committee of the elder boys would be as useful as the similar committee in a club.
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