We think also that much more could be done in the homes if the ranks of our visiting teachers, public health nurses, and school psychologists were strengthened considerably, and we strongly recommend that action along these lines should be taken by the Departments of Education and Health.
We are also of opinion that in any effort to reach parents over the widest possible field a very useful agency lies ready to our hands in our Parent-Teacher and Home and School Associations, and it is our hope that this agency might be much more positively used to awaken and maintain a due sense of parental responsibility and a proper understanding of the moral and spiritual needs of children.
With such thoughts in mind, we would recommend that the Director of Education be asked to confer with the appropriate experts to see how far, and under what conditions, suitable courses of lectures could be provided for parents and prospective parents.
The Special Legislation of the 1954 Session
Following upon the presentation of the Mazengarb report the Government immediately took steps to give effect to those recommendations which called for special legislation. Three Bills were introduced, the first dealing with "indecent publications", the second dealing with child welfare, and the third with police offences.
In our order of reference we were directed to study these pieces of legislation and to report as to their efficacy and as to whether there were any specific amendments that were necessary or desirable.
In the preparation of this part of our report we have had the advice and much valued assistance of the Department of Justice. We deal here with the question of "publications". Our comments as to the Child Welfare Act appear elsewhere in this report. No comment is needed regarding the amendment to the Police Offences Act. First as to _publications of a more or less objectionable character circulating in New Zealand_.
We set out at some length some portions of the report submitted for our consideration by the Minister of Justice, the Hon. Mr Marshall. _Inter alia_, it is said:
I. _Objectionable Publications in General_
"Our survey of the book trade disclosed that there were three types of publication to which particular attention should be given--comics, certain crime stories, and nudist and other suggestive magazines.