Lancaster System

Joseph Lancaster and the Lancaster System

Joseph Lancaster, an English Quaker, was born in 1778, the son of a shopkeeper in Southwark, England. In his youth, Lancaster believed he had religious visions directing him to become a missionary and teacher to children in the West Indies. As a teenager, Lancaster aspired to travel to Jamaica to educate its poor Black children; however, he was unable to afford the trip and, instead, joined the Society of School Friends. Dedicated to serving the poor, in 1798 he opened a school in London. Lancaster's school quickly became popular and thus overcrowded; he admitted the poorest students for free and found it difficult to manage the finances. Consequently, Lancaster devised a system of dividing students into homogeneous classes based on subject proficiency and monitored by older students. The monitors were responsible for supervising the class, teaching lessons, judging recitations, and ensuring discipline. The system was described as an all-day spelling bee, where students competed in content mastery. A teacher was responsible for training the monitors, teaching specific skills to large numbers of students, and handling administrative tasks. Standardized procedures were uniformly followed, enabling a single person to “teach” hundreds of students efficiently and cost effectively. The system also created a form of hierarchical apprenticeship: One could move from student to monitor to assistant teacher to principal teacher. Thus, the system provided an educational career path, producing lifelong, loyal employees, and serving as a precursor to normal schools.

Lancaster's system also fostered discipline by requiring constant activity and competition, set in place by rules and routines around emulation. As a Quaker, Lancaster was opposed to physical force to discipline students, using instead a reward system to encourage positive performance and behavior. Students received awards for individual achievement and were promoted in specific subjects based on performance. Lancaster believed this motivated students to compete, which led to ambition and learning—certainly attractive alternatives to corporal punishment.

Additionally, Lancaster developed a nondenominational approach to religious instruction called “scriptural education.” Instruction occurred without doctrine, and interpretation was up to the individual. This approach found strong support and served as an early form of nonsectarian public education in America.

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