Northern Ohio journal. [volume] (Painesville, Ohio) 1872-1896, 1880-06-05
Robert Raikes---How Sunday-SchO0ls
We're Founded One Hundred
Years Ago.

Not quite a century has passed since
the editor of the Gloucester (Eng.)
Journal started the first little Sunday
school for the instruction of the children
of the poor of his native town, and to-
day in Saxon lands over five million
will gather in schools that owe
their existence directly to him, the
father and founder of the present sys
tenn. The history of the Sunday
may be said to begin with
the successful establishment, by Raikes
father, of the Gloucester Journal, one of
the oldest and long one of the most in
tluential of provincial newspapers; for
it was on this paper that Raikes, who
had served his time in his fathers print
ing Office, acquired his interest in public
affairs and his habit of concerning him
self in matters relating to the well-being
of the community in which he lived.
The morals of Gloucester appear at that
point to have been in anything but a
condition. The abuses of
its prison attracted the special attention
of Howard, and it is clear that the fail
ure of the stern systems of repression
then in use-the cruelties of prison life,
the frequent whipping of malefactors
through the public streets-to improve
the habits of the criminal class was the
immediate cause of the peculiar interest
which Raikes took in the question of
the instruction Of the poor. On the
death of his father, in 1857, Robert be-
came proprietor and editor of the paper
and in its pages these subjects were
frequently prominent. Raikes's own
account of the commencement of the
movement is simple and direct, like all
his writing. Having been struck with
concern, as he says, in one of his walks
in the city at seeing group of children
wretchedly ragged at play in the streets,
and also by the description which a
woman on the spot gave him of the
scenes of noise and riot which took
place in the streets on Sundays, he in
quired of his informant whether there
were any decent, well-disposed women
in the neighborhood who kept schools
for teaching to read. I presently" he
continues, ss was directed to four. To
those Iapplied, and made an agreement
with them to receive as many children
as should send upon the Sunday. The
women" he adds, seemed pleased
with the proposal" 1t was at the house
of Mr.. King in St. Catherine street
that the first Gloucester Sunday-school
was started, in the month of July, 1880,
and it is this humble beginning which
is to be celebrated in July next, just 100
years after the event. The second school
was Immediately afterwards established
by Raikes in his own parish at the corner
of Greyfriars and Southgate street. The
third school is believed to have been es-
tablished by Mr.. Stock, and several
others were quickly started in other
parts of the city. The teachers in these
early schools were most of them paid
for their labors at the rate of one shil-
ling per Sunday. The good service
rendered by them in teaching SO many
children to read can only perhaps be
appreciated by considering the wretch
edly imperfect and partial nature of the
systems-if systems they can be called
for the instruction of the poor in those
days. The progress made from this
small beginning was really marvellous.
Only five years after the setting up of
the little school in St. Catherine street
DR.. Glasse observed that there were al
ready 100000 children at Sunday-schools
throughout the kingdom and that the
system, having already extended to Ire
land, was about to be introduced into
the colonies. This extraordinary growth
seems to have been in great part due to
Raikes's statements and appeals in the
Gloucester Journal. In 1888 the Court
ladies at Windsor were reported as
passing their Sundays in teaching the
poorest children. Raikes, being in that
town about this time, was sent for by
Queen Charlotte, and he has in a private
note to a friend recorded the interest
which the Queen evinced in the move
ment. The famous Mrs. Trimmer and
Hannah More rendered great service
went steadily on his way, promoting
new schools in his own neighborhood
and elsewhere. The idea of conducting
Sunday-schools by unpaid teachers is
said to have originated in meeting
of Jealous Wesleyans. Wesley says that
as early as 1885 the masters in the school
at Bolton gave their services gratui-
tously, and few years later the same
practice became general in Stockport.
Every succeeding year added to the
number of unpaid teachers, the Noncon-
formist churches being especially ready
to recognize the advantages of voluntary
Sunday-school labor, and thus by de-
grees paid teachers were entirely super
seded and gratuitous instruction became
the universal rule.
The children attending Raike's Sun
day-schools appear to have been, almost
without exception, without previous
training of any kind. His conditions
were simply "clean faces. clean hands
and hair combed'-tattered garments
and shoeless feet being no disqualified
ton. The duty of the instructor was to
teach them their letters, practice them
in spelling, and hear them read. In
private letter to Colonel Townley,
Raikes says: 1t is now about three
years since we began, and l wish you
were here to see the effect" ssThe go
ing among them," he says in the same
letter, ''doing them little kindnesses,
distributing trifing rewards, and in
gratiating myself with them, have given
me an ascendancy greater than I ever
could have imagined, for 1 am told
by their mistresses that they are very
much afraid of my displeasure. - In
another interesting passage Raikes says
You will understand that these chill
,dren are from six years old to fourteen.
Boys and girls above this age who have
been totally undisciplined are generally
too refractory for this government. A
reformation in society seems to me to
be only practicable by establishing. no.
tions of duty and practical habits of or
der and decorum at an early age" II
is pleasant to observe that with the dis
appearance of ignorance, rags and naked
feet began to be less frequent. Raikes
retired from business at the age of sixty
seven, but his interest in this movement
continued to be unabated. He died on
the 5th of April. 1911, at the age oi
seventy FIVE, leaving a large family.
Robert Raikes seems to have been a
man of liberal views, with no DISPOSE
ton to discourage but rather to foster
innocent amuseInents. Music was always
an important feature in the annual Sun
day-school festivals in his days, and in
one of his articles he defends against a
censorious correspondent his practice OF
publishing in his paper notices of dra.
matte performances and other such
amusements which took place at inter
walls in Gloucester. He is described as
rather tall, somewhat portly, of fail
complexion and most benevolent ex-
preston of countenance." This is borne
out by his portrait, in which he appears
dressed, after the fashion of the day, in
blue coat, buff waistcoat, drab kersey-
mere breeches, white stockings and low
shoes. In the diary of Miss Burney
the author of g Evelina,'' will be found
some interesting reference to Raikes