MUTUO INSEGNAMENTO. — A teaching method consisting in reciprocal instruction, whereby the more advanced pupils act as teachers and guides to their less instructed companions.
The first schools based on this method, and therefore called schools of mutual instruction, arose in England through the work of Andrea Bell (1753–1832) and Giuseppe Lancaster (1778–1838). Bell, chaplain to the English troops at Madras (India) and director of an orphanage for Indians, had been obliged, because of the scarcity of teachers, to introduce a system whereby instruction was imparted by the best pupils under his supervision. The experiment was highly successful, and, on returning to England, he reported on 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, independently of Bell, had practised mutual instruction on his own inspiration and initiative, later perfecting it in accordance with many of the principles proclaimed by Bell. He subsequently informed the public about it in two writings: Improvements in education (ibid. 1803) and The British system of education (ibid. 1810). The two schools subsequently developed as antagonists, because Lancaster remained neutral in religious matters, whereas Bell adhered to the teachings of the Anglican Church. This antagonism gave rise to two different societies for the free diffusion of elementary education 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 teacher, seated at his desk, supervised and directed every movement, while the monitors, who were the best pupils, instructed their own groups. Discipline was firm and severe: Bell relied on punishments involving penance, while Lancaster relied on those involving ridicule (donkey ears, a placard on the back, etc.). Although the method of mutual instruction was not actually as new as was claimed (there are, in fact, indications of and precedents for it among the ancients, in the humanist 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 the Brothers of the Christian Schools]), the schools of mutual instruction nevertheless multiplied more or less throughout the world. They had, in fact, the advantage of being able to attend simultaneously to a large number of pupils;
of directing the best among them toward a teaching career, of awakening emulation, and of creating lively familiarity and solidarity among the children. In Europe, therefore, the Lancasterian schools spread in England, France, Switzerland, but above all in France and Italy. Here they became widespread between 1819 and 1830, through the influence and work of Italians such as F. Confalonieri, G. Capponi, E. Mayer, and Cavour, who visited them abroad, saw them applied enthusiastically, though with certain modifications, in the institutions of Pestalozzi, Girard, and Naville, and reported their results and advantages in their homeland.
Thus they arose in the Duchy of Parma (1819 onward), with the official support of Maria Luisa; in Tuscany (1819 onward), promoted by C. Ridolfi and R. Lambruschini, etc.; in Lombardy (1819 onward), with the support of F. Confalonieri and the newspaper Il Conciliatore; in Piedmont and Liguria (1819 onward), through the efforts of Carlo Alberto, still prince of Carignano, L. Arborio Gattinara di Breme, and P. Balbo; and in the Veneto and the Papal States. They were generally accompanied by founding societies, which took care of propaganda and the necessary funds, all the more so because patriots and the various political currents saw in them a highly effective means for the rapid formation of a national consciousness.
But advances in teaching, distrust on the part of the constituted authorities, criticism from those who observed that, in this manner, the teacher not only failed to become closely acquainted with the pupils but did not even know them, and that discipline was transformed into a mechanism, as well as the dissatisfaction of many who regarded dependence on foreign methods as a diminution, caused their suppression after a rapid flourishing. In the Duchy of Parma they were abolished by the Regulation of 1831; in the Papal States, in 1824; in Lombardy–Venetia, especially because of their overly close relations with Il Conciliatore, as also in Piedmont and Liguria, after the uprisings of 1821; in Tuscany they lasted until 1855.
What remained, however, was the benefit of having brought before the public conscience the important problem of the education of the people.