tors, assistants, and elder scholars, who then receive their extra lessons.-WoOD.

23. Of the Monitorial System.

Next to the nomination of the master, there is no circumstance on which a school instituted on the principle of mutual instruction will so much depend for its success as the selection which he makes of his MONITORS. This is a matter of much too great importance to be left to chance. Nor ought these officers to be appointed merely on account of seniority, or long experience in the system of the school. Even personal proficiency will by no means be always of itself a safe guide. The like observation applies here as in the case of the master himself; the scholar of quickest apprehension is sometimes far from being the best monitor. Due pains must also be taken in determining the class to which each monitor respectively is to be posted. One monitor will do much better for one class, and another for another. It will by no means do to assign the lowest class to the lowest monitor, and so progressively. In truth, the younger classes in general require more patience, more perseverance, and, in a word, more teaching qualifications on the part of the monitor, than most of the others. The master, it is therefore obvious, ought carefully to avoid laying down, or at least divulging, any general rules, on the subject

either of the nomination or the appointment of his monitors. It should be distinctly understood through the school, that in every such nomination all circumstances must be taken into account,--that one may be rejected or removed from being a monitor, merely on account of his not possessing a turn for teaching, without calling in question either his own other attainments or his diligence,—and that, among the monitors themselves, the post of honour depends, not on the numerical order of the class intrusted to them, but entirely upon its state of discipline and improvement. These principles have been acted upon and fully understood in the Sessional School for several years past, and, during the whole period, we have never known a single instance of murmur at the manner in which they have been carried into execution. In the arrangement of the monitors, indeed, much is left (not theoretically, or avowedly, but practically) to their own choice, it being found that each in general knows the department for which he is best qualified, and that he discharges with greatest zeal the duties of that department which has been the object of his own choice. This of course is much facilitated by the circumstance already alluded to, of there being no particular place of honour among them, except the situation of head monitor, which infers a general superintendence of the others, and of course additional responsibility. The state of their respective classes, accordingly, is among them the

great and only object of their emulation, and according to that, and that alone, are the monitor prizes awarded.

This method of teaching a school through the medium of the scholars themselves, highly important as it is in the conduct of education, especially upon a large scale, is well known to be only of modern invention. In every age, indeed, there have perhaps been instances of elder children occasionally instructing the younger in matters which they had themselves been previously taught. But for Dr Bell, towards the close of the eighteenth century, was reserved the honour of being the first to reduce this method into a regular system, to exemplify that system in his own practice, and to recommend it to the notice of the world.

The monitorial system is certainly of greatest service, and is indeed absolutely essential, in those large establishments where it becomes necessary to put some hundreds of children under the superintendence of one master. If all of these should remain unemployed until it came to their own turn, or even to the turn of their own class, to repeat a lesson, it is obvious what a miserable waste of time must be the necessary consequence; whereas, according to this system, when rightly conducted, all are incessantly busy, and not a single moment is lost by any one individual. To say that a boy makes a better teacher than a man would be manifestly absurd.

At the same time, we have no hesitation in giving it as our opinion that, in some respects, independently of the question of expense, the monitorial system has decided advantages over any which could be conducted by the same number of adult ushers, especially where these have not all been previously trained to the system which they are to teach. In the first place, the young monitors are more pliant and flexible, and thus more easily moulded by the master to his own views; so that he can at all times maintain, throughout the whole even of the most extensive seminary, nearly as perfect a unity of system, and as nice an accommodation of each class to the others, as if he himself were every moment personally occupied in each, and continually conducted the education of every individual scholar from its commencement to its close. Every the slightest instance, too, of neglect or deviation from instructions can be noticed and censured in the case of the monitor with the most perfect freedom; and wherever he is on any account found not to answer the purpose for which he was taken on trial, he may in a moment be removed to another department, or even altogether from the situation of monitor, without exciting any stir, or, perhaps, the slightest feeling of affront. But where each class is put under the management of an usher the very opposite of all this takes place. He is disposed much more to follow his own inclination; he cannot be censured

with the same freedom, nor be so easily removed; nor, if he were removed, could his place be so readily supplied. Hence the unity of system is in a great measure destroyed, the progress of each class will in a much greater degree depend on the qualifications of its respective teacher, and the success of the school as a whole will rest much more on their joint qualifications, and be less ensured by the appointment of one able master, than when it is placed under the tuition of monitors.

In the second place, the monitors are, in general, especially in minor matters, (by which we mean those that are too generally accounted such,) more active and alert than ushers, make much better fags, and, as has often been observed, take a pleasure and a pride in performing duties, which the others are too apt to regard as an excessive bore and a degradation.* Nothing in the Sessional School has more astonished a stranger than the zeal, the alertness, the pains, and, we may add, the ability, displayed by the monitors. No stronger proof, indeed, can be given of their teaching qualifications than the eagerness with which they are laid hold of by parents in the higher walks of life for the domestic education of their own families. Their very age, if it is in

*"How can any one expect us to do the drudgery of these boys?" is an unintentional compliment which we believe has not unfrequently been paid to the monitorial system by some of its strongest opponents.