RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Sunday Sunday-Schools
true Origin and Evolution of the Jewish Sabbath and the Lord's Day, 2d ed., Boston, 1907; World's Rest Day. Being an Account of the Thirteenth International Congress on the Lord's Day, held at Edinburgh 6th to 8th Oct., 1908, Edinburgh, 1909; A. E. Main, Bible Studies on the Sabbath Question, Alfred, New York, 1910; W. B. Dana, A Day for Rest and Worship; its Origin, Development, and Present-day Meaning, ib., 1911; DC A, ii. 1042- 1056; DB, iii. 138-141, iv. 317-323; EB, iii. 2813-16; JE, x. 587-605; DCG, i. 251-253, ii. 540-542; Schaff, Christian Church, i. 476-480, ii. 201-205.
For Sunday laws consult: Codex Theodosianus, ed. T. Mommsen, Berlin, 1905; Blue Laws of New Haven Colony Connecticut: Quaker Laws of Plymouth and Massachusetts: Blue Laws of New York, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, Hartford, 1838; Blue Laws of Con-
necticut from the Code of 1650 and Public Records Previous to 1655, 5th ed., New York, 1904; H. Kingsbury, The Sabbath: a Brief History of Laws, Petitions, Remonstrances, and Reports, with Facts and Arguments relating to the Christian Sabbath, ib. 1840; J. H. Rigg, The Sabbath and the Sabbath Law, London, 1881; E. Beavan, History of the Welsh Sunday Closing Act, Cardiff, 1885; L. A. Govett, The King's Book of Sports, London, 1890; G. E. Harris, A Treatise on Sunday Laws. The Sabbath. The Lord's Day, its History and Observance, Civil and Criminal, Rochester, 1892; A. H. Lewis, A Critical History of Sunday . Legislation, new ed., New York, 1902; R. C. Wylie, Sabbath Laws in the U. S., Pittsburg, 1905; H. E. Young, Sunday Laws. Paper in Proceedings of Third Annual Meeting of American Bar Association; Documents 29, 41, 48, etc., of New York Sabbath Committee.
I. History.
1. Early Religious Instruction. Early Ethnic Religious Training
(§ 1).
Hebrew and Jewish Religious Education (§2).
Early Christian Schools (§ 3).
Schools in the Reformation Era (§4).
Anticipations of Modern Sundayschool (§ 5).
2. Modern Sunday-schools. The Raikes Schools (§ 1). Popular Interest Aroused (§ 2). Voluntary Services of Workers
(§3). Extension in Great Britain (§ 4).
SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.
In America (§5).
In Denmark, Germany, and Norway (§ 6). In Other European Countries (§ 7). II. Sunday-school Societies.
1. In Great Britain.
London Sunday-school Union (§1). Other Societies (§2).
2. Societies in America. Early Societies Local (§1). American Sunday-school Union
(§2). Results of this Society's Work (§ 3). Other Societies (§ 4).
3. Conventions of Sunday-school
Workers. Conventions to 1862 (§ 1).
1869-1910 (§ 2).
Other Conventions (§ 3).
III. Modes of Instruction and Litera-
ture.
Earlier Methods (§ 1).
Transition to Systematized Instruction (§ 2).
Various Systems Tried (§ 3).
The International Lessons (§ 4).
British Sunday-school Literature (§5).
American Literature (§ 6).
Conclusion (§ 7).
IV. Statistics of Sunday-schools.
1. United States.
2. Great Britain and Ireland.
3. Other Countries.
The Sunday-school may be defined as an assembly of persons grouped in classes, with teachers, on the Lord's Day, for the study of the Bible, for moral and religious instruction, and for the worship of God. The modern Sunday-school grew out of a movement to provide religious instruction for poor and neglected children, near the close of the eighteenth century. In its present popular form, it seeks to teach and to train all whom it can reach in the performance of the duties owing to God and to neighbor, as these duties are set forth in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures.
I. History. 1. Early Religious Instruction: Religious instruction of the young and the unlearned has, from the earliest history of the human race, been recognized as a sacred duty. In early times all primary instruction centered in the family, the father was teacher and priest of the household (Gen. xviii. 19). The more advanced education was, however, often provided in connection with temples, indicating how large a place religion had in the nations of great antiquity. The recent explorations in Babylonia, as at Sippara and Nippur, have not only shown that fully equipped schools existed in the days of Abraham and earlier, but they have also made known the methods of those schools, since multitudes of tablets have been found giving varied forms of school exercises of pupils, illustrating the pedagogical methods in the schools of Chaldea and Babylonia when Abraham and his fathers were children. Hymns and religious texts formed part of the extensive equipment used. Among the Semitic peoples, religious instruction in accord with school methods, therefore, was known and practised long before Abraham's day,
1. Early
Ethnic
Religious
Training1.
and the glimpses of the fact which appear in the Hebrew narratives, reveal its existence, and eome out unmistakably in the record of the " first " and great commandment (Deut. vi. 4-9). And these are unexpectedly and signally confirmed by the school-tablets found in Babylonia and by a law of Hammurabi (see Hammurabi and His Code), forbidding a lost child's recovery by its parents, when adopted and " taught " a handicraft or trade by its foster-father (§§ 188-189; Eng. transl. in DB, Extra Volume, p. 605).
Faithful religious instruction of the young was given by Abraham, with military training (Gen. xiv. 14; cf. Job i. 5), and was enjoined in the observance of the Passover. The Mosaic 2. Hebrew law required children and adults to and Jewish come together before the Lord at Religious certain seasons to hear the law, and to Education, have it explained, in addition to the instruction given in the family (Deut. xxxi. 10-13; Josh. viii. 34, 35). Joshua gathered the people at Gerizim and Ebal, where the law of God was impressively proclaimed anew. The prophets, from Samuel to Elijah and Elisha, promoted religious instruction, teaching the people God's will, besides maintaining the so-called " schools " of the prophets. Jehoshaphat appointed a royal educational commission to reestablish systematic religious instruction throughout the Hebrew nation, and a similar effort was made by Josiah (II Chron. xvii. 7-9, xxxiv. 30-33). In like manner Ezra gathered the people with the children into a national Bible assembly or school, wherein the priests taught and explained the meaning of the law of God, similar to modern methods of school instruction. In New-Testament times, schools for relig-
Sunday-Schools