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The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4 - Contents
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    VI. Lancastrian Schools Spread Biblical Knowledge

    Yet another factor that had a bearing was the Lancastrian system of monitorial education, which was commonly coupled with the distribution of the Bible and free education for the emancipated masses. This plan had its inception in 1787 with a Scotsman, Dr. Andrew Bell, but was perfected by Joseph Lancaster, an English Quaker, who reduced it to a system in 1801, 29JOSEPH LANCASTER (1778-1838), founder of the Lancastrian system of monitorial instruction, became a teacher with more than one thousand pupils under his care. He perfected the Andrew Bell system. Gaining the support of royalty, the Royal Lancastrian Society was formed, and schools were established. This then developed into the British and Foreign School Society, supported by Nonconformist churches. The plan spread to Holland, France, and Germany, and to the United States. Then it was extended to Mexico and several South American countries. writing several books thereon. This was fundamentally a mutual help provision, not requiring much money, and in which a few preceptors could help a large number of children, the teaching being conducted largely by monitors. This plan, then in vogue in many schools of Europe and the United States, had penetrated South America about this time. It was in operation in Mexico, 30Jesus Romero Flores, Historia de la civilizacion mexicana, pp. 246-248. and was also employed in Chile and other countries.” 31Domingo Amunategui Solar, El sistema de Lancaster en Chile i en otros poises Sud-Americanos (Santiago, 1895), pp. 14-19.PFF4 928.2

    In these Lancastrian schools of mutual learning the Bible was adopted as a reading text. After Lancaster, Diego Thomson was doubtless the most active propagator of the new system in South America. In due time he arrived at Buenos Aires, representing both the Lancastrian Schools (called the British and Foreign School Society), and the British and Foreign Bible Society. He founded some one hundred schools in Buenos Aires, with five thousand children, for which he received from the government council the title of Honorary Argentine Citizen. Thomson sought to spread not only his school system but also the knowledge of the Bible. And he was one of the first who sought liberty of worship for South America. He built schools in Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador. In Bogota he founded the Colombian Bible Society, the sole object of which was to publish and distribute the Scriptures in Spanish. 32Ibid., pp. 20-31, 220, 360, 49. Thomson’s work had the approval of the Argentine president, who liberalized the constitution.PFF4 929.1

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