Emotional Factors in Learning: By Lois Barclay Murphy and Henry Ladd. Sarah Lawrence College Publications, No. 4. New York: Columbia University Press, 1944. 404 pp.

Those who conceive of individual education as catering to the whims and fancies of the student should read this book. It is a realistic clinical account of the actual complexities encountered when a college seriously accepts the proposition that young women require an education in which their interests and needs are discovered and served, if they are to be 'so taught as to live as abundantly as possible—that is, achieve the emotional and intellectual maturity that will make possible the fullest and wisest participation in the contemporary world' (p. 6.). At a time when this country is taking the lead in breaking from authoritarian modes, such reports of pioneering effort are especially relevant. And the psychiatrist will prick up his ears upon hearing: 'When emotional factors in learning are seen to be important not only in problem cases but also in a large proportion—if not all—of the student body, guidance becomes a preoccupation of every day…' (p. 9). Here is our potential clientele; what is a modern college doing to foster emotional maturity and capacity for successful motherhood?

The first part of the book is not strictly in the field of psychiatry. It discusses the functions of educational diagnosis and advice, how to evaluate 'interests' and motivation, how to deal with different learning attitudes, and so on. Beginning with the chapter on Patterns of Personality, it becomes a psychiatric study. A careful survey and follow-through of one entire class disclosed, to be sure, that about half of these girls maintained a relatively unimpeded educational progress: they were integrated persons, ready to go ahead. Individualized education meant for them the exploring of interests, finding of needs, helping with special lacks, and facilitating appropriate projects. It was the other half that the faculty worried about: the ones for whom individualized education meant diagnosis and efforts to remove educational blocks. By no means were these students to be d