Mrs. Chadwick begins her preface by remarking that "it
may perhaps be an unwise policy to start a book with an explanation or an apology." It would certainly have been germane to explain what was the precise purpose of her book, Adolescent Girlhood (Allen and Unwin, 10s. 6d.), and why it falls into two distinct parts of very different value. Unless the aim were sheer book-making, an attempt to puff out the material to a certain number of words, we can see neither sense nor necessity in prefacing a sound and practical treatise with a couple of amateurish chapters, one on the ethnological, another on the historical aspects of the subject The first is vague to a degree, and consists for the most part in an explanation as to why it has been virtually impossible
to obtain the information which the chapter sets out to give. The second is a string of names and quotations, almost all obvious, and few of them helpful. Of one period the best Mrs. Chadwick can do is to advise us that from the novels of Naomi Micheson (sit) we can get "some impression of how the world must have appeared to the wondering eyes of an adolescent girl then." Further on, Kristin Lavrans. &tier, and the works of Dickens and Thackeray, are cited almost as historical documents. As soon as she gets to the physical and psychological side of her subject, however, Mrs. Chadwick's book becomes really valuable. She is long-winded, but inspired by sympathy and common sense. She pillories the "delightfully shy" theory, has wise and helpful things to say upon the relations of the girl to her parents, and is original, and very sensible, about the girl who feeds herself on gaudy pastries, and why she does it. In effect, she is a poor historian, and an excellent contem- porary realist—even if, on page 210, she seems unaware of the matter-of-fact frankness prevailing between brothers
and sisters nowadays upon subjects which formerly wen taboo. Shorn of two unfortunate chapters, this book may 'be recommended to all who have to do with the welfare st the adolescent girl.
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