The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1919-07-08
THE. SUNDAY SCHOOL.

According to a statement from the once
of the Georgia Sunday School Association
seventy-fve counties were represented at
the state Sunday school convention, recent
ly held in Rome, by 757 registered dele
gates The sectional conferences were pro-
nounced the best ever held in any previous
convention.
1t was noble army of unselfish but ag-
gressive workers in the cause of mind and
soul that gathered in the north Georgia
city. They assembled as the messengers of
hope for a better and purer youth, and
holier and nobler manhood and womanhood
They have no purpose other than that of
serving in the vineyard of the Master; of
saving the souls of the generations by the
influence of the Sunday school and the
spread of the knowledge of the Bible. They
give all they have, and in return ask nothing
but the reward which comes for services
done in sincerity
The story of the Sunday school is full
Of romance. When the Jews lost their ma
tional life through conquest by outside ma
tons they sought to recover their greatness
by the education of the masses, including
this policy the early Christians caught the
idea of strengthening the faith of the be-
levers by requiring them to attend schools
or gatherings in which the doctrines of the
faith were taught. The idea spread through
Egypt and Mesopotamia to Armenia, where,
in the fourth century, Gregary the Illumina-
tor, propagated the faith by compelling the
attendance of children in Bible schools.
These schools were conducted on secular
days.
To Robert Raikes, however, is justly ac-
corded the credit for the establishment of
the modern Sunday school, though the
school which he founded bears little resem-
blance to those of modern times. Born at
Gloucester, Eng, in 1875, he became prin-
ter and succeeded his father as publisher of
the Gloucester Journal in 1857 The Sunday
school he established in a renovated stable
was humanitarian rather than religious in
it's primary purpose. He had seen the mis-
cradle plight of the children of the poor
quarters of the city, who worked in the
sweatshops They were ignorant and their
lives were shaped for crime and prostitu-
ton by their environment. Raikes decided
that so long as they were ignorant they
could not be reached and uplifted He open
ed the school for these children on Sunday
because that was the only day on which
they were free. He had to teach them to
spell and read. AS they acquired these ele-
mentary principles of an education he
sought to instill into their minds the reali-
ties of better and purer life than that
which they knew. In this way the testament
became the reading book of the school. The
simpler parts were selected, among them be-
ing the sermon on the mount, the Lords
prayer the story of Lazarus and others
which the children could understand.
Aided by such men as John Nichols, edi-
tor of the Gentlemen's Magazine George
Whitfield, Charles Wesley and the queen
Raikes was able to expand his work, so
that in five years after he had opened his
first Sunday school in July, 1880, Sunday
school society was established. During the
first ten years of it's existence it distributed
5000 spelling books, $4,000 testaments and
$500 Bibles. Tt included at the end of that
time 1,102 Sunday schools and $4,000 pu-
pills. At first teachers were hired to in
struct the classes, their pay coming from
contributions of wealthy people who believ-
ed in the great uplift work. In 1911 vo1un-
teer teachers, with the same spirit that ami
mates the workers who gathered In Rome,
were caring for 100000 children, most of
them being taught the rudiments of an edu-