Children's literature and eduacation in India

This book has been written almost by accident. The original intention had been to revise and bring up-to-date in the not be done, for the latter was written in the war years and since then we have moved into an uneasy peace and the age of automa tion. In the intervening years there has been much social legisla tion, and it would be surprising if an era which has seen the birth of a Welfare State and full employment had not had far-reaching effects on the problems and attitudes of adolescents and, there fore, on the service designed for their well-being.

It soon became evident, therefore, that it was not ion, but re-writing and re-thinking that was required, and this new book is the result of that process. Some of the original material remains, but in the main this is a different book because we live in a different world. Naturally the chapters on youth-group activities deal with the same type of activities for there is no new subject under the sun; but even here new trends and new adolescent interests have had their influence. The original intention, however, is the same, to suggest to people who are new to youth work a framework for their thinking and doing, and to pay tribute to those who have been in it 'man and boy for forty years'.

Achievement and frustration, failure and fulfilment, have been the lot of all those who have laboured in the service of youth', in those arduous years, and without the encouragement and inspiration of those in the field from whom I have received much kindness this book could not have been written.