MODERN PROBLEMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 218, 15 September 1939, Page 12

MODERN PROBLEMS.

LUNCHEON TALK.

An interesting address on the problems confronting the modern world was given to the members of the Lyceum Club yesterday by Mrs. M. Keesing, who is connected with the anthropological section of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Mrs. Kenneth Gordon presided at the meeting.

In discussing the problems Mrs. Keesing urged her listeners to remember three points. Firstly, that the brotherhood of man was a scientific reality; secondly, that the human brain was plastic and capable of being moulded into different shapes; and thirdly, that a study of other cultures could yield much of value towards a solution of the present-day problems of Western civilisation.

"lii youth cultural liabits are formed, and it is then that the brain "is most plastic," Mrs. Keesing continued. "Most scientists would agree that, if a child were taken in infancy from one cultural group and brought up in another, it would absorb the habits and ideals of the foster group as easfly as it would learn its language. Because women have so much to do with the upbringing of children, it will be seen that they have unequalled opportunities for social and cultural engineering."