The Sunday-School Library in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

T HE Sunday-school library, once an important source of reading matter for most of the population of nineteenth-century America, was an institution far different from the modern library, but in its history may be seen the development of many of the ideas which characterize library service. Historians of the American library either have taken a condescending attitude toward the Sundayschool library, calling it a professional poor relation,' or have judged the library by its most narrow and conservative examples. A detailed examination of the Sunday-school library as it existed in the first sixty years of the nineteenth century brings to light many interesting facts about the institution. Fascinating are the advantages set forth, how the libraries were administered, the size of the collections, the books held, and the methods of selection used. The first Sunday-school libraries were designed to replace the premium books given in the early Sunday school when a scholar had been faithful in attendance and conduct. Superintendents felt that once a book had been awarded as a premium, it was lost to the school; but, if the award were the opportunity to read the book, the stock of the school would not be depleted. Where once a scholar received a volume of his own at the end of the school term, with the advent of the Sunday-school library his reward for attendance and good conduct was the privilege of withdrawing a book from the school collection. The first Sunday-school libraries were simple, but, as they grew in number and size, the organization became increasingly complex. As first formed in schools of one teacher or, at most, a few teachers, the problems of collecting, filing, and distributing the books were easy to solve; the volumes could be a part of the lesson for the day, and the teacher, or the superintendent, could check them out to the students. When the library grew to four or five hundred volumes and the students to more than a hundred, a special device had to be invented to meet the situation. As the system became more complex, those in charge of the school had to remind themselves frequently of the advantages to be expected from this adjunct of the Sunday school. There never had been much doubt in the minds of the authorities about the value of good reading. A Sunday school for which a rather complete record remains was the South Parish Sabbath School of Portsmouth, New Hampshire; the fortieth annual report of the superintendent, published in 1858, shows a development and attitude that was typical of others throughout the country.2 When the school was formed in