SUNDAY-SCHOOLS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 14, 1882

The first Sunday-school in the world was organized by Robert Raikes at Gloucester, England, in 1784. At the same time, Mr. William Fox, of London, was deliberating a plan for the universal education of the poor. Hearing of Mr. Raikes' attempt, he opened a correspondence with him to learn his mode of procedure; through him, and the influence of the Baptist society, of which Mr. Fox was a member, a public meeting was called for Aug. 10, 1785, when was formed the London Sunday-school Society "for the establishment and support of Sunday-schools throughout Great Britain." The American Sunday-school Union was organized at Philadelphia May, 1824.

Not a century has passed since the first Sunday-school originated in the benevolent enterprise of a pious Englishman; and now nearly every Christian church and destitute neighborhood, supplied with the efficient means of instruction from the Bible in the form of a Sabbath or Sunday-school.