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This book is one of the publications of the Century Childhood Library, which is bringing together in permanent form the results of the White House Conference on Child Care and Protection called by President Hoover in 1929. Its theme is one that has become trite by now—that the old era is passing, and we are on the threshold of the new, when out of the chaos in which we are struggling, who knows what new forms of order
and beauty may arise? In the meantime children are being born and growing up, and our eyes are opened to see that we must somehow prepare them, not for a future of reasonable security and achievement, but for whatever may come—social reorganization, reevaluation of ethical and religious concepts, revamping of our economic and political machinery, even conceivably for world revolution. Traditional precepts and practices in child-rearing have gone by the board; what can we put in their places ?
The authors discuss “Uncle Sam's child,” as the White House Conference revealed him, and a sorry picture it is in many particulars—nearly a third of the nation's 45,000,000 children physically or mentally handicapped, or schooled in delinquency and crime by their environment. Of the million and a half recognized as specially gifted or potential leaders, only a small number are receiving care and guidance that will assure their full development. And yet we have vast resources of knowledge regarding the physical care and training, the intellectual and emotional development, and the socialization of children; the bulk of the book is devoted to a description and discussion of these resources. The physical requirements of the child, his mental and emotional development, how he forms habits, the part the school plays and the part played by other forces in the community, come in for stimulating and interesting discussion. The authors contrive to get an amazing amount of information as well as challenging comment and criticism into 300-odd pages, and the book is a valuab