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This little volume is a direct attack on one of the major ills of our civilization and the resulting burdens of human unhappiness. The author deals with an investigation of more than 200 cases of cruelty to children—an approach which will make shocking reading to the uninformed.
Beginning with a series of short cases, he shows that the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children in England reports that of more than 40,000 cases investigated, over 1,000 were so outrageous as to justify court action and only a small percent were actually unfounded. These 40,000 cases represent real maladjustments and it is also obvious that not every case is reported. The startling revelation is that at some time during childhood, one child in 16 is brought to the attention of society and the majority are reported more than once.
Types of cruelty, including jailing, beating, burning, are separated into two general classifications—active cruelty with actual violence or torture, and passive cruelty which includes physical neglect or what the author calls spiritual neglect where the mother “cannot be bothered.”
It focuses the whole question of cruelty to children on the concept of the home, bringing out the problem of interpersonal tensions, both environmental and biological in nature. In a superficial fashion he approaches problems of Oedipal conflict and the difficulties of unwanted children. He stresses, and rightly, “that the number of cases of neglect and cruelty which will arise in 20 years' time are being determined now.”
Specific precipitating factors producing poor homes are poverty, low intelligence, ignorance, overburdened motherhood, irresponsibility, deficient maternal instinct and emotional immaturity. The author indicates that these factors are interrelated and properly concludes that specific single causology can never be exactly determined, even in a single case.
The bulk of the text discusses in some detail these various etiologies and the author also discusses at some len