MOST children in affluent countries grow up healthy and reasonably happy. Yet even in the favored sectors of such societies, there is much perplexity about prospects for the future of children, especially adolescents. Casualties among the young are, of course, caused by disease, but even more by disabling injuries, ignorance and prejudice, failure and humiliation, hatred and violence.
Efforts on behalf of adolescents have rarely been equal in scale, quality, or approach to the magnitude of the challenge. Although useful work is being done, there is no broadly integrative center for taking stock of existing approaches and stimulating new ones, no one institution where the different sectors of American society come together to pool their efforts in this field. Carnegie Corporation of New York, therefore, has launched a new venture—the Council on Adolescent Development. The council is composed of national leaders from diverse sectors (Table). Its goal is to foster