When, Where and Why Children Sing Sacred Music
Did you attend Sundayschool as a child?
If so, you probably speak the name just as it is written above; as a single compound word with the emphasis on Sunday. However, separating and emphasizing each word will give you a hint of the actual history of this institution: Sunday School.
In the late eighteenth century, Robert Raike, an active Anglican living in London, England, sought to provide an educational opportunity for children employed long hours in industrial factories on every day of the week save Sunday. In 1780, using his own money, Robert opened the first Sunday School which used the Bible as a curriculum to teach children how to read and write. The idea spread, soon crossing over the pond and seeding in New York, where in 1816 the mother-daughter team of Isabella Graham and Joanna Bethune spearheaded the U.S campaign to establish Sunday Schools.
Organizations birthed from different denominations across the U.S. sent “missionaries” westward much like itinerant preachers, however focused on establishing Sunday Schools in the newly formed communities of the baby country. With the establishment of public schools close to midway through the century, the role of the Sunday School began to retreat to that of primarily religious instruction although public schools and Sundays Schools appeared to have operated concurrently for many years.
At what time music became part of the curriculum is not clear, however it’s my strong suspicion that music written or modified for the use of children for religious purposes was likely done so for use in these Sunday Schools. An 1859 Boston publication entitled Sacred Hymns for Children lists a song called “We love, we love the Sabbath School”. On the title page of Hymns and Songs for Children’s Worship published 1869 in Philadelphia for the Presbyterian
Who Can Make Use of This site?
The material in this website is compiled to be of use in the following settings:
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Christian Schools
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Sunday Schools
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Church day care or nursery programs
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Church camps, particularly those with a music focus
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Religious homeschoolers
Church in the USA we find an inscription that the use of the hymnal was for “The Sabbath Schools”. While H.S. Hoffman in his 1887 Hymnal with Music for Children does not specify it’s use for Sunday Schools, he is found to speak despairingly of the “trashy” nature of songs usually found in Sunday School Song books. Clearly music was being published for the use of children in Sunday Schools.
These publications continued unabated, even as the purpose of the Sunday School was streamlined to the single focus of spiritual development. Song topics while including common adult hymn themes would also speak of specific Bible stories (Lazarus, the calling of the disciples, Jesus’ triumphal entry), encouragement of moral behaviour, and the sharing of their faith through symbolism like shining a light; likely considered juvenile for adults to sing about. Denominations like the Salvation Army would include songs that spoke of abstaining from alcohol, in keeping with their campaigns to rehabilitate the down and out of society.
Just as western music has seen vast and dramatic changes in the last hundred years, so too are the styles of music used for children in the church. The modern church has been easily enticed into the adoption of popular styles and instrumentation with the hope of making Sunday School music fun and entertaining. Many members would argue, however, that this should not be the highest priority, lamenting the trash factor as Hoffman did 130 years ago. The challenge is to determine what is “music of the highest artistic quality”, and make use of it in the religious setting when not only is music literacy and appreciation a consideration, but the enhancement of the spiritual life of the child as well. Opinions can run fast and hard in most denominations, with many bemoaning the loss of hymnody in the Sunday School, seen as the only proper undergirding of both religious thought and quality church music.