SOCIAL SCIENCE BUREAU

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22740, 28 May 1937, Page 13

SOCIAL SCIENCE BUREAU

UNSUCCESSFUL MARRIAGES LIKELY FIELD FOR RESEARCH [by telegraph—own correspondent] DUNEDIN, Thursday A suggestion that the Bureau of Social Science recently formed by the Government should thoroughly investigate the various conditions associated with marriages that were unsuccessful, and often led to the divorce courts, was advanced by Professor H. Field, of Canterbury College, when discussing aspects of psychological life with the winter school of the Workers' Educational Association. The professor pointed out that since there were fewer children in the modern family it was very important that maladjustments should not occur. It was a question of safeguarding quality, since there was less quantity, and it was arising from that theory that he made the plea that the bureau should interest itself in causes of wrecked marriages. Discussing various types of education and schooling, Professor Field maintained that it was vitally important that there should be sound preparation for a healthy family life, and, in that connection, he asked whether the secondary schools in the Dominion really did give broad social experience to their pupils. "Do they leave pupils starved in certain aspects?" he asked. It was impossible to lay down any psychological warranty for or against co-education, but here was an extremely important question, in view of the complex and subtle nature of modern family relationship.