The New York herald., 1922-12-31

feminist movement. In his book on
"Heredity and Child Culture" (Dutton).
DR.. Chaplin, who is President of the Chill
dren's Welfare Federation of New York
concludes: While women have striven
for advancement in all phases of present
day activities, science. art, literature and
social organization they have often not
kept pace with a wiser regimen in the rear
ing of children"
AS a remedy, he suggests "It might be
well to establish schools of motherhood
where, based upon general foundation
of biology, the students could be taught
the hygiene, physiology and psychology of
childhood" And he adds satirically
such school might confer a degree
that would be equivalent to that obtained
by becoming proficient in ancient his
tory or the parallelopiped of forces"
Ten years ago in her book on ''The
Woman Movement Ellen Key predicted
that the modern woman's "Amaternal
ideas" would evoke a violent reaction on
on the part of men. Perhaps we are be-
ginning to see the fulfillment of this
prophecy. At any rate many women who
are anxious to undertake their feminine
roles with the same intelligent equipment
that they tackle masculine ones will be in
terested in three recent books on the SUBJ
ject of child training: Angelo Patri's
Child Training (Appleton), Mary E.
Bayley's Practical Talks on the Care of
Children" (Dutton) and DR.. Chapin's
"Heredity and Child Culture" (Dutton).
The latter includes more scientific theory
than the other two books. Angelo Patri's
treatment is the most human.
Dr. Chaplin divides his discussion of
heredity into organic and social inherit
ance. He contributes nothing new on
these subjects and merely recapituates,
clearly and briefly, the familiar hypothe-
sizes: Lamarck's acquired characteristics, ;
Darwin's Natural Selection, Weismann's
continuity of the germ plasm" and Men
dels dominant and recessve character
istics.'' After reluctantly admitting "in
respect to organic heredity there are many
gaps in our knowledge Dr. Chaplin points
out that in recent years an increasing
emphasis has been placed on the i'm
portance of environmental factors and nc
concludes that organic inheritance may
be largely modified by social in
heritance. This viewpoint recalls Shaw's
preface to Back to Methuselah" where the
scientific determinism of our parents gen.
Grafton is attacked and derided.
moral Culture" is dismissed by DR..
Chapin in ten pages while he devoteS
twenty to proper Nutrition" and six to
Nerve Culture" thus revealing the
physicians sense of values, yet he finds
that materialism ais losing ground as an
Interpretation of life to the thinking
classes"
After discussing child rearing from in
fancy to school age, DR.. Chaplin writes on
the problem of the dependent child and the
ilIegitimate. AS a clear resume, the book
is admirable but ii obviously suffers from
its limitation of 213 pages.
Angelo Patri has avoided the usual cold,
didactic tone used by those who give ad-
vice on how to bring up children. His
book might be called a primer for parents.
so simple and direct is its style. And it
is an alive sympathetic primer, too.
Probably, this is because Patri is principal
of Public School As in the Bronx. The
problem is not an academic one for him.
You can hear him patiently explaining to
an excited parent not to be so alarmed
about her Mary. You feel he has been con-
frc"ted with every childish trouble from
snuffles to tantrums and has met them
all with love.