RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Sunday-Schools
2. Other Societies.
or institutes in which persons by study and examination have been fitted for teaching. It secured a " loan fund " from which loans were made without interest to churches and organizations erecting buildings and class-rooms, and maintains a large reference library and reading-room for teachers and others, at a subscription price of one shilling per annum for each person. Since 1864, the union has aided in maintaining special missionaries to extend Sunday-schools on the continent, in India, and elsewhere. At its centenary in 1903, it reported in its connection, through its auxiliaries, 9,584 Sundayschools, 213,226 teachers, and 2,252,497 scholars. Affiliated with it is the International Bible Readers' Association, having 800,000 to 1,000,000 members, in nearly 100 countries, who are pledged to read an assigned portion of the Bible daily. Its chief support is from the Congregationalists, Baptists, and Presbyterians. The other dissenting bodies and the Church of England each have separate Sundayschool societies.
The Church of England Sunday-school Institute was formed in 1843, " to extend, improve, and develop the Sunday-school system in the Church of England " and " to secure efficient teaching therein." It is directed by a committee of about 50 persons, 25 clergymen and 25 laymen. The work is promoted through branch or local associations (about 400), and through publications, institutes, teachers, examinations, and lectures. Its benevolent receipts in its Jubilee year (1893) were £2,213, and from sales of publications £10,869; in its sixtieth year (1903) the benevolent receipts were £1,339, and from sales £9,032 (about the average yearly receipts). In 1910 the number of scholars for England and Wales in its schools was 3,153,476, and of teachers, 212,712. Its total annual receipts have slightly diminished in the last twenty years. Its lessons comprise a course of five years' study, based on the Bible and Prayer Book, and conforming to the church calendar. The Wesleyan Sunday-school Union was formed in London in 1875. In seven years, it enrolled about 6,500 schools, 123,000 teachers, 830,000 scholars, with £700 annual benevolent receipts. It has steadily advanced in all branches of its operations. Its report for 1907 gave : schools, 7,566; officers and teachers, 133,108; scholars, 1,000,819. This showed a decrease of 28,858 from the previous year's report, but the members of the "pleasant Sunday afternoon classes" showed a gain of 33,271, leaving a net gain of 4,413. The Sunday-school Society for Ireland was formed in 1809. At the end of fifty years it had 2,700 schools, 255,000 members, and it is still doing a useful work. There are Sabbath-school societies in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in several countries on the continent of Europe. The India Sundayschool Union and the Australian Sunday-school Union at Melbourne are doing an effective work, having affiliation with, or encouragement from, the London Sunday-school Union.
2. In America: Christian philanthropists abounded in America, and were early awake to the advantages of the Sunday-school. Bishop William White, Dr. Benjamin Rush, Matthew Carey, and
nine others held a meeting in Philadelphia Dec. 19, 1790, which resulted in forming The First Day, or Sunday-school Society, for the " estab- ' . **. y lishment of Sunday-schools." It se- I<ocal cured funds, rented rooms and halls for holding schools, had both paid and voluntary teachers (in 1794), and secured a charter in 1797. In 1791 it petitioned the state legislature to establish " free public schools." In ten years it expended in rents, salaries, and gifts of books about $4,000. When voluntary teachers displaced all paid " masters " in Sunday-schools, the society appropriated its funds to supply needy schools with religious literature, issued on the union principle, a benevolent work which it still continues, having granted about $40,000. The " First Day " is therefore the oldest existing Sunday-school society in the world. The changes in the modern Sundayschool movement in the beginning of the last century, such as introducing the systems into the churches, displacing all paid masters with voluntary teachers, and transferring the sessions of the schools from rented rooms and halls to the churches, and the like, checked the spread of the new movement for the first decade of that century. But organizations for promoting Sunday-schools sprang up in many parts of this country. The Union Society for the education of poor female children was formed in Philadelphia in 1804, chartered in 1808; the Evangelical Society in 1808; and half a dozen other local union societies a few years later in Philadelphia were in part the result of the zealous labors of Christian men and women. The Rev. Robert May, in 1811, also popularized a system of reward tickets, primers, and the wider adoption of small classes, under voluntary teachers. In 1815, Eleazer Lord visited Philadelphia and studied its Sunday-school methods, then returned to New York so fired with enthusiasm that two societies were at once formed there — the New York Female Sunday-school Union (Jan., 1816) and the New York (male) Sundayschool Union Society (Feb., 1816). Meanwhile the several local Sunday-school unions in Philadelphia united in founding The Sunday and Adult School Union, 1817, which became the largest in America, within seven years having over 700 affiliated schools and auxiliaries.
The New York Sunday-school Union proposed a national society as early as 1820, and this was seconded by other unions until 1824, when the Philadelphia Sunday and Adult School 2. Amen- Union was changed into a national socan s^n_ ciety and named the American SunaZ~sP day-school Union, the various unions
elsewhere becoming auxiliary to the new national union. This " Union " is composed of persons of different evangelical denominations who voluntarily unite together, " to establish and maintain Sunday-schools, and to publish and circulate moral and religious publications." The union is not therefore anti-denominational, nor undenominational (for all its members and workers are actively connected with some denomination), nor is it strictly interdenominational, since it does not aim to blend or act for organized denominations, nor do ecclesiastical bodies appoint its officers and
Sunday-Schools