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The theme of this book is of obvious interest, and the complexity of the problem of adolescence still further heightens that interest. Adolescence, in both sexes, is so creative a period, often so full of attraction for the adolescent himself (in spite of suffering) and for the more adult, and still so full of obscurity, that its study is one of the most needed pieces of work for the psychologist. The present book
contains many lines of enquiry, many suggestions, which could be made fruitful, but its value is to a large extent stultified by its curious mixture of psychology, religion (of a mystical kind) and moralizing. The chapter-headings show something of the book's attempted scope. After starting with some theories from Schopenhauer, Bergson, Freud, Jung, Adler, among others, and the 'conception of woman as a mysterious being' (chap. I), we pass on to 'The Sexual and Maternal Instincts of the Adolescent Girl' (chap. II), 'The Adolescent Conflict' (chap. III). 'The Sublimation of the Libido' (chap. IV), 'The Adolescent Girl and Love' (chap. VI), 'The Adolescent Girl and her Future' (chaps. VII). Far too much matter is touched upon with too many slight allusions to this and that writer, but there is value in the number of cases giving the adolescent girl's fantasies and desires: this part constitutes the useful material in the book, especially where we are furnished with examples from history (St. Theresa, Margarita Ebner) and literature (Hauptmann's Hannele, Charlotte Brontë's heroines). Chapters V and VI, 'Pathological Manifestations of Libido in Adolescent Girls', and 'The Adolescent Girl and Love', contain some true and useful reflections, especially chapter V in the part dealing with sexual enlightenment. Dr. Blanchard realizes that such enlightenment cannot be easily, nor always satisfactorily, obtained even in the best possible environment. She desires 'the impersonal teaching of biological facts to the child in the course of its school curricul