To James Madison from Gulian C. Verplanck, 5 February 1828
From Gulian C. Verplanck
Washington Feb. 5th. 1828
Sir
The interest which your connection with the University of Virginia shews that you feel in the subject of education induces me to send you a copy of the last report of the N. Y. High School Society.1 The schools of this institution afford the most compleat and successful example of the application of the Monitorial system of instruction2 to the higher branches of education. They were originally established by a Society composed of some of our most distinguished & philanthropic citizens, chiefly with a view to the well-known economy of the monitorial system from the desire of bringing the means of better education within the power of a large class of our community upon whose families the high price of instruction in everything above the mere elements of education, then operated either as a burdensome tax or a total exclusion.
This object has not only been obtained most satisfactorilly, but the Trustees also flatter themselves that the course of early education has been much improved, by communicating to the subjects, together with equal accuracy in the usual parts of instruction in languages, arithmetic, mathematics &c a greater variety of general knowledge calculated to interest & excite the youthful mind as well as fit it for more varied future usefulness. I am very respectfully your obedt. Sert.
G. C. Verplanck
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. Third Annual Report of the Trustees of the High-School Society, of New-York, Made on Monday, November 12, 1827: Pursuant to the Act of Incorporation (New York, 1827; 29208). JM’s copy is in the Madison Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress.
2. The monitorial or Lancaster system of education “gave priority to efficiency; professionalized pedagogy; popularized nonsectarian, tax-supported, uniform schools; and implemented a system of instruction and discipline based on meritocratic principles.” It used advanced students as monitors or instructors for less advanced students, and it rejected corporal punishment in favor of encouraging competition among peers (Richard J. Altenbaugh, ed., Historical Dictionary of American Education [Westport, Conn., 1999], 208).