The origin and development of the Sunday School movement in England from 1780-1880: in relation to the State provision of education

An accepted feature ox every Church's activity is that concerned with the spiritual training of children and young people, namely, the Sunday school organisation. Because this is an institution oi long standing m English liie, it tends to be taken very much for granted, and, indeed, is sometimes attacked as nu longer having any value.At the same time there is widespread interest in the educational provision made by the State, and rightly so. There has never been a time in our national history when the aim and content of day school education has been oi greater signiiicance than it is today.To contend that there is any inter-relation between the teaching given on Sunday and weekday would appear to many Church workers and day school teachers to be either unnecessary or impossible. Yet the relationship between Sunday and day school is not only close; they had a common origin in the awakened interest of men and women in education in the eighteenth century.It is our purpose to describe this origin and to show the ways in which the two forms oi English education developed.From a survey of the educational agencies at work in 1760, we pass to a thorough investigation of the origin ox the Sunday school movement, and describe the early methods of teaching employed in these schools. The remarkable advances oi the first decade are outlined, and consideration is given to the various worms of opposition Sunday school teachers had to meet. The continued growth of the movement encouraged pioneers to open day schools in many industrial areas where there was no educational provision. Gradually public concern tor such provision grew, and we end our account of the period of voluntary effort at the time of the first Government grant for education in 1633.For several reasons our treatment of the latter half of the period under review is in outline rather than in great detail. The Sunday school movement continued to make steady and unspectacular progress throughout most of this period. Public concern for education increased, and found expression in many Bills introduced in Parliament, and reference must be made to them all. It is necessary to describe the failure of the voluntary societies to provide a national system of education, which lea to the national provision of compulsory education tor all. Finally we attempt to assess the contribution made by the Sunday school movement in the strangely complex development of English educational history.The marked influence which the Sunday school movement had upon the evolution of a national system oi elementary education is all too little known. When their respective developments are appreciated we can recognize the complimentary iunctions they continue to till in our modern community and value them both for their distinctive role in Christian education