Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-06-18


This is the age of conventions. In
North America the Sunday schools
alone average something like 1900
conventions year with an aggrega-
ton of two and a half million work.
ers present to compare notes and make
plans for better methods and sure re-
suits. The Sunday school convention
was born of the desire of superinten-
dents and teachers to secure mutual
aid in the work. 1t is the only place
in the world where all evangelical de-
nominations of all ages and of both
sexes can meet on terms of perfect
equality to discuss plans for the evan
gelization of the whole world. 1t brings
together the leader of the most pro-
gressive city's most progressive school
and the worker from the remote rural
places, who has been hedged about by
much ignorance and narrow-minded-
ness. and each may hear the failures
and successes of the other and place
the acquired wisdom to his own ac-
count
The measure of the Sunday schools
growth is found in the national, inter-
national and world conventions. When,
in 1926, the second annual convention
of the American Sunday School union
was held, the report of all the Sunday
schools of the nation for the preced-
ing year was summed thus: your
auxiliaries report 46S teachers and 532
scholars as having become hopefully
pious since the last anniversary" In
all the United States there were. then
100000 Sunday school pupils. Is per
cent of the population, and in the
whole world, 1,OS0,000. At the last tri-
ennial of the international body,
which was held in 1905 at Toronto.
Canada, it was reported that 217, 163
pupils had been added since the pre-
ceding triennium, over $4,000 a year,
against the 532 scholars who had be-
come hopefully pious" in 1856. 1t
also showed that 14.7 per cent of this
nations population was enrolled in
the Sunday schools of the evangelical
churches.
It is now over a century and a quar-
ter since Robert Raikes gathered the
neglected factory children of Glouces-
ter, England, in "Sooty alley" and,
while the populace hooted at Bobby
Wild Goose and his ragged regiment"
taught these unkempt little ones to
read little, write a little, believe in
the Bible and Christ and lead clean
lives. He lived to see his ragged reg
fment of twelve boys grow into body
of 100000 boys and girls. men and wo-
the years for a century or more he
would have seen it as it Is now-an
invincible army OF worldwide enlist
ment, marching 100000 strong
toward the great goal of universal
salvation.
Where the leaders of church and state
had opposed him in the first bitter, up
hill years, the new century brought to
his work not only tolerance, but the
cooperation of presidents of the United
States, chief justices. bishops, COVER
nors and educators of prominence.
The Archbishop of Canterbury bitter
ly opposed the earlier Sunday schools,
yet so great has been the revolution OF
sentiment that no less than four pres
idents of the United States-Grant,
Hayes, Mckinley and Roosevelt-have
sent special messages of encourage
ment to the Sunday school conventions
Even John Wesley had his doubts
about these new schools of Raikes at
first, but optimistically wrote: Per
haps God may have deeper end there
To than men are aware of. Who knows
but what some of these schools may
become nurseries for Christians"
Raikes paid his teachers at the rate
of SO cents per Sunday. Modern sta
tisticians have figured that since 1910,
when American teachers began giving
their service gratuitously millions or
dollars have been saved to the Sunday
school. and teachers have been secured