National Society for Promoting Religious Education
The National Society for Promoting Religious Education, commonly called the National Society and since 2016 also known as The Church of England Education Office (CEEO), played a major role in the history of education in England and Wales. It promoted church schools and Christian teaching in line with the Church of England and stood in opposition to the nonconformist British and Foreign School Society.
The Society used the monitorial system, where a small group of paid teachers instructed older students who then taught the younger ones. It was strongly supported by Anglican clergy, the universities (Oxford and Cambridge), and the established church, and faced opposition from nonconformists.
The National Society was founded on 16 October 1811 with the aim of basing national education on the Church of England and teaching the poor according to its liturgy and catechism. One of its principal founders was Joshua Watson. By 1824, about 400,000 Anglican children attended around 3,000 Sunday schools sponsored by the Society.
Its work helped shape liberal education policies passed by Parliament in the 1830s. Schools run by the National Society were called National Schools, in contrast to the non-denominational “British schools” founded by the rival British and Foreign School Society. The monitorial system was developed at about the same time by Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster. Bell, a Church of England clergyman, conducted a monitorial experiment in Madras that he described in An Experiment in Education (1797).
In short, the National Society promoted education for the poor based on Church of England principles and used the monitorial method, a system that dominated popular education for about fifty years.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:50 (CET).