Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838) led a movement to establish
schools that used what he called the Monitorial System,
sometimes called the "Lancasterian" or "Lancastrian"
System, in which more advanced students taught less
advanced ones, enabling a small number of adult masters
to educate large numbers of students at low cost in basic
and often advanced skills. From about 1798 to 1830 it was
highly influential, but was displaced by the "modern"
system of grouping students into age groups taught using
the lecture method, led by such educators as Horace Mann,
and later inspired by the assembly-line methods of
Frederick Taylor, although Lancaster's methods continue
to be used and rediscovered today. Problems with the
"modern" methods and the effects of the use of them are
encouraging concerned persons to re-examine such earlier
methods as those of Lancaster and adapt them to the
current educational environment. Some of the documents
which discuss the method and its use are now presented
here.
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