This text-book, which is addressed to American high-school teachers, aims at giving 'a comprehensive picture of the adolescent years'. It includes suggestions for alterations of the curriculum and guidance regarding practical difficulties. For instance, the author is emphatic in recommending treatment by specialists wherever serious psychical maladjustment occurs. The book is largely based on tests of all kinds and questionnaires, but it also contains many short case histories. It has an immense bibliography and the author seems to write from a wide experience.

Dr. L. Cole regards adolescence as a 'new phenomenon and as one peculiar to our civilization', but is she right in thinking that it is because it is new that we know so little about it? It is a facile point of view, and is perhaps responsible for the fact that psycho-analysis is practically omitted as 'not objectively proven'.