The evolution of the Sunday school

Preface

Two social institutions in our country have a larger number of servants and expend more money than any others; they are our schools and our churches. Neither can show any material, concrete products, such as we see coming from factories and shops; yet both are absolutely essential to modern social and material welfare. There are many points at which these two institutions come together, but the Sunday-school affords the point of closest contact. It is the church school ; it is the expression by the churches of their faith in the method of the schools, and, in America at least, it is the expression by the public of its confidence that the church will in time meet the need for thorough religious education.

The primary aim of this book is to study the development of the Sunday-school with a view to determining whether or not it will be able to meet the serious and steadily increasing demands of the present age. Its past development reveals its capacity for progressive adaptation. We look back that we may the better go forward.

VI PREFACE

We view the past that we may appreciate the present. We see in the sacrifices that our fathers have made for the progress of the school the call to make its continued progress certain. Over a century and a quarter of definite progress in the Sunday-school demands that none of the effort of the past shall be lost, that returns shall come from all the life investment of the fathers and old-time teachers, and to see to it that when the story of this present transitional era shall be written it may be worth the telling.

A review of Sunday-school history ought also to give the oflBcers and teachers of that institution today valuable help. First, in enabling them to understand the exact aims and character of this institution, and so to come into intelligent and effective relations to it. Second, in giving them encouragement as to its present possibilities and its future progress, by revealing how great is the advance already made. Third, in suggesting for their encouragement and perseverance the tremendous vitality of this institution, showing how it has surmounted obstacles, overcome prejudice and opposition and won its own place in the church, and is today rapidly winning its proper place in our educational system.

The point of view in this brief study is that of the layman rather than of the specialist. It seeks to show how in a perfectly natural manner.

PREFACE Vll as the result of the outworking of an inner principle of education and not as a consequence of any propaganda or any demands from without, an institution of large influence and importance has developed. It assumes that the history of the Sunday-school is a subject of sufficient general interest and importance to justify this discussion. It is true that there are many persons to whom the Sunday-school is either a matter of indifference or of derision because of its many failures and its general inefficiency. But this study of its history should suggest that we cannot afford to neglect so influential an institution and that we should be patient with it, for it is still in process of development.

The author disclaims any purpose of comprehending the whole field of religious education in the story of its development. He has, however, endeavored to prepare an original study, depending on reliable and, as far as possible, on primary sources for the facts given.

Chicago, 1911.

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Genesis of the Sunday-School .... 3

II In the Early Christian Church 14

II In The Early Christian Church

Christianity began and spread by teaching. A missionary religion must teach. The method Church of the apostles was essentially the Leaders method of the Great Teacher. Paul in his hired house at Rome spent the greater part of his time instructing groups of inquirers and individuals who came to him. He conducted a school of the new faith which met every day and at all hours. Other passages give very clear pictures of the early Christians meeting frequently, usually in the house of one of their number, and spending the time in talking over the new faith and in worship. It is easy to see that such meetings were really schools, and that, either in them or by other means, the youth were gathered in groups for definite instruction. The early leaders of the churches quickly recognized the importance of training the young in religious knowledge. The Church Fathers, both Greek and Latin, have much to say regarding the teaching of children. The absence of descriptions of special institutions

U for this work occasions no surprise, for this was tiie period when the new hfe had not yet formed for itself institutional channels; it was adapting itself also to great political changes and to a new world order.

It would be futile to attempt to prove that the early Christians had formal institutions, under Three Lines the care of the churches, which correof Descent sponded to our Sunday-schools. The pedigree of the Sunday-school is to be traced in principles rather than in institutions. It is seen in the practical expression of the principle of the religious instruction of the young. Early Christianity made provision for this instruction in at least three ways: (1) in^ the home, (2) in the synagogue schools, and (3) in the catechetical schoolsTTJ'one of the plans was new. Each was the continuance and natural development of methods which had been used among the Jews. Gentiles would find them at first not greatly different from customs with which they were familiar.

The New Testament gives glimpses of the religious life in the home. Timothy was by no In Jewish means the only youth instructed in, Homes ^-j^^ Scriptures from early childhood.! In Jewish homes the obligation to repeat the I words of the law was still recognized. All the ancient lore, the hero stories, and the literary and historical instruction of the child by father and by mother were religious in character and subject. Despite the development of traditionalism among the professional religious leaders, the life of the people was for the most part genuinely religious. Besides direct teaching in the home the domestic religious customs and observances were of great pedagogic value. In homes that remained Jewish in faith the fasts and the feasts were observed and diligent efforts were made to instruct the children regarding their meaning. Such homes kept alive the ardor of the old faith and made the glorious past real to youth. In families that became Christian there -was no immediate break with old customs. Even when the observances ceased it was necessary to explain their ancient meaning. The reading or at least the repetition and memorizing of the Old Testament passages continued in both kinds of homes. The Jewish heritage was the heritage of all and they gloried in it.

