Dr. Andrew Bell was an East Indian
Company's Chaplain, stationed at Fort St. George, Madras, in 1789. He
noticed, in the course of his duties, that in the native schools, beside
the regular paid teachers, the more advanced pupils were also employed to
instruct younger scholars; each pupil thus having a tutor, and each tutor
a pupil; a system by which both were enabled to learn faster, and led to
take more interest in their work, than would otherwise have been
generally possible. Being an enthusiast in educational matters, he
resigned his chaplaincy, with its good stipend, to inaugurate, and
himself carry on, a school for the children of Europeans in the
Presidency, on the same principles. The result was so satisfactory that
on his return to England, in 1797, he published an account of what he
called the "Madras, or Monitorial System," and endeavoured to introduce
it in this country. Little progress, however, was made for some time,
beyond the establishment of a charity school, on these lines, at St.
Botolph's, Aldgate, London, and a school at Kendal, Co. Cumberland.

About the same date Joseph Lancaster, a young Quaker, set up a school for
poor children, before he was 19 years of age, in a room lent to him by
his father, in the Borough Road, Southwark, and in a very short time he
had nearly 100 under his charge. He also adopted the monitorial method,
but, as a Quaker, omitting the Church teaching of the Bell schools.
Persevering in the work, he was received in audience by the King, George
III., who gave him encouragement. He then travelled over the kingdom,
giving lectures on the new mode of instruction; which in consequence
spread with rapidity. In 1798 he taught about 1,000 boys, between the
ages of 5 and 12 years, his sisters teaching some 200 girls.

Objections were made to the indefinite character of the religious
teaching of a Quaker, by Professor Marsh, and others, and the Bell
schools, with their Church instruction, had by the year 1818 become
numerous. The services of Dr. Bell himself, in the cause of education
had been recognised, and rewarded by a Canonry of Westminster. By the
year 1828 upwards of 200,000 children were being taught on his system,
and at his death, a few years later, he bequeathed 120,000 pounds to
carry on the work which he had so much at heart. {112a}

These two systems, the Lancasterian or unsectarian schools, and the Bell
or church schools, continued to increase in number; there