SUNDAY SCHOOL. - According to the definition of G. Everette, "the Sunday school is the school of the Church of Christ, gathered on Sunday, and in which the word of God is taught to all, great and small."
I. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT
Arising from the initiative of Robert Raikes (1735-1811), who in 1780 at Gloucester began gathering, every Sunday, the children of the street in order to teach them to read and write using the Bible as a text, the Sunday school developed rapidly throughout all of England. Five years later the first society of Sunday schools was constituted, of which the same Raikes was president and which in 1811 counted 100,000 members. In the United States the institution was welcomed as an excellent means of integrating the non-denominational teaching of the government schools and was extended also to young people and adults. The Sunday schools were subsequently supported by specially created national and international organizations. On the occasion of the 1st World Congress of Sunday Schools held in London in 1889, the "World Sunday School Association" (W. S. S. A.) was founded with the aim of unifying the individual activities, studying proposals for improvements, preventing obstacles, fixing the seat of the quadrennial congresses, etc. In 1907 the 5th Congress met in Rome. In 1932 there were 361,145 schools with 36,000,829 pupils (in Italy 350 schools with 10,000 pupils).
II. FUNZIONAMENTO
The enrollees (from 5 to 20 years of age and older) are divided into 8 sections: infant, preparatory, primary, junior, intermediate, senior, young people's, adults'. Before or after the Sunday service, a chapter of the Bible is explained, of which the recitation from memory of certain previously assigned verses is required; some complementary study of exegesis or catechism is added; and, after hymns and prayers, it concludes with the apostolic blessing (sic) or with the Gloria. The programs are for the most part standardized according to the system of graded lessons: each section has lessons different from those of the preceding section, but the lessons of each section deal with the same subject matter. The officers of the Sunday schools are: the pastor, who oversees the progress of the pupils; the superintendent, who attends to administration and to the choice of texts and of the teaching and subordinate staff; the teacher, who imparts the instruction and is chosen from among the best teachers of the public schools or trained in special institutes.
The Sunday schools, pernicious among Catholic countries, where they spread among the pupils of Catholic families prejudices against the Church of Rome, in Protestant countries and in the missions contribute to the propagation of certain truths of Christianity, mixed, unfortunately, with the errors of the various sects.
Bibliography6 works
Camillo Crivelli