Altogether, the services of half a dozen specialists in psychology, medicine, and education, and the expenditure of much time, effort, and money had been required to get this boy straightened out. Nor is his by any means an uncommon case. Moreover, like the case of the gibbering girl of eight, it illustrates another point in connection with the problem of retardation which should indeed be emphasised--the part played by parental ignorance and thoughtlessness in swelling the army of the retarded. Had the parents of this boy appreciated the close relationship between bodily health and the health of the mind, had they taken alarm at the first signs of malnutrition and sought the advice of a competent physician, instituting developmental measures in accordance with his counsel, their son might not have become an educational "lame duck," and all the tedious and costly restorative work of later years would then have been avoided. To be sure, it must immediately be added that maintenance of his physical health would not of itself have unfailingly operated as a guarantee against retardation. For, quite conceivably, he might have been surrounded by an intellectually deadening home environment, receiving from his parents neither proper disciplining nor encouragement and stimulus to mental activity, with the result that when the time came for him to go to school he would display little capability for, or interest in, the tasks of the classroom. So frequently is this actually the case that students of retardation are inclining more and more to rate faulty home training as perhaps the chief cause of mental backwardness. Thus we find one keen observer, Professor P. E. Davidson, declaring in an address at an educational convention in California: "Parental neglect as a cause, resulting in emotional and volitional disorder, is emphasised in our cases. Learning in school is conditioned largely by what Witmer calls 'pedagogical rapport,' wherein a deference to the prestige of the teacher and the school and a sensitiveness to its rewards and punishments are such as rapidly to produce a habit of voluntary effort or active attention. Confirmed wilfulness at home and undisciplined impulsiveness must undoubtedly figure in the matter of learning. If the child's organic habit, after five or six years of poor home training, makes avoidance of the painfulness of effort the usual thing, we may be sure the teacher in the first grade will have unusual difficulty in inducing a disciplined attention, and a bad beginning on this account may establish a backwardness which later may not be overcome without the individual attention that is impossible in the teaching of large classes."