MUTUAL INSTRUCTION. - A teaching method consisting in the reciprocity of instruction, in that the more proficient pupils act as teachers and guides to their less instructed companions.
The first schools centered on this method, and for that reason called mutual-instruction schools, arose in England through the work of Andrew Bell (1753-1832) and Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838). Bell, chaplain of the English troops at Madras (India) and director of an orphanage for Indians, had been obliged, because of the scarcity of teachers, to introduce the system of having instruction imparted by the best pupils under his supervision. The experiment succeeded very well, and, having returned to England, he gave an account of it in a pamphlet: An Experiment in education, ... suggesting a system, by which a school or family may teach itself under the superintendence of the master or parent (London 1797). Meanwhile Lancaster had opened in 1798 a school for poor and abandoned children, in his own house at Southwark; and he had practiced mutual instruction from his own inspiration and initiative, independently of Bell, perfecting it later, however, in adherence to many points proclaimed by Bell; later he informed the public of it with two writings: Improvements in education (ibid. 1803) and The British system of education (ibid. 1810). The two schools then developed as antagonists, because Lancaster remained neutral as regards religion, while Bell adhered to the teachings of the Anglican Church. The antagonism gave rise to two different societies for the free diffusion of elementary instruction among the people; for Bell, the "National Society for promoting the education of the poor in the principles of the established Church through England and Wales" (1911); for Lancaster the "British and Foreign School Society" (1914).
The appearance of these schools made a great impression. The master, seated on the platform, supervised and directed every movement, while the monitors, who were the best pupils, instructed their own group. Discipline was firm and severe; Bell counted on punishments that involved a penance; Lancaster on those that involved ridicule (donkey's ears, a placard on the back, etc.). Although the method of mutual instruction was not really as new as was claimed (indeed there are traces and practices of it among the ancients, in the humanistic schools [cf., for example, the advice of M. Vegio in his De educatione puerorum, in N. Sammartano, I pedagogisti dell'età umanistica, Mazara 1948, pp. 57-60; and in the schools of the Jesuits and of the Brothers of the Christian Schools]); nevertheless the mutual-instruction schools multiplied more or less throughout the world. They had, in fact, the advantage of being able to attend simultaneously to a great number of pupils; of directing the best of them toward the career of teaching, of awakening emulation and creating a lively familiarity and solidarity among the boys. In Europe, therefore, the Lancasterian schools spread in England, France, Switzerland, but especially in France and in Italy. Here they spread widely between 1819 and 1830, under the influence and work of those Italians, such as F. Confalonieri, G. Capponi, E. Mayer and Cavour, who visited them abroad, saw them applied with enthusiasm, albeit with some corrections, in the institutes of Pestalozzi, Girard and Naville, and reported their fruits and advantages back home.
Thus they arose in the Duchy of Parma (1819 ff.) with the official favor of Maria Luisa; in Tuscany (1819 ff.) promoted by C. Ridolfi and R. Lambruschini, etc.; in Lombardy (1819 ff.) with the support of F. Confalonieri and of the newspaper Il Conciliatore; in Piedmont and Liguria (1819 ff.) through the interest of Charles Albert, still prince of Carignano, of L. Arborio Gattinara di Breme and of P. Balbo; in the Veneto and in the Papal State. They were generally flanked by founding societies, which took care of propaganda and of the necessary funds; all the more so because patriots and the various political currents saw in them the very effective means for a rapid formation of a national consciousness.
But the progress of didactics, the distrust on the part of the constituted powers, the criticisms of those who observed how in that way the master, far from establishing rapport with the pupils, did not even know them, and discipline was transformed into a mechanism; the discontent of many who considered it a diminution to have to depend on foreign methods, caused their suppression after a rapid flowering. In the Duchy of Parma they were abolished by the Regulation of 1831; in the Papal State, in 1824; in Lombardy-Venetia, especially because of the too close relations with Il Conciliatore, as likewise in Piedmont and Liguria, after the risings of 1821; in Tuscany they lasted until 1855.
There remained, however, the advantage of having placed before the public conscience the important problem of the instruction of the people.
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