are the most important, appearing 194 times as a major factor and 158 times as a minor factor. Bad environment is ranked as third in importance, but the author includes in this term only a few of the elements of environment, such as "contaminating employment conditions," "vicious neighborhood," and "away from home without protection." Mental abnormality was found to run through so many of the other classes that it was not presented statistically as a separate factor, but the author states that it ranks with bad home conditions and bad environment in its importance. Chapters are devoted to other factors, such as bad companions, recreational disadvantages, educational disadvantages, early sex experiences, heredity, abnormal physical condition, sexual suggestibility, abnormal sexualism, mental conflict, and assault, incest, and rape. The general point of view is that these environmental and hereditary conditions affect the mental attitude of the mother, and the problem of control is the problem of preventing or modifying this mental attitude. The book contains many valuable suggestions with regard to the methods by which this may be accomplished. In an appendix there is an outline of legislative enactments deemed desirable as one means of solving the problem of illegitimacy. WILLIAM JEWELL COLLEGE H. E. SUTHERLAND La Guerra e la Popolazione. By FRANCO SAVORGNAN. Bologna: question of subject peoples and, while not proposing any dogmatic solution, rejects the Bolshevik formula of a plebiscite as unpractical and infantile. The author reviews with considerable penetration the whole subject of war and human selection and draws two general conclusions: first, that primitive warfare was, on the whole, favorably selective of both individuals and groups; secondly, that modern armed conflict is dysgenic and antiselective because it not only destroys the best elements in the population but also depresses the standard of living for the survivors because of the huge destruction of property. On these points he follows, in general, Gumplowicz and the modern English eugenists, particularly Leonard Darwin. He stresses especially the dysgenic effects of venereal diseases spread during war time among both the soldiers and the civilian population and ends with a none too rosy outlook in his commentary upon a quotation from Benjamin Franklin to the effect that 'wars are not paid for in war time; the bill comes later." In analyzing the demographical effects of war he rejects flatly the theory that nature will at once and automatically begin to repair damages and losses by a higher birth-rate, particularly of males. He shows clearly a reduction in the marriage and birth rates in the warring countries since 1914, and, while naturally the figures are rather scanty for comparison with such periods as, say, the years after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, yet the general impression. is that there is no immediate and automatic filling of the gaps. Indeed the French levies of as late as 1890 still bore the marks of 1870, since there was a shortage of some thirty thousand men below what the population might normally have been expected to produce for military service that year. As to economic recovery after the war, the author can find no absolute and uniform assurance, but concludes that it will vary with several factors in each state, such, for example, as demographic and economic constitution, reproductive capacity, and productive energy on the one hand, and the amount of the destruction of life and wealth entailed by the war on the other. There is also to be reckoned the psychological factor of the extent of victory or defeat and the terms imposed by the victor. In this connection a rather interesting forecast is made of the length of time necessary to recover losses in population suffered by four of the leading warring nations. According to this calculation Germany and Great Britain will require twelve years to make good their losses, Italy thirty-seven, and France sixty-nine. While these figures have no absolute value, they are at least highly suggestive. Perhaps in the case of France the relative disadvantage will be overcome if a sufficiently large number of our young men justify the popular report and remain as settlers in France. But since this whole question of population is one of quality rather than of quantity, the post-bellum problem of population will be essentially a problem in eugenics; not, therefore, of blind and headlong procreation, but of eugenic criteria based on intelligence, reason, and science. Thus the author ranges himself distinctly with the liberal eugenists, and his three most significant chapters, namely, "Selezione e Guerra," "Gli Effetti demografici della guerra," and "Il Problema della popolazione dopo la guerra," are distinctly broad-gauge essays on race eugenics. The book is engagingly written and attractively printed with a fairly adequate table of contents but no real index. UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA ARTHUR J. TODD Lawrence Social Survey. By F. W. BLACKMAR and E. W. BURGESS, Department of Sociology, Lawrence, Kan. Pp. 125. This survey, which has already influenced the social life of Lawrence, contains material of value to all interested in the social conditions of our smaller cities. It is clearly written, gives evidence of accuracy, and demonstrates courage. The first chapter, "Land and Its People," has information regarding home conditions seldom found in surveys and very significant to the sociologists. The survey would have had added usefulness if it had contained a greater amount of graphic material for illustration and a summary of conditions and recommendations at the end. E. R. GROVES NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIVERSITY Problems of Subnormality. By J. E. WALLACE WALLIN. With an Introduction by JOHN