The Mind of the Growing Child

Originally published in 1928 and now reissued with a new Preface by Anthony Hulse and a substantial introduction by Gill Gregory, the granddaughter of the author Dr. Hazel Chodak Gregory, this is a remarkable collection of essays. It represents a major contribution to a subject that is increasingly relevant to our society – what children think and feel, their place in family life and the importance of early childhood experience to adult life. The sixteen essays in The Mind of the Growing Child are by a wide range of writers, who include a physiology professor, an army physician, a military psychiatrist, a psychoanalytic psychiatrist, an educationist, a paediatrics pioneer, a medical journalist, a writer on children's books and others. Some of the writers had fought in the First World War and had first-hand experience of the extreme anxiety and suffering of young men. The immense loss of young lives, and the survival of many, whose bodies and minds were damaged irreparably, compounded the anxieties of the interwar period. The huge diversity of the authors, including many well-known names, and their insights, makes this essential reading for anyone interested in child development: paediatricians, teachers, psychotherapists and policy makers.

In her new Introduction to this volume, Dr Gill Gregory makes strong connections with these insights into child development from the world of poetry and literature and places them within the context of the era of their original publication. Her Introduction illuminates the essays, individually and as a collection.