Monitorial Schooling, “Common Christianity,” and Politics: A Transatlantic Controversy

Type of resource
Authors/collaborators
Title
Monitorial Schooling, “Common Christianity,” and Politics: A Transatlantic Controversy
Abstract
British Quaker Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838) introduced the monitorial system into the British education system. Under this system, one master taught a select group of older students, the monitors, and these in turn taught the rest. The rapid spread of elementary schooling on the monitorial model, spurred on by the necessity of educating a developing working class, was the source of intense and heated debate. Lancaster resided in Montreal from the summer of 1829 until the spring of 1833. He received government funding and support for his educational approach from Lower Canadian politicians from all factions. The author reviews the debate on monitorial schooling, with particular attention to the fate in England and Lower Canada, of Lancaster’s claims to offer “education without proselytism,” that is, to separate out sectarian religious instruction from what became, in consequence, “civil education.”
Book Title
Transatlantic Subjects: Ideas, Institutions, and Social Experience in Post-Revolutionary British North America
Place
Montreal and Kingston
Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Date
2008
Pages
251-280
Language
en
ISBN
978-0-7735-3334-9
Citation
Curtis, Bruce. “Monitorial Schooling, ‘Common Christianity,’ and Politics: A Transatlantic Controversy.” In Transatlantic Subjects: Ideas, Institutions, and Social Experience in Post-Revolutionary British North America, edited by Nancy Christie, 251–280. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008.
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