This Week in Christian History: Mother Teresa, Harvard and Founding of the Sunday School Society

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, September 03, 2017

William Fox Founds Sunday School Society — Sept. 7, 1785

This week marks the anniversary of when British merchant William Fox founded the Sunday School Society, an influential organization aimed at educating Christian children.

A deacon at London's Prescott Street Baptist Church, Fox sought to create what one historian called "a plan for the universal education of the poor."

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An organization that included other denominations, the Sunday School Society's work soon spread throughout other parts of the British Empire and inspired the creation of a similar group in the United States.

"In twenty-seven years it formed or aided 3,730 Sunday schools, having a membership of 303,981; gave away 8,001 Bibles, 70,537 Testaments, and 329,695 spelling and reading books," wrote Sunday School Society leader Edwin Wilbur Rice.