According to the author "The purpose of the book is primarily a practical one; to enable the busy reader to gain some notion how the criminal in the making may best be studied and handled." The book contains over 600 pages of fine print, apportioned into thirteen chapters, with from six to twelve subdivisions abundantly supplied with footnotes, plates, and bibliographic data. The presentation of the material, both as to scope, arrangement and thoroughness, fulfils the requirements of a treatise on deliquency which should be read by every student of this great social problem. The discussion of the subject is taken up on the following plan:
Problems and Methods; Hereditary Conditions; Environmental Conditions within the Home and Outside the Home; Physical Conditions (Developmental and Pathologic); Intellectual Conditions (Subnormal Intelligence, Supernormal and Special Abilities); Temperamental Conditions (Instincts and Emotions, comprising two chapters); General Emotional Instability (Habit Formation); Sentiment and Complexes; Neuroses.