In this article the author looks at the appropriation of the monitorial system of education across a number of Spanish American countries between 1818 and c. 1844. The British understanding of the method is compared with the Spanish American perception of it (privileging the similarities rather than the differences in perception among Spanish American countries). The focus is in particular on the overarching concept of "order" in the monitorial system. The author shows how, whereas the features of the method tending to inculcate a sense of order in the students was generally seen in Britain as a means to bring up a restrained and submissive working class, the association between order in the classroom and social order was not equally evident in the young Spanish American republics. It is argued that notions of order from the monitorial system were often linked to two elements: (1) the learning of the republican concept of limited exercise of individual authority in society, and (2) sensationalist theories about the manner in which knowledge is acquired by the infant mind, for which the monitorial method was considered ideal.