Sunday-schools

Sunday-schools, as we know them in modern times, sprang from the efforts begun in 1780 by Robert Raikes (q.v.), a printer in Gloucester. Although systematic and wide-spread attention to the religious training of children is of modern date, still some attention was bestowed upon it in early times. The father acted as teacher and priest towards the children in patriarchal times; there was provision for the training of children in the knowledge of the law in the Jewish economy. Ezra read and had the law explained 'before the congregation both of men and women and all that could hear with understanding' (Neh. viii.). There were religious schools in connection with the synagogues in New Testament times. The Mishna says, at five years of age 'let children begin the Scriptures, at ten the Mishna, and at thirteen let them be subjects of the Law.' In the apostolic age teachers were set over the young and ignorant. Mosheim says 'the Christians took all possible care to accustom their children to the study of the Scriptures, and to instruct them in the doctrines of their holy religion.' Clement of Alexandria and Origen did duty as catechists. The classes of Catechumens (q.v.) were intended for the instruction of candidates for church fellowship; instruction was given on Sundays just previous to public worship, and the scholars were mostly adults. At the Reformation Luther (1529), finding the people fearfully ignorant, opened schools for children for catechising. Knox (1560) did the same in Scotland. St Charles Borromeo (q.v.), Archbishop of Milan, founded Sunday-schools in his diocese, which still exist, but these were chiefly secular. Sunday-schools are noticed in an ordinance of Albert and Isabel in 1608 as then existing in the Catholic Netherlands. The magistrates were enjoined to see to their establishment and support in all places where not already set afoot. Both Richard Baxter and the Rev. Joseph Alleine (1634-68) were in the habit of gathering young people together for instruction; and there were many irregular and isolated attempts in the same direction in different parts of Britain. But it was Raikes who founded and consolidated the modern Sunday-school system and gave the subject publicity through his journal and other organs of public opinion. There is no doubt that his philanthropic work in Gloucester gaols had impressed him with the direct connection between ignorance and crime. One day, in 1780, he had gone to hire a gardener in a low suburb of the town near the Severn, where the people were mostly employed in a pin-factory. He was grieved at seeing the groups of wretched ragged children at play in the streets, and on inquiry was informed that on Sunday 'the street was filled with a multitude of wretches, who, having no employment on that day, spent their time in noise and riot, playing at chuck, and cursing and swearing in a manner so horrid as to convey to a serious mind an idea of hell rather than any other place.' To check this deplorable profanation of the Lord's Day he engaged four women, who kept dame-schools, to instruct as many children as he should send them on the Sunday in reading and the church catechism, for which they were to receive one shilling each for their day's service. In this work he was assisted by the Rev. Thomas Stock, of St John's parish. The children gathered into the first Sunday-schools ranged from six to twelve or fourteen years of age. Personal cleanliness was the one requirement. 'All that I require,' said Raikes, 'are clean hands, clean faces, and their hair combed.' Owing to the total ignorance of the scholars the teaching was of an educational nature at first; the little folks learned their letters, and to spell and read. The schools opened at 8 A.M., by 8.30 lessons were begun; afterwards the children went home, or to forenoon service, and in the afternoon to school again at the close of the church service till 5.30 P.M. Boys and girls were separately taught, and once a month they were publicly catechised in church as to their religious knowledge. In a short period a visible improvement was effected in both the manners and morals of the children. One employer of labour said 'the change could not have been more extraordinary had they been transformed from the shape of wolves and tigers to that of men.' More than three years after its foundation the scheme was noticed in Raikes's Gloucester Journal (November 3, 1783); but it was a letter by Raikes, quoted in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1784, which first drew general attention to the subject. In 1784 the first Sunday-school was established in London by the Rev. Rowland Hill. Numerous schools sprang up in all the principal towns, and a society under high patronage was formed in London in 1785 for the establishment and support of Sunday-schools throughout the kingdom, which in fourteen years spent £4000 in payment of teachers. By 1789 there were already 300,000 scholars throughout the kingdom. Hannah More (q.v.) started a school in 1789, and Sydney Smith one at Netheravon. Adam Smith wrote that 'no plan has promised to effect a change of manners with equal ease and simplicity since the days of the apostles;' and Cowper and John Wesley likewise approved of the system.

One great impediment to the early prosperity of the Sunday-school was the expense of hiring so many teachers. But several young men banded themselves together to teach the children gratuitously; the example spread, and soon the teaching was almost universally gratuitous. One authority says gratis teaching began at Oldham. A higher class of teachers offered their services; the schools ceased to be filled by the very poorest alone; handsome buildings were erected in connection with the different churches and chapels, or by general subscription, and that system was organised which has covered the land with schools. The secular teaching, which in certain instances included writing and arithmetic, was not of a very high order; but it placed the key of knowledge in the hands of multitudes who would otherwise have been unable to read, and the religious instruction with which it was combined moulded the character of some of the best men in England.

