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This is an extraordinarily good book. It is so rich in content that it becomes hard either to describe it or to praise it without making extensive quotations.
The book is not in any sense a popular exposition. It is addressed to the scientific public, particularly to serious students of psychology and education. In other words, it is a very valuable contribution to educational psychology, one well worthy to rank with Mrs. Isaacs' now famous Intellectual Growth in Young Children. It is in fact a direct counterpart of the latter volume, the second of a trilogy the authoress is planning, and is largely based on the same clinical material as that was.
Without argument, and by sheer industry, Mrs. Isaacs is helping to remove the reproach—never very much justified—that it is impossible for students to disengage psycho-analytic data from psycho-analytic interpretations. She goes so far in making concessions to this would-be scientific criticism as to propose publishing a third volume taken up with Individual Histories. More than ever will one now be able to retort that such criticism is not merely misdirected, but is a sign of sheer ignorance.
Of the present volume half consists of data alone with no comment whatever. Most of this was obtained from systematic observation of thirty-one children from her Malting House School for over three years. This has been amplified by a mass of other material she has personally collected. In addition she makes considerable use of Katherine Bridge's extensive collection of data; though she does not agree with the latter's distinctly limited conclusions. After a short introduction, the records of data are given in a highly classified form under such headings as 'Family Play'; 'Exhibitionism', (a) Direct, (b) Verbal; 'Group Hostility', (a) To strangers, (b) To adults, (c) To younger children, etc.
Most of the rest of the book is 'The Theory of Development'. The previous headings are taken one by one and the data fully expounded. Th