January 11, 1791 • William White and Just One Day of School a Week

eah! No school!" Most kids jump for joy when the TV announces that heavy snow or a gas leak has canceled classes. For one day, they will be free of books and blackboards.

In 1790, many children had no school to be free of. They worked six days a week in factories and never learned to read or write. Christian leaders in England and America thought this tragic and unacceptable. They knew that these children would lose opportunities in life because of their lack of education. They would be better workers if they could write letters and figure bills, and better Christians if they could read the Bible.

Sunday was the one day that these children had off. If they were to attend classes, it would have to be then. Here and there, a concerned Christian opened a Sunday school. However, these schools could do little, because each worked alone.

In Gloucester, England, around 1780, someone griped to Robert Raikes that children were rough and rowdy on Sunday. Raikes was a newspaper publisher. The griper expected that Raikes would write an editorial, asking for more policemen. Instead, he rented a room on a street that had the rowdiest kids and hired four teachers. He paid children a penny each (about fifty cents in 1999 US dollars) to come to class. Church goers said Raikes was wasting his time. Friends nicknamed him "Bobby Wild Goose and his ragged regiment." Raikes stuck to his plan. Three years later, when he was sure that his experiment had succeeded, he published a newspaper story about it. At that time William Fox, a wealthy London merchant, was looking for a way to educate the poor so that they could read the Bible. When he read Raikes' story, he formed a Sunday school society to spread Raikes's ideas.

The idea traveled to America. The first American Sunday school was begun in Virginia in 1785 when William Elliot taught his own children and slaves. His school was a great step, but hundreds more were needed as well as money to pay teachers.

On this day, January 11, 1791, a group of concerned Philadelphians met to do something about education. Among them was Bishop William White, doctors Benjamin Rush and William Currie, the Quaker Joseph Sharpless, two Quaker merchants, Thomas Pym Cope and Thomas Mendenhall and a Catholic publisher, Matthew Carey.

Sunday, said the men, ought to be devoted to religious improvement, but instead it was being used for wicked purposes. In their opinion, "the establishment of first-day or Sunday schools in this city would be of essential advantage to the rising generation."

They formed the First Day Society to promote Sunday schools in Philadelphia and elected Bishop White as their president. William White had been one of those who took the lead in organizing the Episcopal Church when America became an independent nation. He wrote histories, revised the Episcopalian prayer book, and served as a chaplain to Congress.

For forty-six years he directed the First Day Society. The society hired rooms and opened its first school that March with John Ely and John Poor as teachers. Over the next nine years, the First Day Society enrolled 2,127 pupils and raised thousands of dollars.

As other Sunday school movements popped up everywhere, fewer children came to the Society's schools. When that happened, the First Day Society shared its money with the newer Sunday schools. Eventually, government took over education. Sunday schools weren't as important as they had been. Children had to go to school five days a week instead of one. And, naturally, they shouted "Yeah!" when they got a break from school.

Bibliography

1. Benson. History of Christian Education. Chicago: Moody Press, 1943.
2. Boylan, Anne. Sunday School, the formation of an American Institution. Yale, 1988.
3. Brown, Arlo. A History of Religious Education in Recent Times. New York: Abingdon, 1923.
4. Concise Dictionary of American Biography. Scribner's.
5. Fergusson, E. Morris. Historic Chapters in Christian Education in America. New York: Revell, 1935.
6. Perry, William Stevens. The Episcopate in America. New York: Christian Literature, 1895. Source of the image.
7. Select Seed From the Granary.
8. "White, William." Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Scribner, 1958 - 1964.

Last updated May, 2007.