=Value of the Monitorial System in England.=--The plans of the two organizations were similar, but differed somewhat in details. Both used monitors and taught writing by means of a desk covered with sand, but the system of Lancaster was animated by broader motives and had many more devices for teaching. It also instituted company organization, drill, and precision, and developed a system of badges, offices, rewards, and punishments. Monitorial instruction, however, was not original with either Lancaster or Bell. It had long been used by the Hindus and others, although the work of the two societies brought it into prominence. It overemphasized repetition and recitation mechanics, and consisted of a formal drill rather than a method of instruction. [Sidenote: Afforded substitute for national education.] [Sidenote: Training colleges.] [Sidenote: British and Foreign schools absorbed, but National a system by themselves.] Yet the monitorial schools were productive of some achievements. Most of them afforded a fair education in the elementary school subjects and added some industrial and vocational training. They also did much to awaken the conscience of the English nation to the need of general education for the poor. The British and Foreign and the National Societies afforded a substitute, though a poor one, for national education in the days before England was willing to pay for general education, and they became the avenues through which such appropriations as the government did make were distributed. In 1833 the grant of £20,000, constituting the first government aid to elementary education, was equally divided between the two societies (see p. 388), and this method of administration was continued as the annual grant was gradually increased, until the system of public education was established. Likewise, in 1839, £10,000 for normal instruction was voted to the societies, and was used by the British and Foreign for its Borough Road Training College, and by the National for St. Mark’s Training College. These were followed by several other training institutions, established by each society through government aid. In 1870, when the ‘board,’ or public elementary, schools were at length founded, the schools of the British and Foreign Society, with their nonsectarian instruction, fused naturally with them; but the institutions of the National Society, though transferred to school boards in a few cases, have generally come to constitute by themselves a national system on a voluntary basis. [Sidenote: Adoption by New York and other cities.] [Sidenote: Introduced into high schools and academies.]