The Remarkable Story of Andrew Bell and the Madras System of Education
Andrew Bell was born in St Andrews, Britain in March 1753. His father was a barber. At the Grammar School, Andrew was found weak in language skills - something that was to show in his writings later - but strong in Mathematics. He was mercilessly beaten and this lead to his lasting aversion as an educationalist later on to corporal punishment.
Although his testimonials indicate sound scholarship, especially in Mathematics, and a good character, there is no evidence that he graduated at the end of his studies. However, it was not unusual even for good students to omit the formality of graduation.
Bell first sought employment as a tutor in Virginia. In 1779 he was engaged as a private tutor to the sons of Carter Braxton, a wealthy planter of West Point, Virginia and one of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776. The fact that technically his employer was a rebel did not seem to worry Bell, whose letters show some sympathy for the colonists' position.
By 1781, Bell returned to Britain and after being ordained as a priest, in 1787, he set out on voyage to India to seek his fortune. His plan was to equip himself with a chestful of scientific apparatus and go to Calcutta to give lectures in science. Calcutta was then under the East India Company Bell was advised by friends that the prospects there were good. So in 1787, he sailed from the Downs with his box of tricks and £128 10/- in capital.
On the way to Calcutta, the ship stopped at Madras (for the sake of convenience, we will continue to use Madras instead of Chennai in this article) and Bell decided to give a brief course of lectures, which proved very profitable and he decided to stay on. Bell was asked to take over the Male Military Asylum, a boarding school for orphans and the illegitimate sons of native women and British soldiers (there were many). He set about this task with great enthusiasm, for he refused the salary of £240 per annum.
However, he found the teaching methods abysmal and was at a loss to know what to put in their place when he discovered how children were taught in a traditional Tamil school. He saw a teacher get an older boy to trace in the sand letters to make words and he later saw this older boy pass on the learning in the same way to smaller boys. With the shortage of teachers the Asylum was facing, it seemed the best way to teach the largest number.
Bell chose one of the older pupils - a bright 11-year old called Johnnie Frisken - to teach the younger ones. Out of this, Bell developed what he called the monitorial or Madras system, where pupil monitors taught pupils younger than themselves in addition to receiving their own education from older pupils or teachers.
Result? The quality of education in the Male Asylum rose markedly. In addition to the three R's, the pupils received a sound moral education based on a mixture of admonition and praise, but without corporal punishment - a legacy from Bell's own childhood.
In 1796, Bell returned to Britain a much richer man than when he left. The sum of £128 that he landed with had grown to £25935. He was now wealthy enough to buy an estate, naming it Egmore after Egmore, Madras, where the Male Asylum had been established.
Bell published an interestingly titled report - " An Experiment in Education made at the Male Asylum in Madras, suggesting a system by which a school or family may teach itself under the Superintendence of the Master or Parent". Within a year, St Botolph's School in Aldgate, London and the industrial schools in Kendal had adopted the system. Soon,
Bell had 13 day schools and three Sunday schools running on the Madras system in England.
The Madras system was being adopted by many schools across England, and Bell was being sought after for advice on its implementation, so much so that he was given two years' leave of absence to enable him to devote his full energies to the spread of his system.
Professor Meiklejohn, one of Bell's biographers, explains the difference that Madras system made: "The children (this is in Bell's system) were to teach each other; each child was to rise or fall in his place in class according to his accuracy; or even to fall or rise from class to class. Before Dr Bell's plan, the master 'heard' all the lessons; and forty-nine children were always more or less idle while the fiftieth was occupied in'saying' his lessons.
But now the little boys were arranged in divisions; one of the boys taught; when one was reading, all the others listened; and the next boy corrected when an error was made. The lessons were always very short; and each child prepared what he had to without a single mistake.
A register was kept by the monitors and’Teachers' and even by the boys themselves; and thus the whole school became a scene of unceasing activity and constant healthy emulation".
As Bell put it, the aim was to 'get everything perfect'. Careful records had to be kept of the work covered and later on of the pupil's progress in a record called the paidometer. There was also a register of misdemeanours called by the pupils the 'black book', a phrase which has passed into common currency.
It was a system which was well suited to provide what the country needed at that time - cheap, basic, mass education.
The Madras system expanded rapidly. In 1812, a Society established to spread the system had 52 schools with 8620 pupils; in 1813 the number had risen to 230 schools with 40,484 pupils; by 1816, 756 schools were attached to the National Society, a number that later grew to 12,000.
As he was ageing, Bell was doing less travelling and spending more time on his writing. In 1815 he brought out his ‘Ludus Litterarius’ - an extension of the Madras system to grammar school level - to secondary as well as primary level schooling.
Bell left behind a large fortune, with enough funds to establish Chairs in Education in the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh.
As befitting his fame and contribution to education, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, a very high honour for a commoner in Britain. The inscription on the Abbey tomb reads: "The Author of the Madras System of Education".
Some of Bell's ideas lingered on long after the Madras system went out of use:
1. Each pupil should find his own level - the idea of the comprehensive school.
2. Small learning steps and everything to be learned perfectly before moving on - mastery learning.
3. Learning by teaching - still very sound practice.
4. Paidometer - pupil profiles.
5. No corporal punishment.
6. Moral Education - back in fashion.
Out of Asylum that Bell ran in Madras, began a school, St. George's School in Chennai, the oldest school in India. If you happen to visit the annual Chennai Book Fair, you will come to this school, for this is where the fair is held year after year. And if you happen to be in St. Andrews, Scotland,don't forget to visit the Madras College in the South Street. If you are from Chennai or India, you will be received with big smiles there.
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