DAY OF INFAMY BY WALTER LORD FREE
Jones tells us that pupils were soon attending the school of their own free will: At heart he was a most kindly man and experience showed him that the best way of controlling children was to try to understand them, win their liking, and discover the kind of things which interested them”. Curtis, “Raikes was neither a bully nor was he cruel, and he soon found out his mistake in resorting to harsh methods. In at least one case he deliberately blistered one child’s fingers by holding them against the fireplace. (2)Īttempting to coerce the children into good behaviour, Raikes resorted to bribing them with combs and money or punishing them for misbehaviour with birchings. Nevertheless some of the most poorly behaved boys still had to be “marched from their houses with logs of wood and weights tied to their legs to prevent their running away”. Within six months the school transferred to larger premises in Southgate, owned and run by a pub landlady named Mrs Critchley who was better equipped to keep rowdy children in line, perhaps thanks to her experience dealing with surly and drunken customers. In such circumstances, children were glad to escape to the relative spaciousness and order of the schoolroom, a sentiment that may resonate with families today with the experience of lockdown home learning fresh in the mind. Sarah Trimmer, an author of children’s literature who would go on to found a Sunday school in Brentford, provides us with an explanation for the appeal of education on the Sabbath: the ‘day of rest’ was actually ‘the most uncomfortable day of the week’ for families living in miserable and cramped accommodation. Henry Harris, author of Robert Raikes: The man who founded Sunday School, tells us that “…the children sat on forms or stools, but learnt little, and poor Mrs Meredith’s patience was soon worn out with trying to keep them in order.” (2)Īll the same, pupil numbers increased. Soon after its opening, local parents were sending “the wildest lot of children imaginable” for lessons. From Robert Raikes – The Man Who Founded The Sunday School by J. These tentative and isolated experiments turned into a national movement during the 1780s, thanks in no small part to the promotional efforts of Robert Raikes (1735-1811), editor of the Gloucester Journal, the foremost journal in West England. Moffatt in Nailsworth took matters into their own hands and set up schools with the aim of keeping children more positively occupied on the Sabbath day. Some concerned individuals such as Hannah Ball in High Wycombe and the Rev J.M. As they grew their souls were stunted, and never leaped in gladness at the sound of words which give fresh life and hope and strength, such as children of to-day are accustomed to hear.” (2) Infant lips, in all innocency, lisped words of infamy children at their games shouted in curses. Many of their words expressing love, or pain, or violent emotion could not be repeated here. “One thing more I would refer to, namely, the language of the ‘masses.’ I have said that the well-to-do were very ‘coarse,’ even to one another, so it will be no surprise to hear that the talk of the common people was shocking.
The latter was particularly offensive to the mores of the time, and was still preoccupying the thoughts of this Sunday school historian half a century later: So it is hardly surprising that with neither religious worship nor formal physical exercise to occupy children’s one free day, some of them filled the vacuum with street games, gambling, poaching and “the language of hell” (blasphemy).
Yet in practice it seems this duty was mostly neglected. “Every Parson, Vicar, or Curate, upon every Sunday and Holy-day before Evening Prayer, for half-an-hour or more, is to examine and instruct the Youth, and ignorant Persons of his Parish in the Ten Commandments, the Articles of Belief, and in the Lord’s Prayer: and shall diligently hear, instruct and teach them the Catechism set forth in the Book of Common Prayer.” Ever since the early 1600s, it had been the duty of churchmen to provide a basic religious education on the Sabbath:
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