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]