Abstract
AN outstanding characteristic of this book is its consistently maintained scientific outlook. For the author, facts are facts, even though they come within the category of things that are not ‘nice’. But more than this, the survey of facts, in the form of records concerning actual children, precedes any attempt at interpretation and generalisation. In other words, in the author's hands the study of children passes the stage of mere opinion based yupon a slender stock of observations, and reaches the stage of a real inductive inquiry. Though the main purpose of the investigation is simply the advance of knowledge, yet the author has some wise advice to give by the way to experienced teachers and to intelligent parents. She is clear, for example, that “the explosive material of the unconscious” can be safely touched only by the trained analyst, and she is cautious hi her statements about the amount and kind of psychological instruction that is good for the amateur. Critical appreciation of her work must be left to the journals which specialise in child study; but we desire to recognise the value of this book as an example of scientific method applied to an elusive subject of inquiry. It worthily succeeds her former work on “Intellectual Growth in Young Children”.
Social Development in Young Children: a Study of Beginnings.
Dr.
Susan
Isaacs
By. Pp. xii + 480. (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1933.) 15s. net.
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Social Development in Young Children: a Study of Beginnings. Nature 132, 840 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132840c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132840c0