Robert Raikes
By Guy Kendall No one interested in education should fail to read Mr. Kendall's thoughtful and appreciative study of Robert Raikes, the editor of the Gloucester Journal, who founded the Sunday School in or about the year 178o (Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 3s. 6d.). As an old and experienced headmaster, Mr. Kendall thinks that Raikes's part in the development of our educational system has been underrated. His Sunday school was of course designed to give the rudiments of secular and not only of religious teaching to the children of the Gloucester slums for whom no provision whatever was made and who were at work on weekdays. The numerous schools to which his pioneer effort gave rise fought illiteracy as well as paganism. But Mr. Kendall holds that Raikes, with his love of " botanising in human nature " among the poor children, pointed the way to new and wiser methods of teaching and moral training. He quotes contemporary evi- dence for the rapid improvement in manners and conduct that followed this spread of Sunday schools. Mr. Kendall does not fail, moreover, to note that Raikes's constant exposition of his views in his Journal greatly helped to de- velop the educational movement, which Wesley and others furthered.
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