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1$1 RELIGIOUSENCYCLOPEDIA ounaay Sunday-Schools
true Origin and Evolution of the Jewish Sabbath and the Lord's Day, 2d ed., Boston, 1907; World's Rest Day. Being nn Account of the Thirteenth International Congress on the Lord's Day, held at Edinburgh 6th to 8th Oct., 1908, Edinburgh, 1909 ; A. E. Main, Bible Studies on the Sabbath Question, Alfred, New York, 1910; W. B. Dana, A Day for Rest and Worship; its Origin, Development, and Present-day Meaning, ib., 1911; DCA, ii. 10421056; DB, iii. 138-141, iv. 317-323; EB, iii. 2813-i6; JE, x. 587-605; DCG, i. 251-253, ii. 540-542; Schaff, Christian Church, i. 476-480, ii. 201-205.
For Sunday laws consult: Codex Theodosianue, ed. T.Mommsen, Berlin, 1905 ; Blue Laws of New Haven Colony . Connecticut: Quaker Laws of Plymouth and Massa-
chusetts: Blue Laws of New York, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, Hartford, 1838; Blue Laws of Con- I. History. 1. Early Religious Instruction.The Sunday-school may be defined as an assembly of persons grouped in classes, with teachers, on the Lord's Day, for the study of the Bible, for moral and religious instruction, and for the worship of God. The modern Sunday-school grew out of a movement to provide religious instruction for poor and neglected children, near the close of the eighteenth century. In its present popular form, it seeks to teach and to train all whom it can reach in the performance of the duties owing to God and to neighbor, as these duties are set forth in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures.
I. History. 1. Early Religious Instruction; Re
ligious instruction of the young and the unlearned
has, from the earliest history of the human race,
been recognized as a sacred duty. In early times
all primary instruction centered in the family, the
father was teacher and priest of the
1. Early household (Gen. xviii. 19). The more
Ethnic advanced education was, however,
Religious often provided in connection with tem
ples, indicating how large a place re
ligion had in the nations of great antiquity. The
recent explorations in Babylonia, as at Sippara and
Nippur, have not only shown that fully equipped
schools existed in the days of Abraham and earlier,
but they have also made known the methods of
those schools, since multitudes of tablets have been
found giving varied forms of school exercises of
pupils, illustrating the pedagogical methods in the
schools of Chaldea and Babylonia when Abraham
and his fathers were children. Hymns and relig
ious texts formed part of the extensive equipment
used. Among the Semitic peoples, religious instruc
tion in accord with school methods, therefore, was
known and practised long before Abraham's day,
necEicuE from the Code of 1860 arid Public Records Previous to 1866, 5th ed., New York, 1904; H. Kingsbury, The Sabbath: a Brief History of Laws, Petitions, Remonstrances, and Reports, with Facts and Arguments relating to the Christian Sabbath, ib. 1840; J. H. Rigg, The Sabbath and the Sabbath Law, London, 1881; E. Beavan, History of the Welsh Sunday Closing Act, Cardiff, 1885; L. A. Govett, The King's Book of Sports, London, 1890; G. E. Harris, A Treatise on Sunday Laws. The Sabbath. The Lord's Day, its History and, Observance, Civil and Criminal, Rochester, 1892; A. H. Lewis, A Critical History of Sunday Legislation, new ed., New York, 1902; R. C. Wylie, Sabbath Laws in the U. S., Pittsburg, 1905; H. E. Young, Sunday Laws. Paper in Proceedings of Third Annual Meeting of American Bar Association; Documents 29, 41,
46 , etc., of New York Sabbath Committee. SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. 1869-1910 (§ 2). In America (§ 5). In Denmark, Germany, and Nor way (¢ e). In Other European Countries (¢ 7). Sunday-school Societies. In Great Britain. London Sunday-school Union (§ 1). Other Societies (§ 2). 2. Societies in America. Early Societies Local (§ 1). American Sunday-school Union Results of this Society's Work (§ 3). Other Societies (§ 4). 3. Conventions of Sunday-school Workers. Conventions to 1882 (§ 1). 3. Other Countries. Other Conventions (¢ 3).and the glimpses of the fact which appear in the Hebrew narratives, reveal its existence, and some out unmistakably in the record of the " first " and great commandment (Deut. vi. 4-9). And these are unexpectedly and signally confirmed by the school-tablets found in Babylonia and by a law of Hammurabi (see HAMMURABI AND His ConE), forbidding a lost child's recovery by its parents, when adopted and " taught " a handicraft or trade by its foster-father Q§ 188-189; Eng. transl. in DB, Extra Volume, p. 605).
Faithful religious instruction of the young was given by Abraham, with military training (Gen. xiv. 14; cf. Job i. 5), and was enjoined in the observance of the Passover. The Mosaic
2. Hebrew law required children and adults to and Jewish come together before the Lord at
Religious certain seasons to hear the law, and to Education. have it explained, in addition to the instruction given in the family (Deut. xxxi. 10-13; Josh. viii. 34, 35). Joshua gathered the people at Gerizim and Ebal, where the law of God was impressively proclaimed anew. The proph ets, from Samuel to Elijah and Elisha, promoted religious instruction, teaching the people God's will, besides maintaining the so-called " schools " of the prophets. Jehoshaphat appointed a royal educa tional commission to reestablish systematic relig ious instruction throughout the Hebrew nation, and a similar effort was made by Josiah (II Chron. xvii. 7-9, xxxiv. 30-33). In like manner Ezra gathered the people with the children into a na tional Bible assembly or school, wherein the priests taught and explained the meaning of the law of God, similar to modern methods of school instruc tion. In New-Testament times, schools for relig-