Sunday Schools

Sunday Schools, in Christian and Jewish education, the school systems and local schools maintained by churches and synagogues where classes offering religious instruction to children or to children and adults are held on Sunday. The British religious leader Robert Raikes is generally regarded as the founder of the modern Sunday school movement. He established the first Sunday school at Gloucester in 1780, as a means of furnishing both secular and religious education to children whose employment in factories prevented them from attending the secular schools. Under Raikes's sponsorship, the movement spread rapidly; by 1786 an estimated 250,000 children were attending Sunday schools. Later, as the number of children attending secular schools increased, the Sunday schools began to devote themselves gradually to religious instruction alone.

The Sunday school movement spread to the Protestant churches of the United States early in the 19th century. The activity of Protestant missionaries in many parts of the world brought about the further spread of the movement, and in 1889 the first World's Sunday School Convention was held in London. Such meetings, thereafter held periodically in various countries, gave rise in 1907 to the formation of the World Sunday School Association comprising numerous national and international Sunday school organizations. The name was changed to World Council of Christian Education and Sunday School Association about 40 years later.

Roman Catholic and Jewish Sunday schools are generally organized on a local rather than a national or an international basis. In addition, neither Roman Catholicism nor Judaism restricts its religious classes to Sunday; both hold classes at other times, depending largely on local conditions and the convenience of the church members. The Jewish Sunday schools are conducted almost exclusively by the Reform and Conservative congregations; very few Orthodox congregations maintain such schools. The Jewish Sunday schools frequently offer instruction in Jewish history and traditions, as well as purely religious subjects.