Lancaster, Joseph definition of Lancaster, Joseph in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Lancaster, Joseph, 1778–1838, English educator. In 1801 he founded a free elementary school, using a type of monitorial system monitorial system, method of elementary education devised by British educators Joseph Lancaster and Andrew Bell during the 19th cent. to furnish schooling to the underprivileged even under conditions of severely limited facilities.
..... Click the link for more information. for which he acknowledged his debt to Andrew Bell Bell, Andrew, 1753–1832, British educator, b. St. Andrews, Scotland. After seven years in Virginia as a tutor, he returned to England, was ordained a deacon, and later (1789) became superintendent of an orphan asylum in Madras (now Chennai), India.
..... Click the link for more information. . The Royal Lancasterian Society was later established (1808) to direct the school. However, Lancaster, embittered by controversy with the society and with Bell, whose system had the support of the established church—Lancaster was a Quaker—went to the United States in 1818 to lecture. His efforts to establish a school at Baltimore were ended by his failing health. He moved to Venezuela, and later to Canada and New York City, to promote his educational ideas. Although Lancaster's ideas were generally well received during those journeys, he was unable to establish another school outside England. His writings on his system include Report of Joseph Lancaster's Progress from 1798 (1810) and The Lancasterian System of Education (1821).

Bibliography

See study ed. by C. F. Kaestle (1973).