Nervous Children
REVIEWS AND CRITICISM. :Author: Beverly R. Tucker, M.D. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1916. Pp. 147.
Dr Tucker writes as a neurologist, but not for neurologists. What strikes most forcibly a student of psychology is his apparent failure to grasp the psychological problems of nervous and mentally deficient children, and his lack of any reference to the large and growing psychological literature on their training. His book has no bibliography, not even an index of names. Freud and Cornell he quotes, but he says nothing about Dr Barr’s work on “Mental Defectives,” and Dr Goddard he cites only to misspell his name in connection with a very inadequate reference to the Binet-Simon tests. No other tests are mentioned except medical ones. “Following chiefly Professor James,” Dr Tucker defines psychology as “the explanation of consciousness.” In three pages he attempts to discuss sensation, perception, memory, imagination, habit, will, and emotion, and is moved candidly to admit, “In this chapter we have been very brief and very superficial.” With the exceptions noted it would appear that like too many other conservative physicians, Dr Tucker ignores the work of all but medical men.
Most of his advice to parents seems discreet and sound, especially with regard to sex hygiene. “Individual cases,” he says, “will have to be worked out by those in control and to these it is right to say: be deliberate, wise, and cautious.” But with regard to conduct one is led to the conclusion that Dr Tucker believes a child had better not have been born, if he cannot be respectable. Dr Tucker is master of a fine literary style. His book will be found readable by nearly everyone, and may be an admirable “first book” for one who knows little about nervous children. That it can’possibly serve alone as a source of information is not to be thought of. It might satisfy an idle curiosity, but it is by no means extensive enough or intensive enough to be used either as a text or as a reference. A. T.
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