Historical Villages are the 'in thing'. Almost any object of pre-First World War vintage has now attained museum status and may be displayed to the interest of thousands of people- So rapid and extensive has been the change and development of technology in the last hundred years, that I am sure our grandparents would be amazed to see the public paying good money, just to look at their everyday working tools and the trappings of their living conditions. It is easy to forget the rapidity of the changes, yet during the last ten or twelve decades there is hardly a facet of human existence which has not been profoundly affected.

An amusing notice directed to lady school teachers and displayed in the old school house in the Tauranga historic village, highlights the different approach of yesteryear.

1. You wilt NOT marry during the term of your contract.

2. You are NOT to keep company with men.

3. You MUST be home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. , unless attending a school function.

4. You may NOT loiter downtown in ice-cream stores.

5. You may NOT ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is your father or brother.

6. You may NOT travel beyond the city limits without the permission of the chairman of

the board.

7. You may NOT smoke cigarettes.

8. You may NOT dress in bright colours.

9. You may, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, dye your hair.

10. You must wear at least two petticoats and your dresses must NOT be any shorter than two inches above the ankle.

11. To keep the school room clean you must sweep the floor at least once daily.

— scrub the floor with hot, soapy water at least once a week.

— and start the fire at 7 a.m. so that the room will be warm by 8 a.m.

By present standards a ridiculous set of rules. Yet it does show how an employer felt entitled to impinge on the personal beliefs and private lives of employees barely a hundred years ago.

My grandfather sailed in a windjammer from London to Auckland , New Zealand , in the year 1870. They sailed around the Cape of Good Hope , the journey taking about four months to accomplish. Thereafter news from home and family, when it arrived in New Zealand was also months old. At that time there were still many Maoris who had participated in cannibal feasts, many wore the Moko (tattooed faces) and the majority spoke no English.

Grandfather arrived in a country which had no electricity, no wireless, not even telephones, no cars, tractors or buses, let alone aeroplanes. Today we have all these things plus direct telephone connection around the world by satellite, colour television, wall to wall carpet centrally heated houses and hundreds of other nieces of sophisticated equipment and services we take for granted. Any present day housekeeper who did not have a refrigerator, washing machine and T.V. would feel seriously deprived.

Yes, the last hundred years has seen tremendous social changes, material gains and technological advancements. But what has happened to the emotions of the people since the turn of the century, while technology has been supplying us with endless labour saving devices. Are we more or are we less secure and happy or, indeed, is there any change at all? We are certainly more comfortable but has our new life style brought more maturity or happiness? Have we learned to handle our new emotional stress problems and the new set of social pressures, or are we confused, bewildered by the vast variety of ideas.

Drs Ellis and Harper had this to say; "Today, after inventing eye-glasses, radar, aircraft, electronic calculators and other perceiving-moving-thinking aids, humans rule supreme on this earth and literally seek other worlds to conquer. Only in the emotional area have they made remarkable few advances. In spite of amazing physical progress, they still show little more emotional maturity or happiness than in past centuries "

There have been, over the past century, many strong liberation movements pressing for personal freedom of all kinds. Never before has our culture undergone such rapid and far reaching changes.

Darwin 's great work "Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection", published 1859, challenged and rocked orthodox Christian beliefs. The theory of evolution spurred the move away from formalised dogmatic religion toward rational thinking.

About the same time, there was a change of attitude towards women and persona! liberty. In 1882 the Married Women's Property Act of Great Britain made it possible for the first time for a married woman to acquire, hold or dispose of any real and personal property in the same manner as if she were a single woman. Then followed the right of a woman to vote independently other husband, given in New Zealand in September 1893 and over the years by England , Europe , America and most of the developed countries. We have now, by law, granted women equal pay for equal work and passed laws which make it illegal to discriminate against women on the grounds of sex-

But these are only part of the array of changing cultural influences to which we have been subjected. The automobile and aeroplane have changed us from settled, localised, more or less static communities where each member was known and influenced by the others, to a mobile, insulated, transient people. We are now able and often do change our locality and society.

Dr. Carl Rogers regards the much talked of nuclear family as a modern concept. We have forgotten that in the past children were brought up in an extended family of uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents, living fairly closely together. Today we have become scattered and insulated in our separate lives. The tribe has been reduced to nuclear families of father, mother and one or two children.