W. WITHERS, PH.D. Yonkerson-Hudson, N.Y.: World Book Co., 1917. Pp. xv+485. $3.00. Mr. Wallin's book on Problems of Subnormality treats of the following topics: the history of the recognition and treatment of feeble-mindedness; the scientific standards in use in identifying the feeble-minded, in deciding which of them should be excluded entirely from school, which of them assigned to classes for the feeble-minded, which assigned to classes for permanently backward children, and how to distinguish between temporary and permanent retardation; the organization of public-school education for the subnormal; social and industrial policies toward the subnormal; legal codes dealing with subnormality; and the hygiene of eugenic generation. This review will attempt to state briefly the stand taken by the author on each of these topics. The chapter on the history of the movement, entitled "Changing Attitudes," is one of the most interesting in the book. It treats very briefly of the cruelty of the ancient world toward the feeble-minded and the various superstitious and religious prejudices with regard to them. The modern attitude toward the feeble-minded had its source in the attempts made in the eighteenth century to develop methods of teaching the deaf and the blind. The first case of a systematic attempt to teach a feeble-minded child was that of the famous boy over whom Itard labored from 1800 to 1804. Seguin, a pupil of Itard, established the first successful school for the feeble-minded in Paris in 1837. Since it was Seguin himself who, after coming to the United States during the revolution of 1848, established our first schools for the feeble-minded and led the movement here until his death in 1880, the very brief historical period during which these unfortunates have had the benefit of scientific interest is strikingly brought home to us. The latter part of the chapter discusses the present status of institutional care for the feeble-minded in this country and the provision for them in special classes in the public school. The chapter on "Who Is Feeble-minded" is a very long one, containing an analysis of the basis on which children have been admitted to various institutions and the proportion of feeble-minded found by various investigators among groups of delinquents. The author's point is that the wide variation in results shows that as yet there is very little uniformity in the standards of measuring feeble-mindedness used by various investigators. He is himself in favor of setting a mental age of ten years as the upper limit of feeble-mindedness. The author presents convincing evidence that this standard is a better one than the twelve-year limit which has been so widely used. Those of us who have had extensive experience in testing adults of limited education engaged in unskilled work and who know how many of them would fall in the group of the feeble-minded (about 40 per cent) if twelve years were regarded as the upper limit are sure that Mr. Wallin's ten-year standard is the more reasonable one to use while awaiting the establishment of a really scientific basis of decision. As yet no uniform standard for excluding children from school on the ground of feeble-mindedness has been adopted. No public schools accept idiots. Some of them accept imbeciles, and all of them accept morons. In St. Louis no child with a mental age below five years is accepted. Since this means that a child with an intelligence quotient of 60 could not be received in school until he was eight years of age, the standard seems a little severe. A standard of admission based upon an intelligence quotient is more reasonable. Such a standard is in use in Cincinnati, where no child of ten years or less can be received in school if his intelligence quotient falls below 50. The author lays a great deal of stress on the necessity for fixing with great accuracy the dividing line between the feeble-minded and the merely backward. To do so, he argues, requires great skill and very thorough training. He considers it a serious injustice in the educational world to place a child who is merely backward in a class with feebleminded children. He lays so much stress on this phase of the task of the clinical psychologist that one would suppose that he regarded feeblemindedness as a distinct entity which differed definitely in quality from normality. However, such is not the case. He assures us that his conception of feeble-mindedness is that it is merely the lower portion of our unbroken series of mental abilities. It is hard to understand, if this is so, why the exact classification of individuals in the border-line region becomes so supremely important a matter. That the group of children who should be regarded as merely backward and should be placed in ungraded or industrial classes is much larger than those who can definitely be called feeble-minded and who should be placed in classes for the feeble-minded is doubtless true. As Mr. Wallin points out, the ultimate criterion of normality must be the stock of mental ability which makes it possible for an individual to earn a living and be fairly safe at large. What the minimum amount for this purpose is we can tell only approximately at present. We need much more careful studies of the social careers of adults whose mental status is accurately known. Such studies are now being made in various parts of the country, but scarcely enough time has elapsed since scientific records of mental status have been kept to make them convincing. Meanwhile the exact decision about border-line cases which Mr. Wallin seems to expect of the skilled clinical psychologist remains a very illusory goal. The chief addition to our present educational provision for the feebleminded which Mr. Wallin recommends is the establishment of homes as part of the public-school system of large cities. None of our present |