RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Sunday-Schools
the first decade of the nineteenth century, a halfdozen books for children exhausted the list of existing works that could then be classed as juvenile. The Sunday-school had the task 6. American of creating a juvenile literature and a Literature, taste for it also. In this The American Sunday-school Union was credited with leading the way. It secured some of the most gifted of Christian writers to prepare works for the young, setting forth Gospel truths in pleasing form. The three Alexanders — father and sons — Drs. Nevin, Edwards, Judson, Sears, D. Wise, Todd, Durbin, Tyng, Hodge, Bedell, Packard, Newton, Trumbull, Schaff, Allibone, Hall, Rice, and the Guernseys, among many others, aided in producing a juvenile religious literature in America, of the foremost character and in varied types of history, biography, narrative, travel, interlocutory instruction, and discourse, which were brought out, with engravings by the most skilled artists and engravers of that day — an attractive literature, religious in tone, forceful in thought and expression, and rich in substance and variety, the most widely read, of all the literature current for two generations, in their day. Statesmen and clergymen of note here and there declared that their first taste for learning was acquired by reading the books issued by The American Sunday-school Union. Composers of music, like Hastings and Lowell Mason, prepared hymns and songs for the young. Songs of the children from Sunday-school displaced the ribald, rollicking songs and drove them from the street if not from the face of the earth. Cheap Bible dictionaries, antiquities, helps in Bible study, and libraries for Sunday reading were issued by the tens of thousands, and scattered and read in every part of America. Primers and question books were produced by advice and cooperation of leading educators, college and theological professors, and millions of copies distributed. Normal works and teachers' manuals by Trumbull, Vincent, and others followed later. The influence of this juvenile literature on the mind of the rising generation, in the first half of the nineteenth century in America, has not been surpassed by any produced since that era. The several denominational Sunday-school societies, and not a few private publishers also, have been conspicuous in providing a juvenile literature, until it was conceded that America had the most abundant supply of such literature in the world, and this was marked for the purity of its tone and teaching. The stronger denominations issue periodicals and magazines, giving, from time to time, articles and essays on topics and methods of instruction by foremost educators, and they have a wide circulation. Among them are The Baptist Teacher, Philadelphia; Methodist Sunday School Journal, New York; Pilgrim Teacher, Boston; Westminster Teacher, Philadelphia; American Church Sunday School Magazine, ib. ; Heidelberg Teacher, ib.; Sunday School World, ib.; Sunday School Magazine, Nashville; Bible Teacher, Dayton, O.; Sunday School Helper, Boston; Earnest Worker, Richmond, Va. The medium of communication and of news, between workers of all denominations, is the Sunday School Times, Phila-
delphia, the recognized representative weekly Sunday-school periodical of America, which has been issued for half a century. For more than a generation the International Lessons have been credited with causing a great revival in Biblical investigation and research, using and taxing the abilities of the foremost Biblical scholars.
A revival of interest in summer assemblies for Sunday-school workers, in the first decade of the twentieth century, has produced a new literature in America on teacher-training and instruction. This agency for promoting Bible instruction, which was earlier known as the Chautauqua movement (see Chautauqua Institution), was begun in 1874 by John H. Vincent (q.v.). Renewed attention to teacher-training has stimulated other persons to form summer assemblies in all parts of the United States, as educational forces for students of the Bible. Several permanent Bible schools have also created special departments in methods of study and instruction, as Moody's Bible Institute, Chicago; White's Bible Teachers' Training School, New York, which have led to the issuing of special text-books and a literature suitable for normal class work. Each of the larger denominations has provided manuals, instruction books, and courses of study for intending Sunday-school teachers, and offers a diploma at the satisfactory completion of the course.
The Sunday-school movement, as to its numbers and glory, appears in this historical sketch. The weakness and defects of the movement are also
obvious. Foremost among these are:
7. Conclu- (1) The organization and machinery
sion. are often too complex and cumbersome
in proportion to the teaching and spiritual power, for its highest efficiency. (2) The emphasis is placed too much on the school idea only, to the neglect, in part, of worship and of spiritual training. (3) It fails to make adequate provision for the adolescent period, and does not satisfactorily hold the scholars passing into the adult stage. The defects, however, will be remedied in time. The Sunday-school is destined to accomplish great victories in the work of advancing the kingdom of God. The Sunday-school in the past thirty years has concentrated upon its lessons and methods of instruction a ripe scholarship, a wealth of learning, a masterful marshaling of the widest knowledge in critical investigation, stimulating explorations in Bible lands, and the production of a literature on Oriental manners, habits, and customs, and a keen discrimination in practical applications of truth to modern conduct, never before surpassed or equaled. More light has been thrown upon the interpretation and illustration of the books of the Bible for this generation than ever before in the history of the world.
IV. Statistics of Sunday-Schools. — 1. United States:* The United States Census Bureau says of the census figures for 1905: " These figures do not include the mission Sunday-schools which are maintained by some bodies, notably the
* Compiled from the Special Report of the United States Census Bureau on Religious Bodies for 1905.
Sunday-Schools Supererogation