The need of one day in seven for rest from labor has long been recognized from an economic standpoint also. Not only has it been found that man produces more and better work by resting one day in seven, but also that he is a better physical and social being for observing such a rule. Sunday labor in the United States is, how ever, increasing. It has been estimated that in Massachusetts alone 50,000 persons work on Sunday. That the increase is general is shown by the growing opposition of the labor unions. and their frequent demands for shorter hours throughout the week, on the ground that they have no assurance of the Sunday respite.
An agency of the Church for giving religious instruction to learn ers of all ages. The method of instruction is gen erally interlocutory and the subject of study more particularly the Bible. In its essentials the Sunday-sehool or Bible-school was an impor taut part of the early Jewish educational sys tem. About B.C. 80-70 Simon hen Shetach established a system of religious schools in con nection with synagogues in Palestine, making attendance obligatory. historians like Edens helm and Schlirer confirm the general existence of such schools then and later in the time of Christ. • Bunsen says that "the Apostolic Church made the school the connecting link between herself and the world." Her catechetical instruction (ef. Luke i. 4; Acts xviii. 25) grew so steadily in acknowledged importance that church buildings were designed to provide special aceommodations for the Bible-school. These early catechumenical schools included children and adults, who were taught individually, by the interlocutory method, subject matter beginning with the Old Testament story of creation and proceeding to practical Christian living. Gregory the Illuminator Chris tianized Armenia at the beginning of the fourth century by a compulsory system of Bible-sehools for children in every city, while at that period similar schools were to be found in Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Egypt, and elsewhere. In all these schools the Bible text was the main subject. In the Middle Ages the Bible-sehool idea was ad hered to among the Waldenses, Albigenses, Bol lards, Wiclifites, etc. A notable example of the Bible-school, apparently in many ways like our modern institution, were the schools of Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, in the middle of the sixteenth century. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the direct study of the Bible gave way to the rote memorizing of set an swers in catechisms not intended for such uses, and genuine Bible teaching was thus largely dis placed.
It is to Robert Raikes (q.v.) that the modern revival of the Sunday-school is justly accredited, although numerous isolated Bible-schools were to be found both in England and America prior to his time and pioneer efforts were made in America independent of his example. (Consult
Trumbull, Yale Lectures on the Sunday-school, Philadelphia, 1889.) According to contempo rary testimony Raikes gathered some street boys in July, 1780, into a room in Sooty Alley, Glou cester, England, under the temporary care of a Mrs. Meredith, but soon transferred the school to the house and care of Mrs. Mary Critchley, in Southgate Street, where the first permanent Raikes school was established. The pupils were instructed not only in the Bible, but in reading, and in catechisms of the day. Later the school was held in Saint Mary de Crypt Church, then in the Crypt Grammar School, then at the Corn Exchange, and thence was transferred to the church again. The school seems to have had as many as 100 scholars at a time, the teachers re ceiving a shilling a day from Raikes for their work. Raikes worked quietly and experimentally for three years, and then on November 3, 1783, began to publish his idea in his newspaper, the Gloucester Journal. He published as early as 1785 The Sunday Scholar's Companion. In the extension of the Sunday-school idea Raikes ac cords much credit to John Nichols, of The Gen tlemen's Magazine. The cause was notably fur thered by llannah More, John and Charles Wesley, and Whitefield, and even the Queen expressed an interest in the movement by sending for Raikes in order to hear his plan described. hi 1784 Rowland Hill started a Sunday-sehool in Lon don at Surrey Chapel. William Fox and Jonas Hallway were instrumental in organizing a gen eral Sunday-School Society in 1785, of which on June 11, 1787, Raikes was elected an honorary member. In 1786 five schools were reported in or near London. In ten years from that date the society had distributed 91,915 spelling books, 24,232 Testaments, and 5360 Bibles, to 1012 Sunday-schools and 65,000 scholars. From 17S8 to 1800 the society had paid more than $17,000 to teachers. Gratuitous teachers were utilized in a school in Stockport, England, to ward the close of the eighteenth century. and paid teachers gradually ceased to be generally employed. Before Raikes died, in 1811, there were 400,000 children in the Sunday-schools of Great Britain alone. In Scotland, where the need was not so greatly felt, and in New Eng land, the Sunday-school met with little favor at first, as seeming to endanger the sacredness of the Sabbath, and to relieve the home of some of its duties. The Archbishop of Canterbury sum moned a council of bishops to consider means by which the movement might be stopped. Yet not withstanding all opposition the Sunday-school idea constantly gained in favor.