Efforts at Educational Legislation by Dr. Charles Duncombe, 1831-1836.
As one of those who took a prominent part in the troublesome events of 1837-38, in Upper Canada, Dr. Duncombe acquired considerable notoriety. He was, nevertheless, a man of broad views, of comprehensive aims and large sympathies.[33]
From his first entry into the House of Assembly, Dr. Charles Duncombe, M.P.P. for the county of Norfolk, took up warmly the cause of popular education. In this he was actively supported by two other medical gentlemen—Dr. Thomas D. Morrison and Dr. Thomas Bruce—who were also members of the House of Assembly at that time.
Dr. Charles Duncombe's first motion in the House of Assembly (on the 13th December, 1831) was for an address to the Lieut.-Governor urging the setting apart of a sufficient quantity of the public lands of the Province to form a permanent fund for the support and maintenance of common schools. His motion was, however, defeated.
As Dr. Duncombe's motion is of historical interest, so far as the facts which it alleges are concerned, I give some extracts from it. The motion stated:—
"That there is in this Province a very general want of education; that the insufficiency of the Common School Fund to support competent, respectable and well-educated teachers, has degraded common school teaching from a regular business to a mere matter of convenience to transient persons, or common idlers, who often stay but for one season, and leave the schools vacant until they accommodate some other like person, whereby the minds of the youth of this Province are left without due cultivation, or, what is worse, frequently with vulgar, low-bred, vicious and intemperate examples before them in the persons of their monitors," (i.e., teachers).
The motion goes on to say that:—
"If provision were made for the liberal and punctual payment of common school teachers ... the teaching of common schools would soon become a regular and respectable calling, gentlemanly, well-educated persons would not be ashamed to take charge of youth, the schools would be no longer vacant, nor the scholars ignorant. Upper Canada would then form a national character that would command respect abroad and ensure peace, prosperity and happiness at home, perpetuate attachment to British principles and British institutions, and enable posterity to value, as they ought, the inestimable blessings of our glorious constitution."
The motion went on to urge the Lieut.-Governor to represent to the Colonial Secretary the important necessity—in view of the facts cited—of entreating
"That His Majesty, William IV., be graciously pleased to place at the disposal of the Provincial Legislature a portion of the waste lands of the Crown as a permanent fund for the support of common schools within the same."
Dr. Charles Duncombe, with a prescience of the future, and of the necessities of the case, (which were not then recognized, nor for many years afterwards,) strongly urged, as did other members of the Assembly, that at least one million acres of the "waste lands" of the Province should be set apart for the support of common schools.[34]
The motion was negatived. Dr. Duncombe was, however, determined not to be beaten. Mr. David Burn and other friends of his in the county of Oxford—no doubt on his suggestion—got up a petition to the Legislature on the subject, and on the 21st December—a week after his motion was defeated—Dr. Duncombe read this petition and had it referred to a select committee for report thereon.
On the 26th December an elaborate report on the petition was brought in by Dr. Duncombe himself, as chairman of the committee. In that report the whole subject was gone into fully, and a scheme elaborated by which the 1,000,000 acres of land were proposed to be hypothecated in advance, so that by the issue of debentures for $500,000, redeemable in ten, fifteen and twenty years, a sufficient sum would be at once realized on the prospective value of these lands to form a permanent fund for the support of common schools.
This report (as did the rejected motion) placed on record a few facts and principles which are interesting in the light of to-day. The report stated that—
"The common schools of this Province are generally in so deplorable a state that they scarcely deserve the name of schools."
It recommended that the common school law of the Province be so amended that hereafter the school grant be paid only to—
"Organized schools, taught by a person who had a certificate from the District Board of Education, or school inspector, of his or her ability to teach a common school."
It also urged that the Common School Fund should be large enough, with the local contributions, to provide an ample stipend for good teachers, instead of "transient persons" and "common idlers" then so often employed as teachers—
"So that common school teaching, instead of being a mere matter of convenience to transient persons, or common idlers, would become a regular, respectable business in the hands of gentlemanly, well-educated persons. For surely the foundation of the minds of our children (on which must depend the happiness or misery we are to enjoy with them) and their own success in life, is a business worthy to be respectable, worthy of the patronage of men in the highest walks of life."
The report then laid down an important principle in regard to the necessity for a certain and permanent endowment for public education. It said:—
"Funds and appropriation for the support of education should be permanent. They should not depend upon the annual vote of the Legislature, nor on any other casualty that might, by possibility fail, and thereby check the regular progress of education."
Dr. Duncombe, in stating this principle, had no doubt in view the example (then well known) of the fickleness of the Legislature in the matter of school grants. In 1816 the vote for the support of common schools was $24,000. In three subsequent years the same vote was repeated; but, in 1820, it was reduced to $10,000—closing schools here and there all over the Province, and inflicting grievous hardship on many worthy (and, in the language of the day and of the report, unworthy) teachers. This miserable state of things continued for many years, and, as I stated on this subject in 1863—
"Thus ebbed and flowed, without a master hand to stay the current, that tide which, in other lands, is regarded as the nation's life's blood; and thus was permitted to ensue that state of living death by which Upper Canada, in the significant and popular metaphor of the day was likened to a 'girdled tree,' destitute alike of life, of beauty, or of stately growth."[35]
No wonder that in these degenerate days the young men, with stirrings within them of noble impulses and patriotic devotion to their country, should have been compelled to depend upon themselves for intellectual enlightenment and advancement. The flippant sneer of many persons of to-day at such "self-made" men is unworthy of those who enjoy the advantages which these self-made men laboured to secure. They belonged to that noble band of pioneers, who achieved for us the civil and religious freedom which we now so richly enjoy. All honour to them, therefore!