SUNDAY SCHOOLS AS BASIC EDUCATION CENTERS

Abstract

The article considers the functioning of Sunday schools in the second half of the XIX century. The process of teaching in Sunday schools on the basis of the Rules of 1884 and the Programs of 1886 and 1898 is considered. The functioning of the system of public education in the second half of the XIX century. was represented by the initial level of knowledge acquisition, which is mainly provided by church-parish, Sunday and zemstvo schools. The clergy and the church as a whole have always played an important role in Ukrainian society. One of the important areas of educational work of the Orthodox clergy was the education and upbringing of children. It is difficult to overestimate the church’s contribution to the development and operation of primary education. Educational institutions functioned at monasteries and churches throughout Ukraine. The highest clergy also made a great contribution. It was interested in organizing education for the people, because during this period the clergy remained the most educated section of the population.Sunday schools for adults and children were known as the earliest form of extracurricular education in Russia. They arose in the XVIII century at monasteries, but did not become widespread. From the middle of the XIX century similar schools began to be established at universities, gymnasiums, factories and plants. Their organizers considered the main task of teaching everyone to read and write (reading, writing, arithmetic), as well as the formation of Orthodox morality and spirituality. The program of teaching the Law of God, reading, writing, and arithmetic was compulsory in the first Sunday schools. The first thing that taught the illiterate was reading. Zolotov’s sound technique was widely used, which included three stages of initial learning of reading: acquaintance with vowel sounds, reading syllables, reading according to Zolotov’s tables. Thus, the process of teaching in Sunday schools in the late XIX - early XX centuries. was not homogeneous in content. Sunday schools had some influence in the public education system.