Those of us who attended Sunday School when we were children often assume that it has always existed. Of course there has been religious education of the young for many centuries—as is evident from Jesus' visiting with the doctors of the law in the Temple When he was twelve years old. But the creation of Sunday School happened much more recently—in the late 1700s.
Imagine that you're a child living in Gloucester, England, in the 1780s. You work six days a week, and you have finished twelve hours of work in a mill. You have no education, your clothes are ragged, and bathing is something only rich people do. On your day off, you run wild.
A well-to-do man observes you and your companions. He is Robert Raikes, a printer and newspaper owner with a humanitarian streak. On an errand, he is passing through the part of town where mill workers live. Transfixed by the unruly behavior he has seen, he speaks to a woman nearby.
