It would seem that such almost prophetic glimpses arose
from the impression produced by the investigations of science
in the last ten years of the XIXth century; from the picture
they gave of the child in sickness, ten times more exposed
than the adult to death from infectious disease, or of the
child as victim in harsh schools. No one could have foreseen
then that the child held within himself a secret of life, able
to lift the veil from the mysteries of the human soul; that
he represented an unknown quantity, the discovery of which
might enable the adult to solve his individual and social
problems. This aspect may prove the foundation of a new
science of child study, capable of influencing the whole social
life of man.

Psycho-analysis has thrown open a realm of research for-
merly unknown, bringing to light the secrets of the uncon-
scious, but it has brought no practical solution to the urgent
practical problems of life. None the less, it may help us to
understand the contribution to be found in the hidden life
of the child.

Psycho-analysis has, one might say, broken through the
cortex of consciousness, which psychology had previously
considered as a ne plus ultra, like the Columns of Hercules
in ancient history, which, for the Greek seamen, were limits
beyond which superstition set the edge of the world.

Psycho-analysis has sounded the ocean of the unconscious.
Without this discovery it would be hard to explain to the
public at large how the child mind may help in a more search-
ing study of human problems. As is well known, psycho-
analysis began as a new technique for the cure of mental

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