... fees. These were known as Voluntary schools. Most of these were run by either National Society For Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church or the British and Foreign School Society. In the schools run by the former, the National Society, the education was firmly Anglican. In the latter's schools the teaching was nondenominational. Both used the bible as a textbook and taught; reading , writing, and arithmetic and some geography and general knowledge. Children could attend these school between the ages of six and fourteen and generally stayed from one to three years. The monitorial system was used in these schools and this led to teaching by rote. Most children left these schools unable to read properly and if they could read it was without understanding what they were reading. The founders of the Voluntary schools, Bell and Lancaster, were to fall out ...

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