Educationist, born at St. Andrews; founder of the Monitorial system of education, which he had adopted, for want of qualified assistants, when in India as superintendent of an orphanage in Madras, so that his system was called "the Madras system"; returned from India with a large fortune, added to it by lucrative preferments, and bequeathed a large portion of it, some £120,000, for the endowment of education in Scotland, and the establishment of schools, such as the Madras College in his native city (1753-1832).