On December 19, 1790, twelve Christian work ers held a meeting in Philadelphia, which led to the organizing on January 11, 1791, of a Society for the Institution and Support of First Day or Sunday Schools in the city of Philadelphia, with Bishop William White as president and Mat thew Carey as secretary. The Reverend Robert Nay, of London, nave a new impetus to Sun day-schools in in 1811, urging the need of a general union. On January 13, 1816, in New York City, was formed the Female Union Society for the Promotion of Sabbath-Schools, and on February 26, 1816, the New York (male) Sunday-School Union. In 1817 the Sunday and Adult School Union was formed in Philadelphia with Alexander Henry as the first president, and this developed on May 24, 1824, into the Ameri can Sunday-School Union. The records of this great agency, interdenominational and national in its scope and support, showed in 1899, on its seventy-fifth anniversary, that through its ef forts 100,928 Sunday-schools had been organized, with 578,680 teachers and 4,070.346 scholars, and that the union had distributed publications amounting in value to over $9,000,000.
At an anniversary of the American Sunday School Union in Philadelphia on Slay 23, 1832, fifteen States were represented. It was then de cided to call a general national Sunday-school convention to meet in New York in the autumn of that year to consider 78 questions on Sunday school work sent out to 2500 persons throughout the country. The first national convention, there fore, assembled on October 3, 1832, in Chatham Street Chapel, New York City, and chose the Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen as president. The National Convention as an independent organ ization met subsequently in Philadelphia, Slay 22, 1S33; Philadelphia, February 22-24, 1859; in Newark, N. J., April 29-30, 1869; and in Indian apolis, April 16-19, 1872, at which convention the uniform lesson system was inaugurated, after much discussion, by the appointment of the first lesson committee to select the lessons from 1873 to 1879. The united interest of Bible students in selected portions of the Bible, in the progress of the uniform lesson plan, has given rise to a lit erature, both permanent and periodical, that has widely popularized Bible study. The interna tional lesson system now includes a special beginners' course of Bible study for the young est children, and still other modifications are under discussion. Other lesson systems are in
use in some schools and in a few denominations, but in the vast majority of schools the interna tional uniform lesson system is used.
At the next convention in Baltimore, May 11-13, 1875, the convention became international in scope and name. This convention has met every three years since that time. It is com posed of delegates from auxiliary State, Terri torial, and provincial Sunday-school associations iu North America. Its work is conducted during the triennium by an executive committee; a les son committee, international and interdenomi national in its personnel; a primary department; and a field workers' department. A World's. Convention, under the auspices of the London Sunday-School Union and the International Executive Committee, was held in London, July 1-4, 1889, thus establishing an institution com prising all the countries of the world, and meet ing since then in Saint Louis, Mo., September 3-5, 1893, and in London, July 11-15, 1898. In the improvement of teacher-training and Bible study what is known as the 'Chautauqua movement' has been an important factor. See CHAUTAU QUA.
The Sunday-school is the pioneer religious agency in new communities, and the conserver of neighborhood religious instruction for the entire family in every community where it exists. It is extended to frontier or sparsely settled districts in America by the various denominational mis sion boards, and by the American Sunday-School Union. It is stimulated to better work, and is made acquainted with the most recent methods, by means of conventions and institutes, some 18,000 of which are held in North America year ly, under the auspices of the International Con vention and its auxiliary State, provincial, coun ty, township, and district Sunday-school asso ciations.
At the tenth international Sunday-sebool con vention, held at Denver, Colo., in 1902, the fol lowing statistics were presented as to the Sun day-schools in the United States, including Ha waii and Porto Rico: Number of Sunday-schools, 139,817; officers and teachers, 1,419,807; schol ars, 11,493,591; total enrollment, 13,092,703. In 1898 the corresponding figures for the entire world were: Sunday-schools, 254,698; teachers, 2,410,818; scholars, 23,227,330: total, 25,810,861.