But it afforded a national

fore it could

obtained.

sums done in a given time, and not at all a matter of principles.

Yet the Lancaster-Bell schools were productive of education in some achievements. Most of them afforded a fair educaEngland be- tion in the elementary school subjects and added some be otherwise industrial and vocational training. They also did much to awaken the conscience of the English nation to the need of general education for the poor, and the system emphasized the school as an organized community for mutual aid. The British and Foreign and the National Societies afforded a substitute, though a poor one, for national education in the days before the government was willing to pay for general education or the denominations were able to furnish it, and they became the avenues through which such appropriations as the government did make were distributed. In 1833 the £20,000, constituting the first aid to elementary education, was equally divided between the two societies,1 and this method of administration was continued as the annual grant was gradually increased, until universal public education was enacted. Likewise, in 1839, £10,000 for normal instruction was voted to the societies, and was used by the British and Foreign for its Borough Road Training College, and by the National for St. Mark's Training College. These were followed by several other training institutions established by each society through government aid. In 1870, when the 'board,' or public elementary, schools were at length founded,2 the schools of the British and Foreign Society, with their nonsectarian instruction, fused naturally with them; but the institutions of the National Society, though 1 See pp. 303f. 2 See pp. 305f.

transferred to school boards in a few cases, have generally come to constitute by themselves a national system on a voluntary basis.

terian system

many Amer

Results of Lancasterianism in the United States. The LancasIn the United States, where complete freedom in religion was introobtained, the system of Dr. Bell and the National duced into Society found little footing. The monitorial system in its ican cities, Lancasterian form, however, was introduced into New York City in 1806. The 'Society for the Establishment of a Free School,' after investigating the best methods in other cities and countries, decided to try the system of Lancaster.1 The method was likewise introduced into the charity schools of Philadelphia. The monitorial system then spread rapidly through New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and other states. It is almost impossible to trace the exact extent of this organization in the United States, but before long it seems to have affected nearly all cities of any size as far south as Augusta (Georgia), and west as far as Cincinnati. There are still traces of its influence everywhere throughout this region,-in Hartford, New Haven, Washington, Baltimore, and Albany, as well as in the cities already mentioned. In 1818 Lancaster himself was invited to America, and assisted in the monitorial schools of New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia. A dozen years later the system began to be introduced generally into the high schools and academies. Through the efforts of Dr. John Griscom, who had been greatly pleased with the monitorial high school of Dr. Pillans in Edinburgh, a similar institution was established in New York City in 1825, and the plan was soon adopted by a number 1 See pp. 97f.

and did a great service where free schools had been few

of high schools in New York and neighboring states. Likewise, the state system of academies in Maryland and in Indiana, which became high schools after the Civil War, was organized on this basis. For two decades the monitorial remained the prevailing method in secondary education. Training schools for teachers on the Lancasterian basis also became common.

In fact, the monitorial system was destined to perform a great service for American education. At the time of its introduction, public and free schools were generally lacking, outside of New England. Even in that section the early Puritan provision for schools had largely become a dead letter, and the facilities that existed were meager, and available during but a small portion of the year. In all parts of the country illiteracy was almost universal among children of the poor. This want of school opportunities was rendered more serious by the rapid growth of American cities, which was evident even in the earliest part of the century, and by the consequent increase and concentration of ignorance, poverty, and crime. 'Free school societies,' like that in New York City, formed to study and relieve the situation, were driven to the conclusion that gratuitous education must be instituted, if the poorer classes were to be trained to habits of thrift and virtue. Because of its comparative inexpensiveness, these philanthropic associations came to regard the system of Lancaster as a very godsend for their purpose. And when, before long, the people awoke to the crying need of public education, legislators found the monitorial schools the cheapest way out of the difficulty, and the provision they made for these schools gradually opened the road

to the ever increasing expenditures and taxation that had to be made before satisfactory schools could be established. Hence the introduction of Lancasterianism may well be considered to have provided a basis for the substantial public support of education now universal in the United States.

Moreover, the Lancasterian schools were not only and the work ineffective, economical, but most effective, when the educational conditions of the times are taken into consideration. Even in the cities, the one-room and one-teacher school was the prevailing type, and grading was practically unknown. The whole organization and administration was shiftless and uneconomical, and a great improvement was brought about by the carefully planned and detailed methods of Lancaster. The schools were made over through his definite mechanics of instruction, centralized management, well-trained teachers, improved apparatus, discipline, hygiene, and other features. We can, then, well understand the enthusiasm for these new schools that is apparent in the utterances and writings of statesmen, educators, and other persons of the times that felt responsible for the training of the people. One of the earliest and best known estimates is that of De Witt Clinton, afterward (1817-23 and 1825-28) governor of New York, who in 1809 declared in his address at the dedication of the new building of the Free School Society:

"When I perceive that many boys in our school have been taught to read and write in two months, who did not before know the alphabet, and that even one has accomplished it in three weeks-when I view all the bearings and tendencies of this system-when I contemplate the habits of order which it forms, the spirit of emulation which it excites, the rapid improvement which

but disappeared when educational sentiment improved.

Oberlin opened infant schools in every village

it produces, the purity of morals which it inculcates-when I behold the extraordinary union of celerity in instruction and economy of expense-and when I perceive one great assembly of a thousand children, under the eye of a single teacher, marching with unexampled rapidity and with perfect discipline to the goal of knowledge, I confess that I recognize in Lancaster the benefactor of the human race. I consider his system as creating a new era in education, as a blessing sent down from heaven to redeem the poor and distressed of this world from the power and dominion of ignorance." 1

But while the monitorial methods met a great educational emergency in the United States, they were clearly mechanical, inelastic, and without psychological foundation. Naturally their sway could not last long, and as public sentiment for education increased, and enlarged material resources enabled the people to make greater appropriations for education, the obvious defects of the monitorial system became more fully appreciated and brought about its abandonment. Before the middle of the century its work in America was ended, and it gave way to the more psychological conceptions of Pestalozzi and to those afterward formulated by Froebel and Herbart.

'Infant Schools' in France. Another form of philanthropic education that came to be very influential of his parish, during the nineteenth century and has eventually been and, besides merged in several national systems is that of the so-called reading, writ- 'infant schools.' These institutions may be said to have ing, and arith- started with Jean Frédéric Oberlin (1740-1826), Lutheran ed a religious pastor in Ban de la Roche, a wild district in the Vosges

teaching

metic, afford

and indus

trial training.

1 For Clinton's complete eulogy of the system adopted by the Free School Society, of which he was president, see Bourne, History of the Public School Society of the City of New York, pp. 18-20.