Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1882 — Origin of Sabbath Schools. [ARTICLE]

Origin of Sabbath Schools.

It is generally conceded that Robert Raikes, of Gloucester, England, then publisher and editor of the Gloucester Journal, was the prime mover in the organization of Sunday schools, which, during the past hundred years, and for the most part only within the last sixty years, have extended to all parts of the civilized world. It is true that the first school started by him, in a hired room in Gloucester, in 1781, differed from the Sunday schools of the present time in being only for poor children, that it was taught by hired teachers, and was for instruction in reading, writing and other secular studies. So were most of the schools which, through his leadership, were soon after this established in nearly all the towns of England, so that in 1789 there were about 300,000 children in such schools. From that time to this the Sunday-school work has taken rank among the great progressive movements of the times, and the chief honor of setting this movement on foot will always be ascribed to Raikes. Yet it is true that there were Sunday schools long before Raikes opened his school. Both Martin Luther and John Knox were instrumental in establishing schools taught on Sunday. Religious instruction on Sunday, especially in the catechism, was given by parish priests in England. John Wesley established a Sunday school in Savannah, Ga., the first one in what is now the United States, in 1737, or nearly fifty years before Raikes’ work began. In 1786 Bishop Asbury, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, organized a number of free Sabbath schools. This was about the time that Robert Raikes was stirring all England on this subject. In 1791, the Philadelphia society for the institution and support of Sunday schools was organized by such spirits as Dr. Rush, Bishop White and Matthew Carty. From this time such schools multiplied gradually in this country in the cities and large towns. Nearly twenty years passed before most of the Protestant churches adopted the plan of the free Sunday school, for all the children of the church,"and made it, as it is now, a component part, as-it were, of each religious society. Sunday-school lesionhelps, after the same general pla tas now in use, were introduced in 1866,