Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1910-09-02
The Presidents Estimate o. the
Sunday School


into my mind that | must comment
upon ii ut once. hope he will con-
tinue To- play for the President of the
United States. My experience is that
is needed.
1t is a great honor 10 welcome 10
Washington, the city Beautiful, a
worlds convention ut time when
the city is most beautiful. From all
parts or the world We welcome here
the representatives OF one of the two
making the world better, for making
il more moral, and for making il
more religious.
AS the twig is bent so will the
tree grow. Youth is the time TO in
culcate for lasting results moral and
religious ideas. Our public school
education, under the system which,
with various denominations, we are
Oblige TO adopt, is only secular
teaching, with the teaching of NOR
ality i'm general. But that is not
enough. There are those who feel as
il IL were dangerous TO have educa-
ton at all unless associated with re-
ligious education; but we in our
country, under our system, have not
found il practical TO have public ed
ucation associated with distinctly re-
Zig ious education. Therefore we feel,
even more than in countries where
that is possible, the necessity for
Sunday schools.
mo matter what views are taken
OF general education, we will agree
Protestant, Catholic, and Jew
alike-that Sunday school educa-
tion is absolutely necessary to secure
moral upliGt and religious spirit.
THE invention of the Sunday
school is accredited 10 Robert Raikes
in 1850 or 1881. That there had been
something equivalent TO the Sunday
centuries before that is doubtless
true, and l think history shows that
we knew something OF the Sunday
school in this country before that
time; but l think il was NJ. Raikes
who pressed upon his countrymen
the necessity for the use OF this in
strumentailty i'm forwarding religion
At n time when he brought il for the
Sunday schools had 10 supply some
OF the uses OF the great public
schools of today, but il is undOubted-
w true that the impulse which he
gave 10 religious thought and relig-
iOus fervor in those days had much
TO do with adding to the revival Of
religion under the inspiration Of the
eNangelists, and OF Wesley and
Others, who made that revival in the
eighteenth century so noteworthy.
adam Smith, Hannah More,
and Rowland Hill, the man who
gave us the postoilice in most of its
useful features, introduced the Sun
day school into London. 1t showed
that Mr.. Hill's mind was not only
occupied with one means of spread
ing education, but that il also took
up the subject OF religious education
as we'll. There were, as there will
always be, in the spreading OF any
useful movement, conscientious men,
bers of the church who were opposed
TO the Sunday school; but they have
disappeared.
THE spread of the Sunday school,
the organization of the Sunday
School Union, in 1885, and the count
ing of heals few years later, show
eel 200, 600 pupils In the schools. In
this country the Sunday School
L Mon and the spread of the Sunday
school movement seems 10 have been
even wider and more thorough than
in any other part of the world
l 900, 600 teachers and Is, 500, 600 pu-
pills, against 1000, 600 teachers aud
y, 600, 600 pupils in the rest of the
world. A movement Of such strength
is one we ought To welcome I'm every
community and testify TO the lie.
spect we have for the good which il
is doing.
1T seems work of supereroga.
ton TO talk about the advantage OF
beginning moral and religious in.
struction with the earliest youth.
We do not have TO convince each
other that that which we learn in
youth lasts longest with us
'There is another great advan.
tage connected with The Sunday
school teaching, namely, that il
commands without money and with.
out price one eighth as many teach
ers rs there are pupils, who give
their time to This work. want Il
say that belive the influence O
the Sunday school upon the teacher;
is i'll some respects even more benefi
ciaI than its influence upon the pu
pills. a boy or girl Is n boy or girl
They take in moral lessons and they
, occasionally forget them. They learr
their Bible verses, and some retain
them, but many lose them. But th,
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