"We the Commons of Upper Canada, in Parliament assembled, most respectfully represent that there is in this Province a very general want of education; that the insufficiency of the 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 teach school one season and leave it vacant until it accommodates some other like person, whereby the minds of our youth are left without cultivation, or, what is still worse, frequently with vulgar, low-bred, vicious or intemperate examples before them, in the capacity of monitors." EDUCATIONAL EFFORTS OF MR. MAHLON BURWELL IN THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, 1831-1836. Few men exerted themselves more or to better purpose in the cause of education than did Mr. Burwell during the time he was a member of the old Upper Canada Legislature, in 1831-1838.[32] [32] Col. Mahlon Burwell was born in the State of New Jersey, but early in life came to Upper Canada. He settled first at Fort Erie, then at Long Point, and finally removed to the Talbot Settlement. He was near neighbor, and for a long time, right-hand man of the noted Col. Talbot, of Port Talbot. He was a surveyor by profession, and in 1810 surveyed the townships of Malahide, Bayham, and part of the then village of London. Amongst the many motions relating to education which were moved by Mr. Burwell in the House of Assembly from time to time, was the following important one, which was concurred in by the House in February, 1831:-- "That a standing committee be appointed on the subject of education generally in this Province.... "That it be a principal duty and business of the committee to enquire whether an appropriation of 500,000 acres of land was not made, in virtue of a joint address of both houses of the Provincial Parliament, adopted at their session of 1797, or 1798, and whether the same is not subject to the control of the Legislature of this Province; to enquire if anything, and what, has been done with the lands or any part of them, and what is their present situation. "That the said committee do enquire in what way the several district schools of the Province can best be endowed with portions of the said lands, so as to render them more efficient and fitting for the improvement of the rising generation than they are at present."...