THE MONITORIAL SYSTEM.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:]
you allow me space to reply to two of the letters in your last week's issue ? Mr. Strachey shelters himself behind generalities, by denying that any machinery is necessary to re- place that of the Monitorial system. This can only mean that those matters which have been hitherto managed by monitors can well be left without any management at all ; this surely is a reductio ad absurdum of Mr. Strachey's position. I think my challenge was a fair one, and one that an opponent is bound to meet ; I ask the " anti-monitors" to tell me how to keep disci- pline in my dormitories without a system of monitors. This is a problem every master has to deal with, and those who would aspire to reform our school management are bound to help us to a solution.
The letter of " Anti-Monitor " recognises this fact, and sug- gests dealing with the question by a system of what I may call "gentlemen-ushers," for want of a better term. Practically, I fear that the suggestion could not be carried out, for several reasons. It must be remembered that we have to take schools as they exist, and cannot at our will transport them into new buildings, fitted with every modern improvement. Let us take, as an instance, the school I know best, Marlborough ; my house contained fifty-two boys, disposed in four dormitories, and the average, I think, throughout would be about the same, so that with 630 boys in the school, there would be about forty dormitories in use.
This, according to" Anti- Monitor," would necessitate forty gen- tlemen-ushers, a very formidable addition to an existing staff of thirty masters. The work would be very wearing and irksome, and would not therefore attract gentlemen, unless fair salaries were offered ; we may therefore estimate that each of these gentlemen would cost the school, in salary, board, and lodging, about £250 per annum, the total expense of the new system being therefore about £10,000. This would increase the fee for each boy by nearly £20 per annum,—an item that parents would be hardly' likely to submit to, even if the system possessed undoubted advantages. But it must be remembered that the system has already had its trial, and been universally condemned, for it is nothing more than the old usher system revived, simply with the modification of having gentlemen for ushers. It is, I should think, unnecessary to point out here why the usher plan failed. It was not because the ushers were not gentlemen, but on account of the inherent evils of the system. To recur to it would, I believe, be the most dis- astrous step that could possibly be taken in reference to school administration. In conclusion, let me expresea hope that every " anti-monitor " will read Mr. Browning's letter and ponder over it ; they will then realise the ideal which schoolmasers hope to attain, and will recognise that the abuses they deplore are not due to the monitorial system, but to an imperfect development of it.
—I am, Sir, &c.,
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