ABSTRACT
The cheapness of the monitorial system made possible the widespread establishment of elementary schools in the first decades of the nineteenth century : moreover children were almost always expected to pay fees, and, even at id. per week, these usually provided no inconsiderable part of the expenditure. But the cheapness depended on the availability of at least one really large classroom, and the report of a Select Committee on ‘the Education of the Lower Orders in the Metropolis’ (1818) recognized the need for state grants in aid of building, since, as Henry Brougham informed the Commons, plans to establish schools were often abandoned ‘because of the first and greatest expense’ – that of ‘providing a school room and a master's house’ (Hansard, XXXIII, 587).
