Monitorial System

Monitorial System, or MUTUAL INSTRUCTION. It first occurred to Dr Andrew Bell (q.v.), when superintendent of the Orphan Hospital, Madras, in 1795, to make use of the more advanced boys in the school to instruct the younger pupils. These youthful teachers were called Monitors. The method was eagerly adopted by Joseph Lancaster, who in the first years of the 19th century did so much for the extension of popular education; and, from him and the originator, the system was called indifferently the Madras and the Laneastrian, as well as the Monitorial or Mutual System. See EDUCATION, Vol. IV. p. 210. The monitorial system is not, as is commonly supposed, a method of teaching; it is simply a method of organising schools, and of providing the necessary teaching power. At a time when the whole question of primary education was in its infancy, the state refusing to promote it on the ground that it was dangerous to society, and the public little disposed to contribute towards its extension, it was of great importance that a system should be adopted which recommended itself as at once effectual and economical. But its value as an educational agency was universally overrated, and in the end broke down.