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In his introduction the author tells us that this volume is based upon a course of lectures delivered in 1921 to an audience of educationalists and parents, and, therefore, as is to be expected, it is written in popular non-scientific style appropriate to the general public. For this very reason it is especially important that such a book should be accurate in its conceptions and terminology (if these conditions are fulfilled 'popular' works dealing with profound and complex subjects can be of undoubted value), but the present volume can hardly be said to carry out such a demand.
The title itself is ambiguous—what exactly is the connotation of 'The New Psychology', one wonders—and its vagueness seems to suggest that the author has no very definite conclusions as to his view point; certain it is that to-day the term 'New Psychology' is being made to cover such extraordinarily disparate things as Freud's theories, Couéism, the speculations of Jung and the dithyrambics of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, and it would be well to know for which of these Dr. Crichton Miller stands. It seems that he intends to deal with the most modern theories in psychology and their application to educational theory and practice, and the topics treated cover a wide range. The following chapter-headings show something of the scope of the book: 'Authority and Suggestibility' (chap. ii), 'Reality and Phantasy' (chap. iii), 'Bmotional Development' in the boy and girl (chap. iv & v), 'Mental Mechanisms' (chap. vii), 'Dream Symbolism' (chap. viii)
There is a great deal of quite interesting matter in this volume, especially in the direction of helpful practical considerations and apt illustration. The last chapter, 'Educational Methods' (pp. 219-32), one of the best in the book, makes some useful applications to pressing problems and points out some methods of solution: the valuable aspects of the Montessori Method, the Boy Scout Movement, the 'free' school experiments (e.g. Oundle, St. George's Harpend