Most of those not in school are girls because of the favoritism toward boys and discrimination against girls. The most effective attraction anyone has yet devised to bring youngsters into the schools and keep them there is a good school lunch program. The American school lunch program is the envy of the world. At the recent convention in St. Louis of the American School Food Service Association there were visitors from half a dozen foreign countries, including Japan, who were there to find out how they should erect school lunch programs. Children can't learn on an empty stomach.
Nutrition is the precondition of education.
I believe the Georgia Dean was right then, and based on what he told me so many years ago, I know that he would support a daily school lunch for every child across the world. If we could achieve the goal of reaching 300 million hungry children with one good meal every day, that would transform life on this planet. One enormous benefit from such an effort is that it would help mightily in breaking down the barriers to the education of girls. Third World parents will send both girls and boys to school if lunches are provided. One significant benefit of an international school lunch program is that it would raise the income of American farmers and those in other countries that have farm surpluses.