Rev. Newton Bosworth, F.R.S., Superintendent of Schools in the Brock District (Oxford, etc.), says:-- "The diversity of books and modes of teaching referred to in my last report, still exists, nearly to the same extent; and in the qualifications of teachers also, as great a variety was observable as before.... It appears to me that parents should be impressed, to a much greater extent than at present, with a sense of the necessity and importance of education for their children." George Duck, jr., Esq., Superintendent of Schools in the Western District (Kent, etc.), says:-- "In many townships little or nothing was raised by rate-bill. In many places the poverty of the settlements prevented it; and the only school that was kept open in these districts was just during the time that the allowance from the aggregate fund was sufficient to pay the teacher. This course is, in fact, of very doubtful benefit, as the school is seldom kept open for more than three months in the year, and the children lose so much benefit continuous education produces." SCHOOL HOUSES AND SCHOOL TEACHERS IN 1845-1850. The Rev. Dr. Ryerson, in his report for 1845-46, speaking of school houses in the Province, says:-- "With a few exceptions, the school houses are deficient in almost every essential quality of places adopted for elementary instruction. Very few are furnished with any thing more than desks and forms of the most ordinary kind, and have no apparatus for instruction, nor appendages, or conveniences either for exercise or such as are required for the sake of modesty and decency." In his annual Report for 1847, Dr. Ryerson incidentally refers to the character of teachers in some districts. He says:-- "In one district, where intemperance heretofore prevailed to a considerable extent, even among school teachers, the Superintendent gave notice that he would not give a certificate of qualification to any but strictly sober candidates, and that, at the end of six months he would cancel the certificates of all teachers who suffered themselves at any time to become intoxicated.... I know of two other districts in which the Superintendents have acted thoroughly on the same principle, with the same happy results.... In a note in reference to it in the printed Form of Regulations, I remarked that 'no intemperate or profane person should be intrusted with the instruction of youth.'... No one will doubt that there are fewer unqualified and immoral teachers employed now than there were before the passing of the present School Act (of 1846)." Pages 8 and 9. In his circular issued to the newly formed County Boards of Examiners, dated 8th October, 1850, Dr. Ryerson thus referred to this matter:--