Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1910-05-24

More than 1000 delegates, representing
81 nations and So denominations of the
Christian church, met in Washington
Thursday for the Sixth Worlds Sunday
school convention. The last meeting Of
the convention was held in Rome In 1907.
and the meeting before that was in Jeru-
salem This is the second worlds con-
vention ever held in America, the meet
ing at St. Louis in 1898 being the
other.
The Sunday schools of the world have
30 OOO. 900 regular members and of this
number 100000 are in the United States
and Canada. The Sunday school was
founded in England, it has reached the
highest degree Of efficiency and impor-
lance in English speaking America and
is prosperous in other lands largely UNI
der the influence of English speaking
workers. But the other nations of the
Christian world are taking up the Sun
day school work rapidly. Next Sunday
win be devoted especially to the worlds
Sunday school movement and a uniform
program for Sunday school services to be
held that day has been translated into
more than 200 languages and will be car
ried out in more than a quarter of a
million Sunday schools. OF these schools
80. 900. or a great majority of the whole.
The convention which meets in Wash
ington, today will be composed Of four
classes OF delegates. There win be about
800 foreign missionaries mostly English
speaking. who have been engaged in car
rying Christianity to heather nations
Then will come the delegates from the
various Sunday school associations and
religious denominations of foreign lands.
e-n- l.
up Of delegates for the United States and
Canada chosen according to a fixed ra-
ito of apportionment. The fourth class
will be composed of delegates at large
representing broadly the constituent re-
ligious bodies engaged in Sunday school
work. This Sunday school convention is
the only body in the religious world in
which representatives of all the evangeli-
cal Christian denominations meet on
terms of exact equality to discuss plans
for the evangelization of the whole
world.
The English speaking nations support
the International Sunday School associa-
ton, which meets every three years
This association selects the international
committee which prepares the interna-
tional lesson system, in use in nearly all
Of the Sunday schools Of the world. This
vile and appointed a new committee
which has just completed the work of
preparing the lessons for the six years
beginning with 1912 and continuing
through 1917. At that convention 1t was
decided to adopt a graded system of
study for Sunday schools modelled on
, the system of the grade schools of the
Ute States. The convention in Wash
ington will consider the new system and
will take steps looking toward an ex-
traordinary extension OF teacher training
work preparatory to the introduction Of
the graded system in 1912. The Sunday
schools of the United States and Can
ada, in city, county, district, province
and state organizations, hold more than
1900 conventions year, in which near
ly 100000 Sunday school workers partic-
ipate. This organized convention work
has for its chief object the training of
Sunday school teachers. The representa-
tives Of these numerous organizations
compose the worlds convention, and it
will give most of its time to the. same
business.
The first Sunday school was founded by
Robert Raikes in Gloucester, England, In