READINGS IN THE FAMILY

By E. R. Groves '03 and Lee M. Brooks. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Cos., 1934.

This book by Professor Groves and his collaborator represents a valuable contribution to the literature on the modern family and its problems. It fills a long-felt need. In this source book are gathered numerous excerpts of articles of many writers in many lands. It was the difficult problem of the authors to select from the enormous literature on the subject significant materials which would be trulyrepresentative of historical and recent scholarship. This, it seems, they succeeded admirably in doing.

Only a cursory survey of a book of such enormous scope is possible in this brief review. A sampling of articles included in the historical sections of the book bring to our attention such interesting topics as the role of the husband at child birth (in the primitive family), arguments pro and con regarding original promiscuity, courtship, marriage and divorce in Borneo, woman in later Rome, woman's place in Mediaeval Europe, American colonial parental authority, southern colonial courtship, the pioneer American family, the modern farm family, etc.

The chapters dealing with contemporary problems of the family include a number of very valuable articles; the college girl and marriage, family size and success among graduates of Yale and Harvard, emotional maturing of the boy and girl, child behavior and the size of the family, the family situation and personality development, the risks of birth control, the broken home and delinquency, parental conflicts and their efEects on the personality of children, some psychiatric aspects of crowded living conditions.

The legal, eugenic, educational, economic and mental hygiene approaches to the family comprise the latter part of the book. Here are found articles dealing with such matters as medical certification for marriage, fecundity of the insane, sterilization laws in the various states, preparing college students for marriage and parenthood, spending the family income, family adjustments through consultation, the pre-marital clinic. A chapter on the successful family and one on family research conclude the book.

This book will prove useful to anyone as a book of reference, for use in study classes in schools, churches or parenthood organizations, or as a source book for supplementary readings in college classes It is highly recommended for these pur poses.