Sunday school

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sunday school, Manzanar War Relocation Center, 1943. Photographed by Ansel Adams.

Sunday School is a kind of schooling found in many churches or other Christian communities. Classes are done on Sundays. Before or after the main part of worship, a class is held to learn more about that church's teachings and about the Bible. Sometimes the class is only for children, sometimes adults go there as well and sometimes there are different classes for adults and for children.

Development[change | change source]

Sunday school, Indians and whites. Indian Territory (Oklahoma), ca. 1900.

Sunday schools were first set up in the 1780s to provide education to working children on their one day off from the factory.[1] Robert Raikes contributed to their development.[2] Raikes was the editor of The Glouchestor Journal, and he wanted to stop children from becoming bad. In 1805, Stockport Sunday School made a school for 5000 students. In the late 19th century this was the largest in the world.[3] The first Sunday school in London opened at Surrey Chapel by a pastor named Rowland Hill. By 1831, 1,250,000 children went every week to Sunday School in Great Britain. This was bout 25 percent of the people.

The American Sunday School system was first begun by Samuel Slater in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in the 1790's.

Some Roman Catholic churches do Sunday schools, though Catholics commonly refer to Sunday school as "Catechism class".

Priests or pastors sometimes teach Sunday schools.

References[change | change source]

  1. Collins, Louanne (1996). Macclesfield Sunday School 1796- 1996. Macclesfield, Cheshire: Macclesfield Museums Trust. ISBN 1-870926-09-9.
  2. http://www.infed.org/walking/wa-raikes.htm
  3. Copyright free Text from The first fifty years of the Sunday School, W.H.Watson Retrieved on March 16 2010

Other websites[change | change source]