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Dr. Howard is Professor of Education and Psychology at Middle-bury College, and Dr. Patry is psychiatrist with the State Education Department, University of New York. This book, therefore, is a collaboration by psychology and psychiatry toward the common end—mental hygiene. From this alliance is brought together an enormous amount of theoretical and applied knowledge on the subject from the fields of psychology, biology, sociology, psychiatry and philosophy. Although the publishers have constructed a volume of moderate size, it is nevertheless in content a rather formidable work, with 540 closely written pages and innumerable charts, outlines, classifications and diagrams. Evidently the book has been prepared primarily for workers in the field of mental hygiene, and it is rightly claimed that such persons should avoid too great specialization and should bring sound and broadly based scientific and philosophical points of view to bear upon their subject.
Although not definitely stated, it may be assumed that Dr. Howard is the author of the first and more theoretical half of the work, and that Dr. Patry is responsible for the remainder. This second part is a comprehensive psychiatric treatise on mental deviations of the functional type, with special emphasis on problems of childhood and adolescence. The first part of the book reflects the classroom rather than the clinical field. Outlines, summaries and paragraph headings follow the conventional textbook pattern. Extensive bibliographies and a series of questions bearing on the text follow each chapter.