In the Jewish-Christian home the child received instruction in Christian facts and ideals in the , most effective manner. The wonder of Christian the new faith made it the all-absorb- Homes .^^ subject of conversation. All life centered about it. They learned to know Christian history and teaching as children in American homes in the years 1860-1806 learned to know the history of the Civil War. This was equally true in Gentile Christian homes, for they were equally near to and interested in the events.

Religious teaching was not neglected in the pagan home. The Greeks and the Romans Gentile loved their children. We must not Homes judge hastily from a few shocking examples; not all Roman fathers exposed their children to die or even desired to do so. In the later period of the Roman Empire corruption and luxury undermined the homes of the upper classes and prepared the way for the fall of the empire. At the end of the first century the wealthy left the instruction of children to nurses and slaves. But such homes were no more typical than are similar ones in this country today. Quintilian, who lived 35 to 95 a.d., pleads for the early instruction of the child. He emphasizes the duty of moral training. He says that instruction should begin in the cradle, "as soon as a son is born." "Let us not lose even the earliest period of life." He reminds us of Plato and Socrates: "Beginning is the chief est part, especially in a young and tender thing." The special teachings of Jesus on the value of the little child and his place in the kingdom led the Gentile Christians to set a new value on elementary education.

The life of the home flowed into the early Christian meetings. Frequently the converts gathered in homes. Congregations were designated by the home at which they usually met. Agree- The Family able to Jewish custom, it was expected at Meeting ^^^^^ ^j^^ whole household would follow

the parents in alle^k^nce to the new faith. There was definite consciousness of family relation to that faith. The children went often with their parents to the gatherings. Little groups of families wended their way to their m.eetingplaces. They came at first openly and later secretly for fear of persecution. Meeting in houses, barns, deserted quarries, under the stars, in the catacombs, at any place where in the zeal of this new faith men and women might congregate, the hymn of praise arose, copies of the letters of the apostle were read again and again, and one and another asked questions or told of his experience or hope. How eagerly the little children, standing by their parents, listened to all that was said, and with what interest they inquired further concerning those wonderful stories !

The early meetings were informal in character. They corresponded more closely to a large mixed Church Sunday-school class than to a modern Service 5 church service. The utmost freedom of action prevailed. Questions were both asked and answered by the audience. The preacher was really the leader of the class. One writer on early Christian preaching, Paniel, designates these services as "a mode of instruction which arose from the familiar interplay of inquiry among the members of the congregation." ^ He goes on to describe the preacher as depending on the questions and answers of the congregation for guidance in his words. This was indeed a pedagogical method; the teacher discovered the content^f the pupils' minds before attempting to teach. There are in existence "homilies," as they were called, free transcripts of the remarks made on both sides in these interlocutory services. The narratives and accounts of the addresses made by Paul and others show that this method was common with them. The congregation regarded itself somewhat as a class; they were not listening to a formal lecture, still less to a sermon; they were at liberty to ask questions, to assent and even dissent from what was being said. It is interesting to note that the church, even in its public services, once gathered more as a class than as an audience, and that those early meetings were efficient educationally for both young and old.

It is important to keep in mind the fact of the close connection between the old and the new in

1 Paniel, Karl F. W., in Pragmaiische Geschichte der Christlichen Beredsamkeit (Leipsic, 1839), quoted by Trumbull, in Yale Lectures on Sunday-Scfiools, p. 53.

the beginnings of Christian history. There was no sudden break. In the early days a family N Ne d converted to Christianity from Judaism of New would make few changes in its customs. They would go to the synagogue and the children went to the synagogue school. In fact, Christian teachers taught in the synagogues in many places. There were no new formal organizations for school purposes. The customs already in use met all needs. The early Christian church consisted so largely of Jews, who continued the instruction of their children by reading and study of the Old Testament, and also of those who were largely influenced by such Jewish customs, that it is not strange that nothing is heard of special institutions for Christian instruction. The old ways sufficed for both Jews and Christians until persecution drove the latter from the synagogues.