Even the courting habits of the young have been changed by the motor car. The young can now interact socially without the knowledge or approval of their elders. The motor car provides a private mobile territory away from community eyes. In an award winning film on the Ford Motor Company, someone estimated that two million persons had been killed in Ford rars and another two million conceived in them.

Perhaps one of the most profound cultural influences among the many has been the widespread use of birth control. It is not merely that the family units are smaller. A cultural change has come in the new attitude to sex and virginity. Sex has changed from an emphasis on procreation to being an expression of love or fun with few further complications. Formalised marriage is ceasing to be regarded by many as important. An ever increasing number of couples are "just living together". New laws have had to be made to protect persons, property and children of de facto marriages. Older politicians are struggling with new laws for divorce, abortion, maintenance and personal liberty, problems which more intensely belong to the younger generation.

So it is thai our society has dramatically moved towards an individualistic morality during the last hundred years. It seems to show signs of continuing further in that direction. No longer is a person bound to a narrow prospect of existence or locality. Technology makes it physically possible for each individual to express and be himself to an extent not possible a few years ago.

We are compelled to think in terms of the individual, more than we formerly did. We are compelled to regard each person as a unique and separate person with equal rights, who is free to choose his own culture in whatever society he may wish. It is now accepted that each person should be able to express and experience every aspect of life reasonably available to him, provided of course it does not cause detriment to another or prevent another person from the same right.

Personal expression and responsibility is something or which I totally approve. It offers up a vast new field of potential reserve for personal and social growth. It releases new energies for the betterment of mankind. Our culture is changing rapidly and, of course, rapid change brings many problems. It will take time for a more rational and balanced culture to be established. I believe there is a growing and thoughtful section of our community moving toward that culture with an open and honest evaluation of ourselves and our social responsibilities. Let us hope that this movement will grow strong enough and soon enough to profoundly influence or even determine the future culture of the world.

As the individual is able to orientate and express himself within society, as he can develop the full and harmonious functioning of his whole personality and freedoms without robbing others of theirs, he has a greater chance of becoming a more adjusted and happy person. He will then automatically express personal responsibility to the benefit of his family and society as a whole.

Culture:

Anthropologists like to be precise in the different meanings given to the words 'society' and 'culture'. Society is thought of as a group of people who are politically independent or largely self sufficient, while culture is understood to be a set of learned ways of thinking and action which characterise a human group. So in New Zealand we have the original distinct Maori culture now being overshadowed by a dominant European culture, both within the one society.

The importance of culture is emphasised by the eminent archeologists Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin in the book "Origins". They state "For the human species today, two hundred years is a very uncertain prospect. Now more than ever before we depend on the versatility of our culture to shape our daily lives. Similarly it is upon the flexibility and strength of our culture that we shall have to rely for the future security of our kind. Through culture we have the power to create a future, either of justice and compassion or suffering and misery. Culture has endowed us with that much choice."

Marvin Harris in his book "Culture, People, Nature" states "Culture of a society tends to be similar in many respects from one generation to the next. In part this continuity in life-ways is maintained by the process known as enculturation. Enculturation is a partly conscious and partly unconscious learning experience whereby the older generation invites, induces and compels the younger generation to adopt traditional ways of thinking and behaviour . . . each generation learns to reward the behaviour that conforms to patterns of its own enculturation and to punish or at least not reward behaviour that does not so conform."

In all societies the culture has been repeated by beliefs, songs, customs, laws, habits and traditions from one generation to the next. While the replication could never be perfect the historical system allowed the culture to change only slowly.

At the turn of the century there was still a narrow yet generally accepted ethical standard of thought and behaviour. Our British culture was much more influenced by dogmatic and religious concepts than it is today. Restrictive ideas provided set answers to situations. The average man was more influenced by Victorian thought and standards of normality. To the young, things tended to appear black or white, either right or wrong. Their choices of outlook and experience were limited. Today we live in a permissive society where traditional, religious and cultural norms have minimal influence. Different demands are placed on the individual than in former years. We are in the process of building a new culture.

The old enculturation system has been subjected to new and massive influences. The former slow rate of change has been greatly accelerated so that the traditional replication of our culture has been interfered with.

No longer can the older generation "invite, induce and compel ways of thinking". Science, technology, advertising, television have all taken over the rote of instructor. Not that they are unreliable but they have cast doubt upon the traditional replication of our culture. No longer does the younger generation look to the older as the final authority. It is willing ro strike out on its own in new and often theoretical life styles.

