This report was prepared by Mr. Thomas Benson, Chairman of the Education Committee, and Warden of the District (father of Judge Benson of Port Hope). It was adopted by the Colborne District Council in February, 1848.[49]
[49] Correspondence between members of the Government and the Chief Superintendent, 1850, pp. 17-20.
The Western District Council, in its memorial to the Legislature against the School Act, represented that "spite, hatred and malice between neighbors and friends," existed, and was "occasioned by the present School Act." It added:
"So numerous are the petitions on the subject that more than half of the time of the Council is taken up in endeavoring to settle the differences, but unfortunately without any beneficial effect."
The Chief Superintendent, in his report, referring to this statement says:
"Now, in examining the printed report of the committee, to whom all these petitions were referred, I find that of the twenty-nine petitions presented to the Council, one prayed for the establishment of a female school in one of the sections (which was granted); one prayed for a local school tax in a section; two related to the formation of new school sections, and the remaining twenty-five related to the disputes as to the boundaries of school sections and the non-payment of school moneys by township superintendents. Thus not one of these disputes could have arisen out of the School Act, but must have all been caused by an improper division of the school sections, either by the township superintendents under the late Act, or by the Council under the present statute."
In this (Western) District the Council says:
"We well know that a very large number of the trustees can neither read nor write, and, therefore, it must be obvious that the greater part of the requirements of the law remain undone."
On this statement the Chief Superintendent remarks:
"In other districts where the trustees can read and write, and where the councillors an correspondingly intelligent and discreet in their school proceedings, no disputes or inconvenience have, as far as I am aware, occurred on this subject."
In the District of Dalhousie, the Chief Superintendent states:
"Still greater dissatisfaction and confusion were created by the mode of proceeding adopted by the council. Before the passing of the present School Act the council of this district never imposed a school assessment.... The introduction of a district assessment (under the new Act) would naturally excite some dissatisfaction, and especially in a district bordering on counties in Lower Canada where the school assessment had been resisted.... In addition the Chief Superintendent adds: