Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/803

* SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 701 SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. eral Sunday-School Society in 1785, of which on June 11, 1787, RaiUes was elected an honorary member. In 1780 five schools were reported in or near London. In ten years from that date the society had distributed 91,915 spelling books, 24,232 Testaments, and 5300 Bibles, to 1012 Sunday-schools and 05,000 scholars. From 1788 to 1800 the society had paid more than $17,000 to teachers. Gratuitous teachers were utilized in a school in Stockport, England, to- ward the close of the eighteenth century, and paid teachers gradually ceased to be generally employed. Before Kaikes died, in 1811, there were 400,000 children in the Sunday-schools of Great Britain alone. In Scotland, where the need was not so greatly felt, and in Xew Eng- land, the Sunday-school met with little favor at first, as seeming to endanger the sacredness of the Sabbath, and to relieve the home of some of its duties. The Archbishop of Canterbury sum- moned a covincil of bishops to consider means by which the movement might be stopped. Yet not- withstanding all opposition the Sunday-school idea constantly gained in favor. On December 19, 1790, twelve Christian work- ers held a meeting in Philadelphia, which led to the organizing on January 11, 1791, of a Society for the Institution and Support of First Day or Sunday Schools in the city of Philadelphia, with Bishop William White as president and Mat- thew Carey as secretary. The Reverend Robert !May, of London, gave a new impetus to Sun- day-schools in Philadelphia in 1811. urging the need of a general union. On Janviary 13, 1816, in Xew York Citj', was formed the Female L'nion Society for the Promotion of Sabbath-Schools, and on February 26, 1816, the New York (male) Sunday-School Union. In 1817 the Sunday and Adult School Union was formed in Philadelphia with Alexander Henry as the first president, and this developed on May 24, 1824, into the Ameri- can Sunday-School Union. The records of this great agency, interdenominational and national in its scope and support, showed in 1S99, on its seventy-fifth anniversary, that through its ef- forts 100,928 Sunday-schools had been organized, with 578,680 teachers and 4,070.346 scholars, and that the union had distributed publications amounting in value to over $9,000,000. At aji anniversary of the American Sunday- School Union in Philadelphia on May 23, 1832, fifteen States Were represented. It was then de- cided to call a general national Sunday-school convention to meet in New York in the autumn of that year to consider 78 questions on Sunday- school work sent out to 2500 persons throughout the country. The first national convention, there- fore, assembled on October 3, 1832, in Chatham Street Chapel, New York City, and chose the Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen as president. The National Convention as an independent organ- ization met subsequently in Philadelphia. May 22, 1833: Philadelphia, February 22-24, 1859: in Newark, N. J., April 29-30, 1869; and in Indian- apolis. April 16-19, 1872, at which convention the uniform lesson system was inaugurated, after much discussion, by the appointment of the first lesson committee to select the les.sons from 1873 to 1879. The united interest of Bible students in selected portions of the Bible, in the progress of the uniform lesson plan, has given rise to a lit- erature, both permanent and periodical, that has widely popularized Bible study. The interna- tional lesson system now includes a special beginners' course of Bible study for the young- est children, and still other modifications are under discussion. Other lesson systems are in use in some schools and in a few denominations, but in the vast majoritj- of schools the interna- tional uniform lesson system is used. At tlie ne.xt convention in Baltimore, May 11-13, 1875, the convention became international in scope and name. This convention has met every three years since that time. It is com- posed of delegates from au.xiliary State, Terri- torial, and provincial Sunday-school associations in North America. Its work is conducted during the triennium by an executive committee; a les- son committee, international and interdenomi- national in its personnel; a primary department; and a field workers' department. A World's- Convention, under the auspices of the London Sunday-Scho<il Union and the International Executive Committee, was held in London, July 1-4, 1889, thus establishing an institution com- prising all the countries of the world, and meet- ing since then in Saint Louis, Mo., September 3-5, 1893, and in London, July 11-15, 1898. In the improvement of teacher-training and Bible study what is known as the 'Chaitauqua movement' has been an important factor. See Chautau- qua. The Sunday-school is the pioneer religious agency in new communities, and the conserver of neighborhood religious instruction for the entire family in every community where it exists. It is extended to frontier or sparsely settled districts in America by the various denominational mis- sion boards, and by the American Sunday-School Union. It is stimulated to better work, and is made acquainted with the most recent methods, by means of conventions and institutes, some 18,000 of which are held in North America year- ly, under the auspices of the International Con- vention and its auxiliary State, provincial, coun- ty, township, and district Sunday-school asso- ciations. At the tenth international Sunday-school con- vention, held at Denver, Colo., in 1902, the fol- lowing statistics were presented as to the Sun- day-schools in the United States, including Ha- waii and Porto Rico: Number of Sunday-scliools, 139,817; oflicers and teachers, 1,419,807; schol- ars, 11,493,591; total enrollment, 13,092,703. In 1898 the corresponding figures for the entire world were: Sunday-schools, 254,698; teachers, 2,410,818; scholars, 2.3,227,330; total, 25,810,861. Bibliography. (1) Historical: Pray, History of Sunday-schools and of Religions Education from the Earliest Times (Boston, 1847); Wat- son. The History of the Sunday School Union, (London, 1853); id.. The First Fifty Years of the Sunday School (ib., 1873) ; Centenary Me- morial of the Establishment of Sunday Schools (ib., 1881), a collection of informing addresses and papers containing valuable historical ma- terial; Trumbull, Yale Lectures on the Sunday School (Philadelphia, 1888), the most compre- hensive and thorough treatment of the whole sub- ject; Harris. Hohcrt Ttailes, the Man and His Work (Bristol, 1899) ; Brown, Sunday School Movements in America (New York, 1901), deals with special phases of Sunday-school prog- ress, and the general field in America : Haniill, A Brief History of the International Lessons (Chicago, 1901). (2) Practical: Trumbull,