NEW ZEALAND ATTITUDES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 951, 1 November 1957, Page 11

NEW ZEALAND ATTITUDES

Sir,-In view of what seem to me some rather debatable opinions upon our psychology, especially in relation to discipline within the home, may we know the credentials of Dr Harold Bourne, whose talk was reported in a recent Listener? How long has he been in the country? How much of it has he visited, lived in, or studied with any thoroughness? I note that he speaks from Otago: where else has he been?

JOAN

STEVENS

(Wellington),

(Dr. Bourne, to whom this letter was sent for comment, agrees that his opinions are debatable, not because he is relatively a new-comer-a fact to be gleaned in his opening sentence, and not necessarily invalidating them-but because few generalisations about two million individuals can be otherwise. His impressions arise, he says, from close-ups over two years of some hundreds of New Zealanders and their families-more than most poopie are likely to observe so intimately in alf a lifetime-from comparing notes with professionals in the social sciences in both islands, and, not least, from many pleasant friendships with self-searching natives of this country.--Ed, ) Sir-Unlike many of your correspondents I have not myself felt that your pages have in fact been improving during recent years, However, I do wish to express approval of the penetrating analysis of New Zealand family attitudes by Harold Bourne printed in the edition for October 4. I personally would think that there was both need and desirability for Dr Bourne to continue, on the air or in your columns, the discussion of the ideas expressed in his last two paragraphs.

G. A.

McCRACKEN

(Ardmore).