Sunday Schools

Source

The Idea . Fear that people without education would form a lawless mob and upset the established order motivated reformers in the late eighteenth century to establish a broad system of education and to institute schools on Sundays. The Sunday school idea had been imported from England, where the industrial system had taken women and children from their homes and put them to work in factories, making it impossible for them to enjoy the traditional home-based education. Sunday schools gave these working people a chance to learn to read and write.

Philadelphia . In 1791 Sunday schools were opened in Philadelphia to persons of all ages, both men and women, who could not afford to educate themselves. The schools were supported by charitable donations and were run by religious societies, though they were nonsectar-ian. The Philadelphia school required its students to attend public worship on Sundays, though it did not matter which denomination. Within two years over eight hundred students had attended this Sunday school.

Working Girls . In 1791 the Duck Manufactory, outside of Boston, opened a Sunday school for its employees, particularly the young girls working in the factory. These “young daughters of industry” were prevented from studying on any other day, so the Sunday school, run by Oliver Lane, allowed them to pay “attention to the morals and instruction” offered by their employer, whose example, the papers said, did him “infinite honor.”

Churches. While some Sunday schools were opened by businesses, most were sponsored by churches. In Philadelphia virtually every religious denomination had a Sunday school, conducted by “pious young Ladies” who formed an association for this purpose. Each would instruct between ten and twenty students who met in the various churches of the city. People of all colors, ages, and social classes attended these schools, whose lessons were drawn from the Bible. Most noted by contemporaries were the older African Americans in attendance. The Sunday school in Newark, New Jersey, launched in May 1815, had over four hundred students by the end of summer.

Making Better Servants . Though originally drawing both upper and lower classes, the Sunday school’s main focus quickly became the poor. It was noted in Newark that the “improvement of the blacks is said to be extraordinary and that they display as much intellect as white children could do in similar circumstances.” As important to their employers, their “behavior as servants has much improved since the institution of the schools; they are tractable and sedate, and some have been reclaimed from habits of profaneness and intemperance.” The Sunday school movement after 1815 continued to offer instruction to working people, though the movement itself, in the fervor of the second Great Awakening, became part of a broader evangelical movement.

Source

Vera M. Butler, Education as Revealed by New England Newspapers Prior to 1850 (New York: Arno, 1969).