The synagogue schools were to be found almost everywhere through the Roman world. Synagogue Borne along by their recently awakened Schools commercial spirit the Jews had gone everywhere, and in all places had established their meeting houses. Wherever Jews lived they maintained their daily schools for the religious instruction of the young. Jewish Christians sent their children to these schools. All the early letters assume the familiarity of the people with the facts of Hebrew history. In the first

century for the greater number of Christians

the Sunday-school met every day of the

week.

By the end of the first century the Christians

were recognizing the need for special institutions

T> . . for the instruction of their children, liegmning

of New The growing hostility of the Jews,

Schools 1 • I ■ .• 1 xi

bitter persecution, and the consciousness that the new faith was wholly separate from any other emphasized the necessity of distinct Christian schools. They developed under at least two influences: (1) the usage of the synagogue schools and (2) the fact that some of the new leaders in the life of the church were scholastics, trained in the Greek schools. The early Fathers did not repudiate learning. They acknowledged their indebtedness to the higher schools of the pagan world. They sought all the essential advantages of that culture for those who were to do responsible work in the churches. ^ Perhaps the schools for children grew up around the groups of men gathered for higher education under Christian auspices or being trained for religious services. It is possible that parents demanded of these teachers that they should continue for their children the work of the masters in the synagogue schools.

^ See Primitive Christian Education, G. Hodgson.

The earliest regular school for Christian teaching of which there is clear evidence was at Alexandria. That ancient city was in many Alexandria ^ '^

ways the natural center lor such a beginning. It had a glorious intellectual past. It was the home of a very large Christian community, quite different in culture and thinking from those in Judea. Intellectually, the Alexandrians were Greek Christians. They saw Christianity in the light of Greek philosophy and interpreted the one by the other. They were prepared to recognize the advantage of new schools and of definite forms of instruction. Alexandria had long been the home of scholars and a city of schools. The origin of the Alexandrian school is uncertain. We are indebted to Jerome for almost all our information. At first it was a school for adults, a theological seminary. Probably there were gatherings of Christian thinkers, philosophers, and teachers in that city of learning early in the second century. One hundred years later, a.d. 203, we know that this school gave the child his rightful place. At the age of eighteen, Origen (a.d. 185-254), a student in this theological seminary, went out into the city of Alexandria and gathered the children from the many churches. He organized them into groups for instruction. Before long the bishop of Alexandria very properly appointed him head of these schools for children. They were called catechetical schools. The new work compelled Origen to give up his secular teaching. He refused pay for religious teaching and, in order that he might not starve, 4ie sold his library for an annuity of a little over ten cents a day.

The catechetical schools were for those who were to be admitted to the church. The pupils Catechetical were instructed with great care in the Schools doctrines of the church and in the

history of their faith. All candidates received the instruction, so that the schools included adults as well as children. But Origen 's primary interest was in the children. The name "catechetical schools" must not mislead us into thinking of them as existing to teach some formal catechism. It refers rather to the fact that the instruction was exceedingly careful, systematic, and graded according to the development of the pupil and his progress toward full admission into the church.

These early schools probably included a large -r proportion of the Christians in their communities. ^

-, , ,. The students were divided into at least

Gradation

four grades or stages of instruction. The first grade was composed of those who were simply inquirers, receiving instruction in small classes. These included the younger children as well as the new converts. The second grade was called that of the "hearers." They had no part whatever in the services of worship in the church except as listeners. They left the church when the sermon and Scripture reading was ended. It is probable that they then retired to classes in the corridors or outside the church. The third grade was that of the "worshipers," who had a part in the prayers and ceremonies of the church. The fourth division corresponded to the graduate classes, the "electi," who were ready for baptism. Unfortunately, many preferred to remain in this last class until death drew near, so that baptism might confer on them the supposed benefits of a final unction.

The young were instructed in this manner not only in Alexandria but in the churches through- The Church out Gentile Christendom. Christian as a School tradition supports this statement. Christian art shows the children being prepared. Many incidental allusions establish the fact that in the churches outside of Judea there were always classes for the training of the young in the religious life. If, as the testimony of the Fathers shows, the method of question and answer was used to train the heathen for church membership, it is not likely that the church would fail to use this method to bring all her children into that relation. The architectural form of many ancient churches indicates special provision for purposes of instruction. Many edifices were arranged so that it would be possible for the first two grades to leave the congregation and quickly go to the colonnades and there assemble in classes.

