Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/517

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SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT
513

hood. Fortunately, very bad conditions are rare; but they are frequent enough to make the need for assistance vastly greater than the supply. With many of us who were born in the west the joy of pioneering still continues. In this work of training retarded children and youthful offenders we arc again on the frontier, hewing down forests of bad habits and founding homes for the future generations. As our resources increase and our knowledge accumulates we may look forward to the time when we shall be able, at these border lands of society, to select the good seeds, mother them in a fruitful soil, weed out the tares, and raise a bumper crop of boys and girls that will do credit to the nation.