Legislative Assembly chinery and business. The course will be of five weeks duration with the first two weeKs being devoted to bookkeeping procedures and record practices and three weeks to machinery maintenance. L. George Dewar : A day course. Hon . Gordon L. Bennett : This will be a day course. L. George Dewar : What centres? Hon . Gordon L. Bennett : I have been told that there will be ten such courses given in 1968-69. I regret that I am unable, for the benefit of my Honourable friend, to indicate at ths time at what centres these will be given. The courses, Mr. Speaker , will commence in 1968. Mr. Speaker , when you and I entered the teaching profession some few years ago the only teaching aids we had were a blackboard, a piece of chalk and a brush. Since that time audio and visual aids to teaching have become very abundant and our Department of Education has expanded it's services in this direction consider¬ ably since we last met here. I think a great deal of this increased activity results from the introduction of the Nova Scotia and the Telecast programs in elementary, consolidated and the high schools of this Province and at the Department we were very anxious to utilize this very popular teaching aid and we installed in various schools forty-one television sets so that our young people could have the advantage of this additional teaching aid. I have been told that the surveys con¬ ducted at the present time indicate that these programs are being very well re¬ ceived, both by teachers and by students. Film usage another modern teaching aid in this provice is at an all-time high. This is partly due of course to the increased purchase of film-strip projectors, but probably largely due to an increased interest and an increased awareness on the part of our teachers of the value of this particular device. Interest in the use of overhead projectors, non-existent two years ago, and in its vestigal stages a year ago, has finally, during this present year, taken root and has been used in at least fifteen different schools. Your government, Mr. Speaker , has given considerable attention to the pro¬ vision of reference books for the libraries in the new schools that have been con¬ structed, and in the larger elementary schools that have been in operation for some¬ time. Recently we provided a standard basic reference works for the libraries in about three dozen of our Island schools including the following: 1 set of the New Book of Knowledge 1968 edition) 1 set of the Encyclopedia Canadiana (1968 edition) 1 set of the Book of Popular Science (1968 edition) 1 Funk and WagnalFs Standard Dictionary. One can never be sure, Mr. Speaker , what type of material should be provided for reading purposes. A University of Florida authority, a specialist in clinical reading, said recently, "Comic books offer a vocabulary 17 times larger than ele¬ mentary reading texts." This, of course, suggests that the wise parent should allow his children to read extensively at home and that comic books should not be excluded from such a reading list. I feel, Mr. Speaker , unfortunately, that too many parents in this Province, and in all parts of the country, are perfectly content to let the whole matter of ed¬ ucation remain with the school. Such parents are expecting far too much. In the matter of reading, certainly, the home plays a vital role. Books should be made available — even if the family can afford only comic books — to ensure that the ability to read becomes for their child a course of pleasure and of instruction rather than just a necessary skill. I think we all recognize that the dearth of librarians in this province has been recognized for some time, and this has made it very difficult to locate lib¬ rarians for our university work, our public libraries, and for the libraries in our larger schools. To help remedy this situation I am very pleased to announce that —70—