Medicine: Children to Feed

When it comes to educating the U. S. Child, the national government in the person of Commissioner of Education George Frederick Zook is a Dutch uncle who can give advice but no cash (TIME, Sept. 18). But when the U. S. Child needs food, clothing or shelter the Government is a generous, ingenious New England Auntie, with Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins acting the part. U. S. Children’s Bureau investigators last week told her that perhaps 6,000,000 wretched U. S. children were beginning school undernourished. Miss Perkins at once summoned a conference of doctors, dietitians, educators and sociologists. They meet two weeks hence to determine the magnitude and extent of the problem, best remedies. Exclaimed Miss Perkins, who has a 16-year-old child of her own, Susanna Winslow Perkins Wilson, “No amount of statistics and no number of bulletins can take the place of a lamb chop and a glass of milk at the right moment.”