FROM what has been said in the foregoing pages, it is an irresistible inference that the greatest of all handicaps a child can have, short of being born hopelessly deficient, is to be born into a home where he will be exposed to mind-deadening or emotion-stressing influences—a home where he will receive neither adequate mental stimulus nor adequate moral training. Under such circumstances, so profound is the influence of the early environment, his growth to a normal manhood is impossible, unless other and more favourable influences from outside the home affect him with sufficient force to offset the home surroundings. Fortunately, this happens in many cases, but, as hospital, asylum, and court[304] records testify in sad abundance, in many cases the adverse home environment proves indeed decisive. And, on the opposite, that child is unquestionably getting the best possible start in life who is born of parents appreciative of his mental needs, sincerely devoted to him, but not over-devoted, watchful of his physical health and alert to prevent him from becoming a slave to his emotions. The purpose of both this book and its predecessor, "Psychology and Parenthood," has been to help this latter class of parents and, perchance, to awaken other parents to the need for giving more care and intelligent attention to their children than they have hitherto been doing.
Certainly, the discoveries of modern psychology and physiology have made it increasingly evident that the business of child-rearing is, of all businesse............