From all the allusions to these schools we can

gather: (1) that the students were principally

those who were preparing for admission

one usions ^^ ^^^^ church, although many others

who needed this instruction were included; (2) that the course of study was roughly graded and covered from two to four years; (3) that the subjects included sacred history, Jewish customs, memorizing the Scriptures, the great Christian doctrines, and the teachings of Jesus; (4) that the method of teaching was in classes, often by laymen and women and by students; (5) that the text-book material included the books of the Old Testament, religious poems (possibly the forerunners of some of the ancient hymns), and in time some of the letters and other material of the New Testament. If the churches had continued to recognize the importance of training the young, had adopted suitable methods as they arose, and had paid as much attention thereto as the influential leaders did in the third and fourth centuries we might have had a different tale to tell today.

Side by side with the catechetical schools, an extensive system of general education gradually grew up under the care of the churches. These schools were not only religious in character but on General a religious basis, with religious subjects Education g^g ^i^q principal elements in the curriculum. Such a remarkable development of early education took place under the fostering care of Christianity, that the Emperor Julian, at the time of the pagan reaction against Christianity, recognized its importance by issuing the famous decree taking education out of the hands of the Christians and the churches and placing it under the direction of the Roman state.

The school at Alexandria is best known in its wider sphere of general theological education. It ^^^ has been called the fountain of theo-

Theological logical education, for here was gradually developed an institution which trained many distinguished men for religious services. Clement (160-215 a.d.) was one of the pupils at this seminary, and so was his disciple Origen. We are indebted to Jerome for the picture of Origen, the theological student of eighteen years of age, going through Alexandria, organizing children into classes and instructing them. The theological seminary of that day was using the laboratory method which the seminary of this day is again beginning to adopt. Origen was the forerunner of the young man or woman training for Christian service who learns by doing, who meets the real and practical problems of religious education while in preparation for that work, and who puts into present practice the instruction received in the class room. Clement left many interesting works. Perhaps the most illuminating are his Pedagogue and his Address to the Greeks. These show both the system used in the Christian schools and the content of the teaching. The Pedagogue states that the teaching included not only the Scriptures and theology, but such practical matters as hygiene, dress, manners, and everyday morals. Those early teachers regarded their work with the young as broader than instruction in the facts of biblical history. They sought to train for the whole of the religious life.

The most notable large schools in Christendom, besides Alexandria, were those at Jerusalem and

Antioch. These were more like theo- Extension , . , . . i ^ xi u

logical seminaries, but they became

centers for the many elementary schools in connection with the churches. For two or three hundred years the school for the religious education of youth continued to be a part of the church. Through Asia Minor and Egypt there were many such schools. When Gregory the Illuminator began to evangelize Armenia he established a system of schools throughout all his field and required attendance at them.

The catechetical schools show that Christianity was not merely the friend "but also the mother . . of education in the modern sense, an"^ lani y rpj^^^ prove that the Christian church Education ^^^ ^^le school are inseparable in spirit and essential the one to the other. They indicate that the church early recognized the educational method in the development of the religious life. They are prophetic of the Sunday-school, which has only recently been recognized as an essential part of every modern church. They suggest emphatically that when Christianity had all the vigor and freshness of a new life in the world and when it had to meet its most serious organized, racial, and political opposition, its leaders depended largely on educational processes, its ranks were recruited, and its own people saved to itself by Christian nurture.

Ill

The story of religious education during the medieval period is quite inseparable from the history of general education. All education was conducted by religious agencies. The subjects of study were naturally religious. The activities of education centered in the cities about the cathedrals and great churches and in other places about the monasteries. There was no general, comprehensive scheme of education for the people. For a long time the church looked with suspicion on attempts to extend learning beyond the monks and the clergy. Many of the latter, especially those engaged in parish duties, were sadly ignorant. In the monasteries classic learning was preserved; in some instances the monks took pains to teach some of the poor.

In 782 Charlemagne called Alcuin, a monk of York, England, to direct the organization of Charle- education in the Empire. He called °^^sne attention to the ignorance of the clergy. But he also established village schools, which were taught by the priests and were open to all,

Alcuin came to the court of Charlemagne from scenes of religious interest in education in Eng- Education in land. There schools had already been England established which were intended for those outside the clergy. These, which were the mothers of the great universities of our day, were all religious schools. Canterbury was originally a school attached to a monastery. In the seventh century it was made famous by the teaching of Theodore and later by that of the abbot Hadrian. Then classical studies were added to the theological and biblical. The great school at York was founded on the same basis in the next century. (See A History of the Church of England, Patterson, p. 29.) The school at Jarrow won fame through the work of "the Venerable Bede," and his pupil Egbert, afterwards Archbishop of York, founded the celebrated school in his own city. Alfred the Great of England, lamenting the decline of religion in his kingdom — saying there was not a single priest in the country south of the Thames — sought a remedy in education. He established a school at his court for the sons of the nobility and urged that all the freeborn youth of the land be taught the rudiments of English and Latin. He established additional monasteries with schools and sent abroad for religious teachers for them and for the schools at the older institutions. After the invasion by the Danes many of the monastery schools were restored by the Benedictine monks.

