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.” Day of Infamy is an inspiring human document and the best account we have of one of the epic events in American history.Ever since the early 1600s, it had been the duty of churchmen to provide a basic religious education on the Sabbath: He visited each of the Hawaiian bases attacked and pored over maps, charts, letters, diaries, official files, newspapers, and some twenty-five thousand pages of testimony, discovering a wealth of information that had never before been revealed. He obtained exclusive interviews with members of the Japanese attacking force and spent hundreds of hours with the Americans who received the blow - not just the admirals and generals, but enlisted men and families as well. In brilliant detail Walter Lord traces the human drama of the great attack: the spies behind it the Japanese pilots the crews on the stricken warships the men at the airfields and the bases the Japanese pilot who captured an island single-handedly when he could not get back to his carrier the generals, the sailors, the housewives, and the children who responded to the attack with anger, numbness, and magnificent courage.In piecing together the saga of Pearl Harbor, Lord traveled over fourteen thousand miles and spoke or corresponded with over five hundred individuals who were there. A special 60th anniversary edition of the bestselling re-creation of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, by the author of A Night to Remember.Sunday, December 7, 1941, was, as President Roosevelt said, "a date which will live in infamy." Day of Infamy is a fascinating account of that unforgettable day's events.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |