This important educational film is quite untidy. As Stoney himself says, things that would be masterfully mingled in the impending All My Babies are being tried for the first time here. So untidy, and uncertain too are natural, and instructive in all sorts of ways. And while some sequences or performances are pretty awkward, there are flashes. Young girls dancing! The mother joining them! It helpfully complicates the film’s educational objectives that this good family has its less good moments. That complexity, and self-honesty as well, also deepens the film’s moral authority. Tentative or not, what they were trying for still comes across wonderful clear: “dozens of little things, months and years of care and patience and love…”