"This is a book about certain selected aspects of New Zealand life as seen through the eyes of an American ... It is not a narrative of travels or personal adventures ... I have ... restricted myself to a very limited canvas consonant with my particular background and training as a psychiatrist and psychologist especially concerned with problems of education, the development of personality, and social relationships. The data on which my impressions are based were collected during 1957-1958 in the course of a year's work as a Fullbright research scholar in psychology at Victoria University of Wellington. They deal primarily with people -- their attitudes, aspirations, values, personality traits, and relationships with each other -- and with such social problems as education, delinquency and race relations. The focus of my research efforts has been on youth, both Maori and Pakeha ... The principal aim of the writer has been to present an objective and critical analysis of such important problems facing the people of New Zealand today as discipline, co-education, conformity, vocational aspirations, standards of public controversy, juvenile delinquency, and the improvement of Maori-Pakeha relations ..." -- Preface.