The rise of the great universities contributed to important changes. These universities, quite different from our modern institutions, were really free associations of students grouping themselves about great and attractive teachers. The first was at Salerno, near Naples.

The University of Paris, the mother of modern liberal culture, took its rise in the fact that such The teachers as Roscellinus, Peter Abelard /

Universities ^^^ William of Champeaux lectured and reasoned in Paris and drew about them inquiring minds from all over Europe. Large numbers of young men, anxious to pursue the studies they had begun independently in religion and philosophy, came to these teachers. They met in open spaces, in hired rooms, or wherever they could. They paid their instructors just as, for example, the Jewish seekers after knowledge paid Hillel. Emerton says: "It is in these early efforts of the human mind to work out, in what seemed a scientific fashion, the great problems of faith and thought, that we find the beginnings of modern, systematic, higher education." ^

While men hungry for religious and philosophical truth were flocking to the university cities, , to Paris, Cologne, Bologna, and Florence, how

^ Einerton, Mediaeval Europe, p. 452.

were the laymen, the common people, the parents and children in the country and the villages faring Among the for religious knowledge? They were People j^Qj. wholly destitute of such knowledge, and yet how was it circulated? The common statement that the people lay in absolute ignorance is unsatisfactory, for out of that mass of ignorance rose many fair and illuminating lives. The saints of the church in that period are not to be dismissed as humbugs or as weak and impossible characters. Somehow they found food for the higher life. Religion was taught even in the darkest days. Although all regular church services were conducted in Latin and all preaching was in that tongue, there was much intercourse between priest and people, while the monks and traveling friars constantly conversed with the village folk. Many records exist of story-telling by these travelers and of popular paraphrasing of the Gospel narratives, as well as of several quaint attempts at the presentation of religious truths by means of crude parables suited to the uneducated mind.

One effective means of popularizing religious knowledge was used by the class of men known Wandering as "wandering scholars." Almost any Scholars student at the university cities was likely to be a wanderer, going from one famous teacher in this city to another in that. Like the Hindu story-tellers and learned men, they often gathered the village folk about them and, in return for hospitality, told in simple terms what they had seen and heard. Their lives may have been not ideal, but their teaching was still on the subject of religion, for at this time "the Christian religion had become the leading subject of men's thoughts, and divines had put forth its claims to be — a Philosophy in the widest sense in which the term is used." ^

The wandering friars popularized religious education in the thirteenth century. The Francis- ^' The Wan- cans, Dominicans, and other orders were denng Friars fj.^g to go anywhere, as "pilgrims and

strangers," on works of mercy. They mingled

freely with the people and taught them. Their

liberty permitted the development of a much

more liberal culture than was found in the monastic

orders.

One other influence must be mentioned briefly,

the reform of the monasteries under the leader-

^ . ship of Bernard of Clairvaux and other "' Monasteries ^ i mi ...

great souls. These institutions, once repositories of learning and active in the religious education of the young had, in many places, become nests of vice and luxury. But Bernard founded his great school and his associates, with their intense devotion and mysticism, secured a

* Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences.

large measure of reform in the monasteries so that many became efficient teaching agencies.

Gerard Groot (1340-1384) founded an order of evangehsts of unusual religious zeal known as T, ,, r the Brethren of the Common Life.

Brethren of

the Common They established houses of devotion in

which converts lived under monastic conditions, but in a manner intended as a protest against the laxities common in monasteries. These devout and industrious lay communities met w^ith the bitter opposition of the friars who were living in luxury and sloth. The new houses soon became teaching centers. Very early many boys were attracted and received religious instruction. At some of the schools more than a thousand boys were in attendance. Many of these also went to other schools for secular learning. Thomas a Kempis was one of their students. These schools took rank with the best educational institutions of the age, and this body of learned and godly men, engaged in teaching religion to the youth, played no small part in preparing the way for the new day in Germany.