ABSTRACT
These facts are presented at this point mainly as an example of one of the basic differences which may incidentally affect attitudes and methods in infant handling in the different groups which we are contrasting. In practice it would be extremely difficult to give an exhaustive list of all the many other factors of this sort. There are for instance a large number of environmental factors; standards of housing provide one example. Whether the children have adequate playing-space, whether the mother has a pleasant kitchen or merely a sculleryouthouse, the too close proximity of neighbours: any of these may well have an effect, not only upon the general irritability of the mother, but also upon particular aspects of child rearing such as whether the baby is left to cry ('Well-1 don't like to leave her-1 think it annoys the neighbours to hear a baby cry'), or whether he is kept in the living-room during the evening ('I think if I put him to bed he would go to sleep, but it's so noisy round here'); we even found the thin council-house walls affecting the mother's attitude to childbirth.
