Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-07-06
TEACHING THE WORD.
Work of the Sunday School Com
pared With That of Mothers.
A CRITICISM OF MODERN METHODS
Original Ideas of Robert Raikes and
Ludwig Hecker Forgotten.
LESSONS OF THE LAST CONVENTION
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH.

IL IL uaruly DunureQ years since SUNDAY
schools were organized in this country.
They were first introduced in New York in
the early part of the century, though Penn
sylvania claims to have the credit of origi-
mating the scheme as early as 1879, thus
anticipating Robert Raikes by little less
than half century. Ii the claim that
Ludwig Hecker, of Pennsylvania, started
the first Sunday school, is well substan-
tiated, then tine Sunday school people in
the interest of truth should give him due
credit, whereas Robert Raikes now every
where, and by everybody, receives the
honor and glory of the whole Sunday
school machine, as Frances Willard de-
scribes it.
1t seems odd to read that Sunday schools
were at first as vindictively and bitterly op-
posed by the good people of that early day
as is the opening OF libraries and galleries
of art and other schools of to-day. The
gathering of the Door, ragged and neglected
children of a nelghborhood into comfort
| able rooms where they were taught to be de-
cent, respectable and intelligent was
deemed to be dreadful
DEsEC RATION OF THE SABBATH DAY.
| " HdS buOuSub ny even tHe ClcIRy anu
| others of the "unco guild" to be
lesser evil to have the streets and
lanes filled with the miserable prisoners
of poverty engaged in mischief OF all sorts,
playing marbles with the usual fighting and
| swearing accompaniments, than to profane
the Sabbath Day by teaching them to read
and write in school. The same class Of
Pharisees to-day would shut up the parks,
the conservatories and the libraries, and
compel everybody to keep the Sabbath as
they think proper and right. But their
| game is a losing one, as was the strenuous
| opposition to the Sunday school in the early
part of the century.
The conservative class which opposes
| progress fights all change, but, Innovations
if, in accordance with the spirit of the
| age-bear down all opposition with the
direct force of cyclone when the time for
action comes. The United Presbyterians
fought against the organ as desecration OF
Gods house; but the organ has won. Ten
| years ago the revision of Calvin's creed
would have been set down as unnecessary
and absurd; now not only Is revision ac-
cepted by the majority, but the abolition of
| Calvin's on-bound institutes may we'll be
expected to follow.
DOES THE WORK OF MOTHERS.
The Sunday school has grown to immense
proportions. Wherever there is a church
there must be Sunday school to feed ito
work for it, to furnish members to sustain it.
In old times parents instructed their chill
dren in the faith of their fathers, and i'm
planted their own strength of religious con-
yiction in their hearts and minds. Like wax
to receive-like marble to retain were these
i'm pressions received at the freside. Men
and women were trained as for martvrdom
by the teaching of their mothers, and were
prepared to do battle for their religion at
the Gloss of livings, lands and life"
Wherever they went they were eager and
jealous to propagate and defend their ideas
as handed down TO them by parents and
family training.
But now that this work has been dele
gated to the Sunday schools, it is question
to know whether it is as well done as when
the ever busy mother spent an hour or two
on Sunday afternoon in teaching her chill
dren the catechism and the whole duty of
man.
CLAIMS OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.
OF course, the answer is prompt on the
part of the Sunday school. Its advocates
think the international lessons as prepared
BY a committee of men prominent in the
church and as taught by volunteer young
girls, or men and women urged into the
work by fsttery OF their powers, or because
it impresses them with distinction for
goodness beyond the common, are better
than were home teaching. The idea is that
parents neglect the sacred duty of teaching
their children to walk in the ways of pleas
antness and the paths Of peace, and that this
must be done by the Sunday school teacher
so as to be we'll done.
It will, however, occur to some thinking
people that the girl just out OF school, with
her head full OF notions, or the young stu
dent, green with the mold of the theological
seminary, are hardly filter instructors for
children than the Intelligent mother, who
can hardly sleep at night for thought of the
material and eternal interests of her chill
dren. One hundred years ago to-day there
were no Sunday schools in Pittsburg. The
foundations of characters were laid in the
homes. The mothers furnished the keynote
Tor their children's lives, and who will be
found to say that their sons and daughters
were not as noble, as upright, as honorable
as the citizens of to-day, VINO have been
trained in Sunday schools.
A QUESTION AS TO THE METHODS.
AS we remember Sunday school it was a |
morning and afternoon affair where, apart
from praying and singing, the chief con-
Germ was as to who could repeat the most |
verses of Scripture and furnish the most |
pennies for the heather. We remember |
children upon whom this lesson OF giving |
every cent out OF their little savings banks |
to the heather was so deeply impressed that |
they felt as if they were committing deadly |
sin to buy ''taffy" for their own delectation. |
The constant struggle between the heather |
and themselves made them unhappy. The |
old rule of tenth OF the income for tithes |
was not preached into them, but they were |
constantly harangued upon their duty to
give up their a all-every atom Of their |
slender wealth.
Notwithstanding the big figures given
out last week by the International Assem-
bly as to the number OF Sunday schools, |
scholars and teachers, the fact remains that |
the class of children for whom the Sunday |
school was designed is not to be found |
within its fold. The streets and lanes, the
back alleys and the slums are still crowded
with the poor, ragged, miserable children,
whose morals and manners were to be i'm
proved by Sunday teaching.
THE ORIGINAL IDEA FORGOTTEN.
The pupils of the present day schools are
not, in the main, the children Of the very
moor. but rather those of the wealthy, the
well.to-do, the respectable and moral
church-poers. The shabby clothes and for
lorn appearance Of the poorer children
would make q sorry contrast with the
pretty hats and empire dresses the chic
suits of the boys and girls who now monop-
olize the nursery Of the sanctuary. The
idea of Robert Raikes was to reach the
masses, to lift up the children of poverty
into the light of Intelligence, but ii he
knows how things are going on in this old
world to-day he will know that
while there are 2,S97 Sunday schools
LIS, ,301 teachers and 9, las, ,997 scholars.
the masses are not reached after all as he
intended, and that 10, 600, 900 children are
outside the pale, mainly by reason of their
poverty. If people can be sad in heaven
these figures and what they tell will give
him sore heart and a sorrowing soul.
The International assembly, as we saw it,
gave to women 3 solid chunk of instruction.
Perhaps more than three-fourths Of the
Sunday school workers on this continent are
women, and yet all Of the Offices Of the or
gsnization have been