for foreign lands, where he again met with failure and poverty, and eventually died in the city of New York, a disappointed man.

with this

association,

the Church of England founded

"The

National

Society'

with Dr.

Bell in

charge, who had pub

lished an

account of

his Experi

ment in Edu

cation, on the

'monitorial'

basis.

Yet the organization for perpetuating his work, which To compete after the withdrawal of Lancaster became known as non-sectarian 'The British and Foreign Society,' continued to flourish and perform a splendid service for education. So successful was it that the Church of England began to fear its liberalistic influence upon education. Following the nonconformist attitude of its Quaker founder, the education of the society included religion and reading the Bible, but permitted no catechism or denominational instruction of any sort. To most Anglican churchmen such religious teaching seemed loose and colorless, and in 1811 'The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church' was founded by them. This long-named association was to use the 'monitorial' system, and to have a Reverend Doctor Bell as its manager. Andrew Bell (1753-1832) had been an army chaplain and the superintendent of an orphanage in India, and had the idea of monitorial instruction suggested to him by the Hindu education. A year before Lancaster opened his school, Dr. Bell had published his treatise known as An Experiment in Education Made at the Male Asylum of Madras; and while the Quaker philanthropist began his system independently, it is not unlikely that he re

ceived help later from Bell. Although they formed no part of Bell's original methods in Madras, the catechism and the prayer book were now taught dogmatically in the schools founded by the 'National Society,' and as Dr. Bell proved an admirable director, the affairs of the organization prospered marvelously. In consequence, a healthy rivalry with the older association of the Lancasterians rapidly grew up.

Differences between the Systems of Lancaster

and Bell

'Monitorial' or 'mutual' instruction, however, was not original with either Lancaster or Bell. Besides being used by the Hindus,' it has formed part of the Jesuit system of education, and was confidently recommended by Comenius in his Didactica Magna. Nevertheless, it was the work of Lancaster and Bell that greatly developed the method and brought it into prominence. The plans of the two men, while analogous, differed somewhat in spirit and details. Without considering the methods of religious instruction, the system of Lancaster was generally animated by broader motives. Society, and While he failed to teach certain subjects, it was simply because his resources were limited; but the National

The system of Lancaster was broader

than that of

the National

was more

elaborate.

1 See Graves, History of Education before the Middle Ages, pp. 87 f.

2 See Graves, History of Education during the Transition, p. 218.

3 See pp. 32 f.

Society purposely curtailed the range of its instruction on the ground that "there is a risk of elevating those who are doomed to the drudgery of daily labour above their station, and rendering them unhappy and discontented with their lot." In the matter of details, both men worked out systematically the idea of instructing through monitors, and both used a desk covered with sand1 as a means of teaching writing; but in other respects Lancaster elaborated the method more than Bell. By having the speller or other text printed in large type and suspending it from the wall, he made one book serve for a whole class, or even for the entire school. Through the use of slates and dictation he had five hundred boys spell and write the same word at the same time. He arranged a new method in arithmetic whereby any child who could read might teach the subject with accuracy. Moreover, although a member of the Society of Friends, Lancaster introduced more military discipline into his system than did his rival. He believed in company organization, drill, regimental control, precision, and a prompt observance of the word of command. He also developed a system of badges, tickets, offices, and other rewards, and, in order to avoid flogging, a set of punishments by which the offender was made an object of ridicule rather than physical pain. There were also a number of unessential differences between the two 1 See footnote I on p. 240.

R

The monitorial sys

tem, while it

much when

little atten

tion was given to education, was formal

and mechanical.

systems in the manner of arranging their classes.1 They likewise differed in their method of training teachers. In order to acquire the Lancasterian system, a teacher was required to spend a week or more as a monitor in each of the classes from the lowest to the highest, while with the Bell organization he had to become an actual pupil in each of the grades.

Value of the Monitorial System in England

Neither Bell nor Lancaster deserves much praise as an educational reformer. Each was vain and pedaaccomplished gogically ignorant, and saw but one side of education. While both societies accomplished much good at a time when little attention was given to instruction and less to the problems of education, the monitorial systems overemphasized repetition in the teaching process and treated education purely from the standpoint of routine. The monitorial method was not real instruction, but a formal drill. It had no principles and little of the elasticity that was apparent in the more psychological methods of the reformers on the Continent. The mechanical basis of such a system is exposed by the arith

1 For example, Lancaster had his pupils located in a mass at the center of the room, while Bell arranged their desks around the walls. The classes when reciting under Lancaster's monitors consisted of ten or twelve standing in semicircles; Bell placed a larger number in each group and seated them on benches in three sides of a square.

metical boast of Lancaster. He calculated: "Each boy can spell one hundred words in a morning. If one hundred scholars can do that two hundred mornings yearly, the following will be the total of their efforts at improvement." He then shows that there will be an annual achievement of two million words spelt. Similarly, in arithmetic he seems to hold that it is simply a question of the number of sums done in a given time, and not at all a matter of principles.

But it afforded a national

education in

England before it

could be

Yet the Lancaster-Bell schools did 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 societies afforded a substitute, though a poor one, for national otherwise 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.

Results of Lancasterianism in the United States

obtained.

casterian system was introduced into many

In the United States, where complete freedom in The Lanreligion obtained, the system of Dr. Bell and the National Society found little footing. The monitorial system in its Lancasterian form, however, was intro- American duced into New York City in 1806. The 'Society for the Establishment of a Free School,' after investigating

cities,