THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
For about three years, Raikes looked upon his
schools as an experiment. When William Fox,
William Wilberforce (q.v.), and the Wesleys — John
and Charles (qq.v.), — and Jonas Han-
t t°P t* wav> came as the guests of Raikes and
Aroused. ^s neighbors, he explained his plan, asked their counsel, and took them to the school to hear the children repeat prayers, the catechism, answer Bible questions, and sing Watts' hymns. It is recorded that they were astonished, " caught the fire," and extended the movement. Contrary to a popular notion, it is now affirmed that Raikes used " voluntary teachers," or monitors over small classes. " The system," says Harris, the latest biographer of Raikes, " was founded on, and supported by, voluntary effort; paid masters and mistresses were at first necessary, but they gradually disappeared; the monitors over classes were unpaid and voluntary from the beginning of his schools." The paid " master " and " mistress " of Raikes' schools were the superintendents; the class teachers were unpaid and voluntary, selected and directed by the paid master or mistress. When satisfied that his scheme had passed the experimental stage, Raikes published a brief notice of it in the Gloucester Journal of Nov. 3, 1783, which was copied into the London papers. The Gentleman's Magazine also published a letter of Raikes' of Nov. 25, 1783, in full, and a little later, another description by Raikes was given in the Arminian Magazine edited by John Wesley. These and many other published accounts extended knowledge concerning the new movement, while many pulpits repeated the story and praised the institution. By these means the knowledge and character of these Sunday-schools were rapidly diffused throughout the Christian world.
The schools of Raikes, and of the earlier promoters of the new movement, chiefly aimed to reach the children of the poor, and of those who neglected the
„ _ . church. The scheme commended itself
tarv " to thoughtful and philanthropic minds;
Services of leamed and influential persons became
Workers, its warm advocates. It met with criticism and opposition from some professors of religion and churchmen, who questioned its wisdom and its usefulness. The archbishop of Canterbury was moved to call together bishops and clergy to see what should be done to stop it. William Pitt seriously considered the introduction of a bill in Parliament for the " suppression of Sunday-schools." In Scotland, teaching on the Sabbath by laymen was pronounced an innovation and a breach of the fourth commandment. Sunday-schools on the new plan, however, continued to multiply in face of opposition, extending with marvelous rapidity in England, Wales, and Ireland, more slowly in Scotland, upon the continent, and in America. Experience soon proved that even paid " masters," to say nothing of paid teachers, made the system expensive, tending to limit its usefulness. If class-teachers and monitors could give their time, why might not persons competent for masters, and for all the instruction, be found to act without pay? Next, therefore, to founding the system, the most important step was to replace paid supervising " masters " and
" mistresses " and the few paid instructors by voluntary and unpaid superintendents and teachers. Raikes used unpaid class-teachers from the first but paid superintendents. Sir Charles Reed credits Oldham, England, with having been the first Sunday-school to displace paid by gratuitous instruction. John Wesley notes Sunday-schools at Bolton, England, in 1787 " having eighty masters (teachers) who receive no pay but what they received from the great Master." The famous Stockport Sunday-school in 1794 paid only six of its thirty teachers. A Sunday-school in Passaic County, N. J., in 1794, having children from a cotton factory, gave them gratuitous instruction, and Samuel Slater, of Pawtucket, R. I., had a similar school, with unpaid teachers, for factory operatives. William Brodie Gurney introduced gratuitous instruction into several Sundayschools in London, England, about 1796; and similar schools were promoted by Rowland Hill about the same time. Wholly gratuitous instruction speedily became a popular feature of the institution, and displaced the earlier plan of paid supervision and partly paid instruction. The adoption of the Sundayschool as a mode of religious instruction for children of the Church came more slowly into favor. But it had a remarkable growth, under the improved feature of wholly voluntary instruction and management, which adapted it to the needs of poor communities and parishes in city and country.
The growth of modern Sunday-schools was phenomenal. While published reports of the membership vary widely, showing imperfect enumeration and defective census with gaps filled by mere estimates, yet the following figures give some idea of
the average progress, at different peri-
4. Exten- 0(js dmiiig the past century. Raikes,
s^Pn "* in a letter to the Gentlemen's Maga-
Britaiu z^ne m 1^87, estimated the number of
children in Sunday-schools at 250,000. This was evidently an over-estimate, for the same magazine in 1800 gave the number as only 156,400. A parliamentary census of England and Wales in 1818 reported 5,463 Sunday-schools, with 477,225 scholars, and 19,230 day-schools having 674,833 scholars. A similar census in 1833 reported a membership of 1,548,890. An educational census of England and Wales in 1851 reported 2,407,642 Sunday scholars, which was 260,000 more than were reported by the same census for all the public and private [secular] schools in the country at that time. At the same period it was said that there were 292,- 549 Sunday scholars in Scotland, and a total in Great Britain (including Ireland and some islands) of 2,987,980 in 27,048 Sunday-schools, having 325,- 450 teachers. At the Raikes centenary in 1880, reports and estimates placed the number of Sunday scholars then in Great Britain at 6,060,677, with 674,704 teachers. At the world's Sunday-school convention in 1889 it was reported that Great Britain (including Ireland) had 44,944 Sunday-schools with 704,286 teachers and 6,695,399 scholars. In 1907, at the Rome convention, Great Britain and Ireland reported 44,399 Sunday-schools, 684,342 teachers, and 7,450,374 scholars. J. Henry Harris computes that the Sunday-schools in Great Britain involve an annual expenditure of about £700,000,