Page "Education reform" Paragraph 17

The ultimate development of the grammar school was by Joseph Lancaster and Andrew Bell who developed the monitorial system.

Lancaster started as a poor Quaker in early 19th century London.

Bell started the Madras School of India.

The monitorial system uses slightly more-advanced students to teach less-advanced students, achieving student-teacher ratios as small as 2, while educating more than a thousand students per adult.

Lancaster promoted his system in a piece called Improvements in Education that spread widely throughout the English-speaking world.