蘭開斯特在美洲期間的導生學校運

Joseph Lancaster's Monitorial School Movement in America

喬瑟夫.蘭開斯特(Joseph Lancaster,1778 1838,以下簡稱蘭氏)係十八世紀末葉、十九世紀初葉英國的教育家。他一方面發表著作,一方面旅行演說,努力倡導導生制度的觀念,並鼓舞各地籌設導生學校,以期教育貧民子女,能夠閱讀聖經,敦勵其品格,並且訓練謀生技能,改善其生活狀況。他一生的生涯,約可分為四個時期:一是免費學校時期,自一七九八年在倫敦泰晤士河南岸的肯特街(Kent Street)設立第一所學校迄一八0八年;二是皇家蘭式機構(The Royal Lancasterian Institution)時期,自一八0八年皇家蘭式機構成立迄一八一三年;三是西敏路學校(Westminoter Rood School)時期,自一八一四年西敏路學校取代皇家蘭式機構迄一八一六年;四是移居美洲時期,自一八一八年蘭氏前往美洲倡導其制度迄一八三八年蘭氏在美國紐約去世為止。在這四個時期當中,第四個時期,無論中外,至今尚缺乏系統研究(註一)。

Joseph Lancaster(1778 1838)was one of the important educational reformers in the early nineteenth century. In 1798, he found his first school at Kent Street, Southwark, London. Immediately some scholars who were extremely impoverished were free to enter his school. In order to meet the rapid increases of educants, he deliberately devised a new system of tuition which economized not only in expense but also in time. In 1803, he published Improvements in Education