It is unthinkable that we should give up our personal freedoms of action and thought. They have been won at great cost and are our right and privilege. So we reject the narrow guide lines of our forebears as unreal, unfunctional and restrictive. But let us not forget that they were guide lines and provided a certain stability and a standard measurement of behaviour. The narrow and generally accepted standard had an advantage in that it provided a more easily assured acceptance by the society within its approved guide lines- A security of position for the individual within the cultural structure- The range of concepts today, each presented by dogmatists using modern sales techniques, is vast and bewildering to the uncommitted.

Instead of fixed traditional cultural standards young people are presented with liberty and a vast range of choices. The traditional norms have disappeared but not the need to choose. Today's children often know more than their parents. The confusion is more often with the parents, caught in the changing world between tradition and reason, than the new keen and perceptive generation. Parents ask "What are we to tell our young children? Would it be better if we did not enculture them in any set philosophy but turned them out to roam free with only the laws of the land to guide them7"

I suggest that, in fact we do give them guide lines of behaviour and outlook although we may not do so consciously. We do it by example, often a mindless example of convenience and expediency. We commence moulding and manipulating our children from birth. We follow it up by formal schooling and continue it throughout life- This does not mean that we have made it easy for them to know how to exercise that personal choice which is thrust upon them.

We possibly give them very little help in providing grounds for choice- To the extent that the traditional enculturation system has broken down, communication has also diminished between parents and children, che generation gap has widened. Hence forma! education is asked to instruct children in matters which were formerly the province of the home.

Ihe religious and narrow guide lines of a century ago had the virtue of being clearly understood and generally accepted. People knew where they were in relation to them. Today there is a new problem, not the old one of whether to deviate or not from the accepted guide lines and if so how much to deviate, but a new problem of which of the many concepts to listen to. It is a problem of confusion, we are caught in our own freedom. Many, perhaps the majority, choose well most of the time. Many others remain confused and unable to choose all their lives; others choose badly and live unhappy lives.

The very rapid changes in the structure and means of enculturation has placed tremendous stress on individuals. They find it difficult to orientate themselves within the society. They begin to lose their sense of identity and purpose and with it the joy and 2est of living.

Taking 1978 figures supplied by the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand of admissions to our Mental Institutes, we find that over ten per cent of New Zealanders, at some time during their life, can expect to become a patient in one of our mental institutions. It is further authoritatively estimated that one in four persons in our fair land is under excessive stress.

Human distress does not stop with the individual. We cannot put a ring around the neurotic or alcoholic or any other group and say misery stops here. Whole families are involved in the suffering of one member.

We live in an affluent society protected by social security legislation, free schools, child benefits, free medical service and national superannuation, yet a large proportion of our population is unable to cope with the stresses encountered in every day life.

We ask how can the individual orientate himself in relation to society? How can he deal with the stressful situations, the pressures placed on him7 What guide lines of thinking and attitude can he take which would be helpful steering his life to obtain maximum satisfaction? How can we live socially and successfully within our society? What kind of fathers or mothers are we to our children? How should we bring them up? What should we teach them? What should one believe in? Are there any guide lines which are practical, psychologically sound and effective?

I believe there are reliable psychological guide lines for living. I believe they can be lived by, simply and effectively without excessive stress and unsettling confusion. We already have the knowledge backed by empirical proof, supported by able researchers. Our need is to define it. to separate it from the vast volume of confusing information. One set of rules will not be sufficient to meet everyone's needs. The world is changing too rapidly and man is changing with it. But there are basic principles which, like the words of our language, can give us tools to apply to our changing needs.

An intelligent young lady friend of ours was deeply contused and sampling life without true satisfaction. But she worked out her problems as the following extract from a letter to me indicates. She writes "1 am feeling a new strength in me, and perhaps I am starting to become me, instead of a mirror of other people with a glimpse of me. There is in me a beautiful clear, strong person who is as much a part of the world as anyone is and as little a part of the world as anyone is. 1 shall in my lifetime leave an impression on several people, some won't like me and some will and it won't really matter much. I am capable of being fair and honest and warm and loving and I shall be." This is the kind of personal satisfaction I wish everyone could experience. The awakening to a new life is expressed in many different words by different individuals. It does not come lightly. It is not a frivolous, transient concept. It has to be believed, applied daily, worked at and experienced.