Sunday-schools were introduced into Wales in 1789 by the Rev. Thomas Charles of Bala (one of the founders of the Bible Society, q.v.), and were much appreciated even by adults—in one class at Bangor every pupil wore spectacles. The Sunday-school was known in Scotland in 1756, but it was not till 1786, when the Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge was formed, that it was publicly recognised, nor till 1795, when the Gratis Sunday-school Society was originated, that schools became general. At first they met with considerable opposition from both the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The names of Dr Chalmers, James Gall, and David Stowe deserve mention in connection with the progress of Sunday-schools in Scotland. In Ireland Sunday-schools had been partially anticipated by

Dr Kennedy, in County Down, in 1770; but it was not till 1785 that the system pursued by Raikes was adopted. The Sunday-school Society for Ireland was established in 1809. Of the teaching it may be said that good progress has been made since the passing of the Education Act, and it has more of a scriptural nature than formerly.

In the United States, as in Great Britain, there were isolated attempts at Sunday-school teaching before the example of Raikes reduced it to a system. The Methodist Bishop Asbury (q.v.) is said to have planted the first American Sunday-school in Hanover county, Virginia, in 1786. The Methodist Conference in 1790 resolved to establish Sunday-schools for white and black children. A Sunday-school Union was formed at Philadelphia in 1791 which employed paid teachers; the New York Union was formed in 1816; and the American Sunday-school Union in 1824, which sprang from the Sunday and Adult School Union (1817). During the first fifty-nine years of its existence 74,000 Sunday-schools were organised, with 466,000 teachers and over 3,000,000 scholars. In missionary work £565,000 had been spent, and £120,000 in grants of books and papers. The Congregationalists, Methodist Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Baptists have also organisations, and now the United States stands in the forefront as regards the excellence of buildings and the vigour and earnestness with which the work has been prosecuted. Dr Vincent, one of the founders of Chauquanqua (q.v.), which sprang from a Sunday-school Convention, deserves mention for the excellence of his Sunday-school lessons. Along with Mr Jacobs of Chicago he took the initiatory steps which led to the publication of the International Series of Lessons (1873) now used on both sides of the Atlantic. Sunday-schools were introduced into the West Indies in 1810, into France in 1815, and about the same time into Ceylon and at Serampore. The Sunday-school is an invariable adjunct to the work of the missionary. The Roman Catholics have also numerous Sunday-schools.

The establishment of the English Sunday-school Union in 1803 gave a powerful impetus to the extension of Sunday-schools through the agency of ministers and churches, and the improvement of the voluntary teachers engaged in the cause. Missionaries are supported on the Continent and elsewhere. Lectures are delivered, there are travelling agents, and a publication department which issued eighty new books in 1890 and circulated over 10,000,000 of their serial publications. The catalogue of books offered for sale now contains 1500 volumes suitable for libraries. Its affiliated schools in 1890 numbered 6528, teachers 153,851, and scholars 1,501,729. The Church of England Sunday-school Institute (1844) estimates the number of scholars in England and Wales connected with the Church of England as 2,220,000, with 195,500 teachers. The Wesleyan Sunday-school Union dates from 1874, and in less than ten years had 800,000 scholars. A Sunday-school jubilee celebration was held in 1831; the centenary was observed in 1880, and a monument erected bearing the names of Cardinal Borromeo, Thomas Stock, and Robert Raikes.

In 1818 the Sunday scholars in England and Wales numbered 477,225; in 1833, 1,548,890; and in 1851, 2,407,642; Scotland at the same date having 292,549, and Ireland 272,112. The numbers in America were 3,000,000. The report of the International Convention of 1881 for the United States gave 84,730 schools, 932,283 teachers, and 6,820,835 scholars. At the centenary celebration of 1880 the total number of teachers in the world was given as 1,425,233, and of scholars 12,107,312. Mr F. J. Hartley, of the Sunday-school Union, gave the number of Sunday-school teachers and scholars throughout the world in 1890 as follows :

See RAGGED SCHOOLS, EDUCATION; also Watson, Sunday-school Union (1853); Gregory, Robert Raikes (1880), and Centenary of Sunday-schools (1880); The Modern Sunday-school; Sunday-school Handbook; Vincent's American Sunday-school; Inglis' Sunday-school.