THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
sons " were adopted, and the historical exhibit illustrating the development of the Sunday-school by Dr. Edwin W. Rice, and of the educational exposition of current Sunday-school material by Dr. C. R. Blackall were marked features. The name was also changed from " International Sunday-school Convention " to " Association," and it was proposed to obtain a charter of incorporation. The twelfth convention, 1908, in Louisville, Ky., appointed a new lesson committee instructed to prepare a thoroughly graded course of lessons, in addition to the uniform course of Bible study. The thirteenth convention, 1911, met in San Francisco, Cal. The international Sunday-school convention originated in a desire for conference upon methods of organization and improvement. The leading workers in it for about twenty years did not favor assuming or claiming any continuous authority. When each convention ended, all further action devolved upon the state, county, denominational, and other organizations. Some wished to make it an organic institution with continuous power; this view finally prevailed, and resulted in an incorporated association. The delegates are appointed by state and provincial organizations, several of which also are incorporated under independent charters. The representatives in all these conventions and associations are mainly from those workers who use the international series of lessons. The Church of England, the established Church of Scotland, the Protestant Episcopal, and some branches of the Lutheran Church in the United States, and the state churches on the continent are not represented in the deliberations of these conventions beyond occasionally sending friendly greetings.
Besides the above, there have been other notable gatherings in the interest of religious education, as the world's Sunday-school conventions in London, England, 1889; St. Louis, Mo., 1893; London, 1898; Jerusalem, 1904; Rome, 1907; Washington, 1910; the next will meet in Geneva, in 1913. Denominations have held assemblies to consider Sundayschool work, and the London Sunday-school Union invited a centenary meeting, to celebrate the founding of modern Sunday-schools in London, 1880, with a session in Gloucester, and in 1903 commemorated its hundreth year by centenary meetings. The American Sunday-school Union held a series of meetings in Philadelphia in 1899, to celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary. The Religious Educational Association in America has also held several noteworthy conferences in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington, bringing together representative educators to discuss measures, and tending to bring Sunday-school methods more fully into harmony with accepted modern principles of education as advocated in the twentieth century.
m. Modes of Instruction and Literature: In the modern Sunday-school movement two distinct features came into prominence, making it to differ from the preaching and children's services on the one hand, and from venerable catechetical instruction on the other. These features were: (1) grouping of persons into small classes, each class having a teacher; (2) lessons chiefly, if not wholly, from
3. Other Conventions.
the Bible. Even in Raikes' schools there were many children that must first be taught to read (and this was done that they might i. Earlier read the Bible for themselves); be- Methods. sides teaching the catechism and prayers, and singing, the scholars were taught answers to Bible questions. Raikes took great pains to have the children understand Bible passages, so that they could " give the sense " to parents in the home. Instruction in those early Sunday-schools had the germ of a method radically different from a mere parrot-repeating of memorized lessons. Mere memorizing and reciting of the catechism and of verses was carried to excess in the catechetical schools of Scotland and elsewhere. Before the era of free public schools in America, it was a necessity to teach the children of the poor to read in the early Sunday-schools. To aid in removing a prejudice against these schools, because reading was taught in them, the founders no doubt thought a liberal use of the catechism a prudent measure, and this condition may have led to the excess. Yet it is clear, from the latest investigations of the rise of this early movement, that the aim was specially to teach children to think for themselves. Raikes repeatedly laid strong emphasis upon this feature of his plan. It was inherent in his scheme from the beginning and was bound to win its way. Free public schools spread slowly in some portions of the United States, in the early part of the nineteenth century, hence there Sundayschools were forced to continue to teach pupils to read at a later date than in other portions. Yet the great purpose of the Sunday-school, to teach the Word of God, was steadily kept in view. The advance of free day-schools in due time relieved the Sunday-school of the apparently secular service of teaching reading. However, it widely overlapped what has been termed the " memorizing era " as the " memorizing era " overlapped that of " limited and uniform lessons." The period of excessive memorizing of lessons in the Sunday-school was approximately from 1810 to 1824, in America. This was also the period when the system was expanding from an exclusively missionary stage for the children of the wretched, ignorant, neglected poor, and began to be introduced in churches as an aid or supplement to religious instruction in Christian families. Catechetical teaching was the " old time " form in such families; and Sunday-schools in churches accepted it, thinking that if it was well to memorize catechism questions and answers, and hymns and verses in some measure, it was better to memorize as many as possible. So they offered rewards therefor, until the teachers were overwhelmed with the astounding achievements of pupils; some coming with an entire catechism, or with a whole book of the Bible for a single " memorized lesson."
Meanwhile the " monitorial " or " mutual " plan of instruction came into public prominence, popu- • larized by the efforts of Andrew Bell, M.D., a churchman, leading to the formation of the National School Society in the established Church of England, which provided that the articles and formularies of that church should be taught to the