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This interesting work on adolescence was written by the professor of neurology and the professor of clinical pediatrics in Washington University (St. Louis) Medical School. Dr. Veeder writes the first three chapters, which stress the physical side of adolescence and discuss briefly the function of work (school work) and play during this period. Dr. Schwab then takes up the discussion and throughout the remaining chapters develops the thesis shared by both authors, i.e., that the adolescent problem is essentially a social one and to be understood only in so far as we can understand the environmental setting in which the adolescent finds himself. This is an interesting point of view and one which has been more or less neglected in our studies of development.
The approaches to the study of adolescence, viz. through pedagogy, pediatrics, experimental psychology, intelligence measurement and the traditional knowledge which has been accumulating through ages of observation, are discussed. Though the contribution of psychoanalysis is later touched upon, no reference is here made to the clinical studies of delinquent and abnormal adolescents, to which we owe certainly the greater part of whatever knowledge of the subject we possess. Dr. Schwab's method is to “try to view the person in as detached a manner as possible and to avoid putting into his problem those of one's own and further to make guarded use of any and all methods which seem to promise accurate information.”
The definition of adolescence is found on page 52—“that period in the life cycle which represents impulses towards conscious social adjustments and the overcoming of conflicts, which naturally arise, by their final molding into sets of habitual patterns,” Adaptation, repression of both actions and ideas, and phantasy are characterized as the chief mechanisms whereby the adolesce'nt handles his conflict. The conflict itself is initiated when the child becomes aware of the environment, composed “not only of thi