Some thoughts about Sunday Schools

We watched recently a TV programme about the history of the rise and decline of Sunday Schools. The Sunday School movement was founded by Robert Raikes, editor of the Gloucester Journal, in the late 18th Century. In those days (as today) there were young hooligans on the streets, though the difference then was that the troublemakers were mostly young impoverished children on their day off from work, namely Sunday. He determined to do all he could to better their lot and started a Sunday-school to teach them Christianity, morals, and also how to read and write. Before long, Sunday Schools were opening all over the country. This was greatly opposed by many wealthy people who were afraid that it would raise the poor above their station in life, and they feared it might lead to the horrors which were happening across the Channel in the French Revolution. The Prime Minister, William Pitt, even hoped to pass a law to ban Sunday-schools, though he was overtaken by other events and the law was never passed. Sunday Schools thrived, and at their peak something like 50% of the children in Britain were attending Sunday Schools voluntarily. They peaked in the 1930s, but the real decline in attendance dates from the 1950s onwards, and today only 5% of children go to Sunday Schools.

We meet and talk to many of the older generation who often find it difficult to remember recent events, but can remember with great pleasure their Sunday-School days. They remember the stories they learnt, the anniversaries, the outings, and can often remember the hymns and choruses which they can still sing.

Most of today’s generation of children know nothing of this and will never acquire the knowledge and understanding of the stories, the moral values and the message of the Bible. As street violence, drug and alcohol problems and knife crime flourish in ‘empty soil’, I cannot help feeling that we are in the process of losing something of immeasurable value. The Sunday School (or Junior Church, as it is called), flourishes in our own church as well as Crusaders (now rebranded ‘Urban Saints.) Would that there were many more such drops in the ocean.!