Madras College

Madras College, often referred to as Madras, is a Scottish secondary school located in St Andrews, Fife. It educates over 1,400 pupils aged between 11 and 18 and was founded in 1833 by the Rev. Dr Andrew Bell.HistoryMadras College, founded in 1833, takes its name from the system of education devised by the school's founder, the Rev. Dr Andrew Bell FRSE.Bell was born in St Andrews in 1753, the son of a local magistrate and wig-maker. He studied at the University of St Andrews where he distinguished himself in mathematics. He became a clergyman of the Church of England and took up an appointment as chaplain to the regiments of the East India Company in Madras (known since 1996 as Chennai), India. One of his duties was to educate the soldiers' children. Because there was a shortage of teachers, he used the older students, who had been taught the lesson by the master, to instruct groups of younger pupils. The pupils who assisted the teacher were called 'monitors'. This method of education became widely used in schools at home and abroad.After his return from India, Dr Bell made it his life's work to travel the country and encourage schools to adopt 'the Madras system', as it had come to be known. By the time of his death in 1832, over 10,000 schools were using his methods.