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CHILDREN OF HOPE by Elsie Vignac

CHILDREN OF HOPE

By

Publisher: Dodd, Mead

Her curiosity aroused by the amorphous conglomerate of buildings before her, a young girl entered the old New York Foundling Hospital and unwittingly walked into her life's work. The author recounts her early days as a volunteer on a three month pledge she often wished to break, but eventually extended into a full-time career. The children in her ward, most of them with the truest of traditional tragedies behind their orphanhood, became her raison d'ctrc, and her later position in a research clinic failed to keep her from them. Taking her degree in child psychology at the same time, lecturing to student teachers, and administering love and therapy to the children, she stayed at the hospital until Chief Doctor Vignac asked her to be his secretary in private practice. Straight personal history from another era, young girls today who probably won't accidentally stumble upon their vocation may still react to the author's inspiration and to the perennial plight of the children she describes. Beyond that, her audience is limited by a time gap that her writing does not adequately bridge.