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Monitorial system

The monitorial system, also known as Madras system, Lancasterian system/Lancasterism or the Bell system of instruction, was an education method that took hold during the early 19th century because of Spanish, French, and English colonial education that was imposed on their colonies. This method was also known as "mutual instruction" or the "Bell–Lancaster method" after the British educators Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster who both independently developed it. The method was based on the abler pupils being used as "helpers" to the teacher (so-called pupil-teachers), passing on the information they had learned to other students.

The 'monitorial system' which made such striking progress in England in the early part of the 19th century received its foundational inspiration from village schools in south India. Andrew Bell, whose name is associated with the 'monitorial system', was an Army chaplain in India, and from 1789 to 1796 held the position of superintendent of the Male Orphan Asylum in Madras, now known as Chennai. It was in the course of his residence here that his attention was directed to the system of pupil teachers that obtained in the Madras Pial schools (run around temples), and which in essence was also the system in the Bengal Pathsalas. He developed the Bell System of Instruction, writing of it "The school teaches itself". It was quickly adopted at the Royal Military School and the Royal Hibernian Military School.

The monitorial system was found very useful by 19th-century educators, as it proved to be a cheap way of making primary education more inclusive,[citation needed] thus making it possible to increase the average class size. Joseph Lancaster's motto for his method was Qui docet, discit – "He who teaches, learns." The methodology was adopted by the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales,[citation needed] and later by the National Schools System.

The monitorial system, although widely spread and with many advocates, fell into disfavour with David Stow's "Glasgow system," which advocated trained teachers with higher goals than those of monitors.[citation needed]

The basic teaching and learning process used in the monitorial system has been used in passing knowledge between people in many cultures because of its low cost to benefit ratio. Numerous institutions use the basic concept as their primary mode of instruction. There have been many observations regarding its efficacy, in 35 AD in Rome, Seneca the Younger, in an epistle to his friend, Lucillus, noted: Docendo discimus – we learn by teaching.[citation needed]

Lancaster specified an ideal classroom (hall) as being a

parallelogram, the length about twice the width. The windows were to be six feet from the floor. The floor should be inclined, rising one foot in twenty from the master's desk to the upper end of the room, where the highest class is situated. The master's desk is on the middle of a platform two to three feet high, erected at the lower end of the room. Forms and desks, fixed firmly to the ground, occupy the middle of the room, a passage being left between the ends of the forms and the wall, five or six feet broad, where the children form semicircles for reading.

According to Gladman, to stimulate effort and reward merit, "Lancaster used Place Taking abundantly. He also had medals and badges of merit... Tickets could be earned too; these had a trifling pecuniary value." Prizes were given "to excess" ceremonially.

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