The AdolescentHow Fare American Youth? by Homer P. Rainey; Do Adolescents Need Parents? by KatharineWhiteside Taylor; Rediscovering the Adolescent. by Hedley S. Dimock; Social Psychology ofAdolescence. by E. DeAlton Partridge; The Adolescent. by Ada Hart ArlittReview by: Ernest R. GrovesSocial Forces, Vol. 17, No. 4 (May, 1939), pp. 563-564Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2570712 .

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LIBRARY AND WORKSHOP 563

THE ADOLESCENT

ERNEST R. GROVES

University of North Carolina

How FARE AMERICAN YOUTH? By Homer P. Rainey and others. New York: D. Appleton-Century Compahy, I938. i86 pp. $I.50.

Do ADOLESCENTS NEED PARENTS? By Katharine Whiteside Taylor. New York: D. Appleton- Century Company, I938. 380 pp. $o.5o.

REDISCOVERING THE ADOLESCENT. By Hedley S. Dimock. New York: Association Press, I937. 2.87 PP. $2.75-

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY oF ADOLESCENCE. By E. DeAlton Partridge. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., I938.

36I pp. $2.75. TEE ADOLESCENT. By Ada Hart Arlitt. New York:

Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., I938. 2.42. PP. $2.oo.

Adolescence is sociologically the most dramatic period of life. It undoubtedly also proves for many individuals the most trying period of their pre-adult career. Parents likewise find that not only does it test their patience and sympathy but brings them puzzling questions of policy. To the scientist the storm and stress ex- periences of youth invite investigation because of the unique physical, psychic, and social conditions that characterize passage out of childhood. This eagerness of science to explore adolescence has brought us recently some important books.

How Fare American Youth? Those in- terested in young people will be attracted first of all to this survey of the present predicament of American youth. The book is a realistic description gathered frotn several investigations and interprets the situation of our young people in re- gard to jobs, schools, health, recreation, the home, and civic conditions, with a separate chapter dealing with rural youth and Negro youth. Although the picture presented of the contemporary problems of our young people will give any thoughtful reader some emotional disquiet, the book

is optimistic in its confidence in the abil- ity of youth to make good use of modern resources and to adjust to the changing conditions, providing there is developed by adult leadership a more intelligent social program. For example, the chap- ter on the schools shows that, although the secondary school should be attempting to provide a liberal education for the common life of the whole population, it still functions in the spirit of its former restricted, intellectual aristocracy and gets no farther in its notions of reconstruc- tion than to propose reorganization of the materials of instruction. Thus the high school with its prestige emphasis on the language-mathematics curriculum, conceived in a one-time social situation, exploits youth and menaces social security.

Do Adolescents Need Parents? is a product of the Commission on Human Relations of the Progressive Education Association. It seeks to help both children and parents to make better adjustment to each other and to life.

R1ediscovering the Adolescent, a study of personality development in adolescent boys, presents the results of an intensive investigation of two hundred boys whose careers were studied for two years, during the critical change for most of them from pre-pubescence to post-pubescence. It deals with the chief aspects of adolescent behavior and emotional stress. Adoles- cence is interpreted as a growth not essentially different in character from that preceding in the child and in the infant.

Social Psychology of Adolescence provides a well-developed, interestingly presented text. It is well adapted for use in classes studying the problems, the characteristics,

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564 SOCIAL FORCES

and the social influences and organizations that influence youth.

The Adolescent, prepared for parents hav- ing children between the ages of twelve to twenty-one, is a practical book, grappling with the problems that most often vex parents and providing insight that is not the less significant because it is presented in such a clear and interesting form. It reveals on the part of the author a close contact with common emotional relation- ships between parents and children as well as with the more obvious social problems.

The last paragraph in the book illustrates its spirit and style and gives a good exam- ple of its constructiveness:

In spite of the fact that there has been so much criticism of modern youth, young people appear to be interested in marriage and to a far greater degree in the stability of the marriage relation than we have been led to suspect. By far the major propor- tion of them seem to be interested in rearing families. If this is true, education must be provided. This edu- cation should cover not only the processes involved in homemaking, such as buying, budgeting and management, child care, and cooking, but must cover human relationships as well.

RELIGION AS MEN I-IAVE SEEN IT

L. L. BERNARD

Washington University

THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL. By Costen J. Harrell. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1933. 2.35 PP. $I.50.

LUTHER'S THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT FROM ERFURT

To AUGSBURG. By Albert Hyma. New York: F. S. Crofts and Co., I938. 90 pp.

MYSTICISM AND DEMOCRACY IN THE ENGLISH COMMON-

WEALTH. By Rufus M. Jones. Cambridge: Har- vard University Press, I932.. I84 PP. $2.00.

THE LITERARY LIFE OF THE EARLY FRIENDS, i650- I72.5. By Luella M. Wright. New York: Co- lumbia University Press, I932.. 309 PP. $3.00.

PIETISM AS A FACTOR IN THE RISE OF GERMAN NATION-

ALISM. By Koppel S. Pinson. New York: Co- lumbia University Press, I934. 2Z7 PP. $3.75.

DEISM IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY AMERICA. By Her-

bert M. Morais. New York: Columbia Uni- versity Press, I934. 2.03 PP. $3.50.

REPUBLICAN RELIGION. By G. Adolf Koch. New York: Henry Holt and Co., I933. 334 PP. $3.00.

SORCELLERIE ET RELIGION. By Henri Pensa. Paris: Librairie Felix Alcan, I933. 384 PP. 2o fr.

RELIGION IN THE VICTORIAN ERA. By L. E. Elliott- Binns. London: Lutterworth Press, I936. 5X6 PP. I5-.

CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE AND RELIGION.

By Halford E. Luccock. Chicago: Willett, Clark and Co., I934. 300 PP. $X.00.

CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS THINKING. Edited by R. W. Searle, D.D., and F. A. Bowers, D.D. New York: Falcon Press, I933. I2. PP. $2.00.

WHAT IS THE OXFORD GROUP? By The Layman with a Notebook. New York: Oxford University

Press, I933. I32 PP.- $I.z5.

THE OXFORD GROUP MOVEMENT. By Herbert Hensley Henson, D.D. New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1933. 82 pp. $i.oo.

GOD, MAN, AND SOCIETY: AN INTRODUCTION TO

CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY. By V. A. Demant. Mil- waukee: Morehouse. Publishing Co., I934. 2Z4

PP. $X.00. VERITE ET REVELATION. By D. Draghicesco. Paris:

Librairie Felix Alcan, I934. X vOls. I050 PP. EL RENACIMIENTO DEL CATOLICISMO EN FRANCIA. By

Rafael Pividal (h). Buenos Aires: Viau y Zona, I936. 365 pp.

THE ATTITUDE OF THE JEWISH STUDENT IN THE COL-

LEGES AND UNIVERSITIES TOWARDS HIS RELIGION.

By Marvin Nathan. New York: Block Pub- lishing Co., I93Z. 264 PP.

In this group of seventeen books we see displayed almost the whole range of reli- gious opinion. The only phase that is lacking is an adequate representation of primitive religion and magic, and this is partly supplied by Pensa's work on sorcery and magic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Harrell's Prophets of Israel is a semi-popular exposition of the socio-ethical contributions of the prophets from Moses to the Greek period. The author provides a generous cultural back- ground for his analysis and offers one of

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