This is Volume V of twelve in the Sociology of Youth and Adolescence Series. Originally published in 1959, this study looks at the development of service for the deprived child. It was written primarily to help students to explore the changing social patterns and ideas which lie behind the history of attention and care given to the deprived child .But it tells also a story of human struggle, endurance and inspiration which seems to me to belong not only to the professional social worker but to the people and the community at large.