Guiding Your Life: By Josephine A. Jackson, M.D. New York and London: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1937. 343 pp.

This book is intended to furnish helpful advice and directions to mothers, teachers and others handling young children. While there are some shrewd observations on the behavior of children, the general presentation is discursive and superficial. The author's underlying anxiety in dealing with sexual problems of childhood is apparent throughout and is especially striking in her sections on

masturbation, in which she exhorts each mother to a constant and everlasting watchfulness until this 'not to be thought of search for sensation' is given over once and for all (p. 11), lest the growth of the organs be interfered with by their being played with or handled! (p. 27). There is little grasp of the dynamics of emotional development of the child, but rather the presentation of a large number of discrete situations to be manipulated into complacency. The book combines the literary tones of an old fashioned syndicated health column and a book of mental hygiene recipes. It is full of popularizing devices of catch words and phrases, and liberally interspersed with anecdotes and questions-and-answers.