'A place for everything': A personal interpretation of Joseph Lancaster, the monitorial system and its application in Detroit

Educational innovator and experimenter, Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838), a self-taught cockney, devised a cost-free scheme to "educate" the poor. In his first London school (1798), Lancaster installed student monitors. These were older students who knew a little, and were recruited to teach the younger children who knew less.;A bitter polemic ensued between Lancaster and Andrew Bell over who originated the monitorial method. Actually, there was little difference between Bell's National System and Lancasterianism. In fact, the dispute publicized both modes world wide.;After feuding with his London organization, Lancaster migrated to America (1818). His Southwark Borough Road School became the hub of the British and Foreign School Society. Lancaster helped spread his system throughout America, as well as Venezuela (1825-27) and Canada (1829-33). His financial irresponsibility and personal irascibility alienated his allies and drove Lancaster into poverty. In 1838 he was accidentally killed in New York City.;The University of Michigan established a Lancasterian School on Bates near Congress Streets in Detroit. Headmaster Lemuel Shattuck was the heart and soul of Detroit's school from 1818 to 1821. He was succeeded by John Farmer, likewise a Lancasterian. The University Trustees failed to support the school adequately. The pro and anti-Lancasterian forces fought it out in the Detroit Gazette. The credibility of the school and system suffered. With Principal Farmer's resignation (1824), the Detroit Lancasterian School terminated.;After the initial euphoria wore off, the credibility of the system suffered universally. Juveniles proved to be inadequate instructors. The monitor and memoritor method simply didn't measure up. Too, catechetical indoctrination failed to make the masses more moral. Lancaster had established a teacher training program of sorts, but superficial at best. By the 1840s, the Lancasterian System had been discredited and dismantled.;Many archaic Lancasterian principles are still employed today. Schools are still bureaucratic, and often are more like factories than families. In many cases teaching is still an unprofessional pursuit. Empowerment notwithstanding, educators are frequently treated as mere employees. There are those who would readily sell out education to corporate interests, as Lancaster suggested. Parsimony is still the shibboleth of schooling. Schemes to substitute amateurs (adult and adolescent) for authentic educators still surface. The Lancasterian legacy indeed lingers on.;Joseph Lancaster believed he had found "a place for everything." But wherever and whenever his principles were employed, so much proved to be out of place.