For the four years during which Dr. Duncombe was a member the Legislature of Upper Canada, his efforts to promote the cause of education were unceasing. With the exception of Mr. Burwell, who devoted himself almost entirely to the interests of education in the House, none excelled Dr. Duncombe in his zeal for the cause of public education. His efforts were chiefly directed to awaken an interest amongst his fellow members in the subject generally, and especially on behalf of the education of the deaf and dumb, in asylums for the insane, in prison discipline and similar matters. At length his efforts in the session of 1835 culminated in the appointment, by resolution of the House of Assembly, of Doctors Charles Duncombe, Thomas D. Morrison and William Bruce, Commissioners, to enquire, amongst other things, into "the system and management of schools and colleges" in the United States and elsewhere. Two of these commissioners deputed their colleague, Dr. Duncombe, to "go on a journey to the United States, or elsewhere, to obtain such information as is desired by a resolution" of the House of Assembly in that behalf. Six hundred dollars were granted by the House to defray the expenses of this enquiry.
Late in 1835 Dr. Duncombe went on his mission of enquiry to the United States, and visited literary institutions in the Western, Middle, Eastern and some of the Southern States of the Union. He also obtained detailed information as to education in England, France and Prussia, and embodied the result in an elaborate report of nearly sixty pages and an appendix of one hundred and sixty pages. To this report he annexed the draft of a School Bill, extending to twenty-two pages, with a variety of forms and instructions appended. The whole document embraced two hundred and sixty pages of printed matter. The report is minute and exhaustive in its treatment of the subject in hand, although somewhat discursive and speculative in many parts. It is, nevertheless, in the light of to-day, both interesting and instructive. It presents a vivid picture, and not a very flattering one, of the condition of education in the United States and in Europe. Its discussions of special subjects—such as female education, classical studies, the management of colleges and universities, etc., etc.—are fair and enlightened, and, on the whole, intelligent and practical in their character.
It is clear that the Legislative Council of the day did not sympathize with Dr. Duncombe and his colleagues in their zeal for popular education.
The bill which he had so carefully prepared, although adopted by the House of Assembly by a vote of 35 to 10, early in 1836 failed to receive the sanction of the Council. His proposition to increase the common school grant from $22,600 to $80,000 per annum was considered too great a step in advance, and was not therefore pressed to a vote in the House of Assembly. He, however, got two influential committees appointed to deal with the questions of public education and school lands. These committees were subsequently united and enlarged. They did good service and kept public interest awakened as to the value of the important subjects entrusted to them.
Analysis of Dr. Duncombe's Report on Education, 1836.
The report, be it remembered, speaks of events and educational facts of more than fifty years ago. They are of special interest to us of to-day, since they form the background, so to speak, of our own educational history and progress. I shall make a few extracts from the report:—Dr. Duncombe says:—
"The first principles of the system recommended in this report with regard to common schools, schools for the education of the poorer classes, and for the education of teachers (or the normal schools) made their appearance almost simultaneously in Great Britain and on the Continent, as appears by the voluminous reports of Lord Brougham ... and by Mr. Dick's very able and splendid report upon the common schools ... of Scotland, and by M. Cousin's reports of the schools in Prussia and Germany, and Bulver's observations upon education as a prevention of crime in France.... The glimmering of this beacon light was soon seen across the ocean, and lighted up a similar flame in the United Slates. Commissioner after commissioner was sent to Scotland and to England by the authority of their State Legislatures to light their lamps at the fountain of science, that the whole continent of America might be ignited by the flame."
Dr. Duncombe's observations in regard to the state of education in the United States are interesting, as by contrast they illustrate the remarkable progress made in that country during the last half century in the matter of public education. He says:—
"In the United States, where they devote much time and expense towards the promotion of literature, they are equally destitute of a system of national education with ourselves: and although by their greater exertion to import the improvements made in Great Britain and on the Continent, and their numerous attempts at systematizing these modern modes of education ... they have placed themselves in advance of us in their common school system. Yet, after all, their schools seemed to me to be good schools on bad or imperfect systems; they seem groping in the dark, no instruction in the past to guide the future, no beacon light, no council of wise men to guide them, more than we have, upon the subject of common schools. Our schools want in character, they want respectability, they want permanency in their character and in their support.... It should be so arranged that all the inhabitants should contribute something towards the [maintainance of the school fund], and all those who are benefited directly by it should pay, in proportion to such benefit, a small sum, but quite enough to interest them in the prudent expenditure of their share of the school moneys."