How Others Live

Te Ao Hou, September 1955, Page 9

How Others Live All this does not, however, overlook the fact that conference was attended by many brilliant women and we all had a mental feast of equally brilliant studies totalling altogether something like fifty papers. These were on all aspects of our stated theme Social and Economic Interdependence. In most of these papers we heard how women in various countries had struggled for equality, but more important still we learned their way of life and the standards of living maintained in the various countries and in so doing we were able to make comparisons. These studies were particularly valuable to women coming from the less privileged countries in showing them not so much ways to a better life, but ways of improving standards of living and creating greater opportunities for women to participate in the social and economic life of their various countries. In this sphere New Zealand was particularly outstanding as an example well worth emulating. Our standards of living, education and especially our Social Security system came in for much envy. So much so that I was asked to find out whether there were scholarships available to students to enable them to come here and study our Social Security system. One of the questions asked more often than any was “what is the percentage of illiteracy in your country?” Being accustomed to seeing all our children march off to school at the tender age of 5, the problem had never occurred to me and therefore I never took any time out to study the question prior to leaving. I could only say, if there were any illiterates the number would be so negligible it would not have been considered a matter worthy of statistical research. I hope I was not too far off the mark. In any case our compulsory education policy introduced in 1877 presupposes a situation of almost total literacy. In comparison free education in Manila was given only up to the age of 11 years. Perhaps one of the most important things that women from countries such as ours derived from the conference was the realisation of our own great good-fortune in being blessed with so much. But may I say that being blessed with so much of the physical needs of man, we may yet be lacking in those things which bring greater satisfaction to the human spirit.