psychiatrist, and not from the behavior side only, but with a view to
discovering what sort of equipment for life was handed down to them from
their family stock.

The plan for the future of a fifteen-year-old boy which was made by
a society for family social work was markedly modified when it was
discovered that not only his father but his grandfather had been a
man of violent and abusive temper, who drank habitually and
neglected their family obligations. With this sort of heredity and
an ineffective mother, whom he was accustomed to seeing treated with
abuse and disrespect, it was felt important to remove the boy, who
showed some promise, to surroundings where he could be under firm
discipline and learn decent standards of family life.

Feeble-mindedness, closely connected as it usually is with industrial
inefficiency in the man, bad housekeeping in the woman, and lack of
self-control in both, is of course, a potent factor in non-support and
probably also in desertion.

2. Faults in Early Training.--To low ideals of home life and of
personal obligation, which were imbibed in youth, can be traced much
family irresponsibility. It is by no means the rule, however, for
children always to follow in the footsteps of weak or vicious parents;
and it is the experience of social workers that such children, taught by
observation to avoid the faults seen in their own homes, often make good
parents themselves. Perhaps even more insidious in its effect on later
marital history is the home in which no self-control is learned. The
so-called "good homes" in which children are exposed to petting,
coddling, and overindulgence--and these homes are not confined to the
wealthy--produce adults who do not stand up to their responsibilities. A