Little has occurred in this Province during the past year to call for particular observation; still the cause of your Society advances progressively, though slowly. The increase, as regards your Society, has been 6 Schools, 943 Scholars, and 78 Teachers; the increase of Scholars exceeds that of the previous year by upwards of 700. In estimating the state of Sunday School instruction in this Province, your Committee are persuaded that no adequate idea of its extent can be formed from the lists of your Society. Other Education Societies are actively at work in this part of the country, whose exertions have been attended with very considerable success-the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures is daily extending, and a desire for religious instruction has been excited which your Committee trust will not be easily extinguished. PROVINCE OF MUNSTER. From the following statement will appear the number of Schools, Scholars and Gratuitous Teachers in connexion with your Society, up to the 5th of January, 1828. Your Committee are enabled to report that the measures adopted for the extension of your cause in this Province have produced, during the past year, very satisfactory results. The Gork Auxiliary Association, in aid of your Society, increases in strength and permanency, and has already proved instrumental in spreading the system of Sunday School instruction within its district. In several parishes in the City of Cork, Branch Sunday School Associations have emanated from this Auxiliary Society. The plan of visiting the uneducated poor, pursued by these Branch Associations, has proved very beneficial by the exertions of the Visiters valuable Returns of the state of education in the City have been procured, and the number of Schools has considerably increased. Your Committee have reason to hope that several similar Branch Associations will be established in other parts of Cork and its vicinity. In the County and City of Cork there have been added to your lists 18 Schools, 1057 Scholars, and 209 Gratuitous Teachers. This rapid advance of your cause in thi district affords ample encouragement to your Society to persevere in the system of agency which you have adopted, and 'to extend it, as far as your funds will permit, into other parts of Ireland. Your Committee have commenced a system of local agency at Cork, the effects of which have far exceeded their expectations, and they trust that this is but the first step towards the establishment of a similar system throughout the greater part of the country. In consequence of the above arrangement the employment of a general Agent for Ireland has been relinquished for the present. Your Committee have the pleasure to state that an Association, Auxiliary to your Society, has been formed at Waterford, which, though yet in its infancy, they would hope will become, under God, a blessing and benefit to that City and its neighbouring districts. The increase in this Province, as regards your Society, has been 26 Schools, 1756 Scholars, and 323 Gratuitous Teachers. ADULT SCHOOLS, The establishment of Sunday Schools for the instruction of Adults, is a subject which has particularly engaged the attention of your Committee. It is scarcely necessary to point out the utility of such institutions, in a country where thousands arrive at the age of manhood totally ignorant of the Holy Scriptures. Your Committee feel persuaded that a very general desire for religious knowledge pervades the adult population of this country, and that they are daily becoming more alive to the evils of ignorance, and to the blessings of education. Distinct Sunday Schools, set apart for Adults, obviate the difficulties which grown-up persons generally feel in attending Schools designed for the use of Children, and the uniform testimony of all who have made the experiment, proves the efficiency of such institutions. Impressed with these convictions your Committee addressed a Circular Letter to their Correspondents, recommending and soliciting their co-operation in the establishment of Sunday Schools for Adults, and offering such suggestions and assistance as they conceived would facilitate the exertions of those who should engage in this benevolent and important undertaking. Your Committee have much pleasure in stating, that this communication was most kindly received, and that since this Circular was issued, they have made grants of books to several Adult Schools. Your Committee anxiously look forward to the progressive increase of these institutions, and trust that by means of them the sacred volume will become a welcome inmate in many houses to which it has been hitherto a stranger. Your Committee cannot close this part of their Report, without acknowledging, in the most marked and grateful terms, the cooperation of the Conductors and Teachers of the Sunday Schools in connexion with your Society; their unbought and unpurchasa ble labours are above the praise of man; but your Committee would express their anxious hope, that while those engaged in Sunday School instruction are using their instrumentality in diffusing its blessings to others, they may themselves be abundantly blessed in their own souls. Your Committee now present the following Recapitulation of the number of Schools, Scholars and Gratuitous Teachers in connexion with your Society in each Province, up to 5th January 1828, with the proportion which the Scholars bear to the population: It will be observed that the number of Scholars in connexion with your Society amounts to 173,613; of this number 80,998 are reported to be reading in the Bible or Testament, and 28,853 reported to be adults above the age of 15. With respect to the proportion of the Scholars attending the Sunday Schools connected with your Society, which derive instruction in Daily Schools also, your Committee would remark, that the Returns to your Society on this head are still defective, but as far as their information enables them to judge, they coincide in the opinion expressed by their predecessors," that at least one half of the Scholars in the Schools connected with your Society, do not attend daily Schools." Your Committee before they conclude, would briefly advert to the general objects of your Society, and to the nature and extent of its operations. The object of your Society, as detailed in its first general rule, is "to promote the establishment, and to facilitate the conducting of Sunday Schools." Your Society, though it assists with books gratuitously and at reduced prices the Schools in connexion with it, does not itself directly establish or conduct any School. Its characteristic feature is to spread the system of Sunday School instruction, by the instrumentality and direct agency of others. It seeks to induce the establishment of Sunday Schools, at the expense and under the immediate control of their several local patrons or founders, and to excite and encourage throughout the country a spirit of gratuitous instruction. The principal instruments your Society employs for these purposes are-Agency, under which head may be comprised Deputations, and local and travelling agents-as also your London and Dublin Offices: Friendly Correspondence: and a Distribution of Books, gratuitously and at reduced prices. With respect to local and travelling agency, your Society is as yet in its infancy. In Ireland its efforts in this department have hitherto been confined to the South, and principally to the County and City of Cork. The results, however, have been encouraging, and your Committee are induced earnestly to recommend to their successors the further extension of a plan from which much success may be reasonably anticipated; and your Committee are of opinion that the system of agency is fully justified not merely by their own limited experience of its utility, but by the testimony and example of kindred institutions. It is through the medium of the Office in Dublin that the operations and progress of your Society are made known, and a friendly correspondence maintained with the Conductors and Teachers of Schools in connexion with it. Such frequent and familiar correspondence your Committee deem one of the most important instruments for the promotion of your objects; it gives publicity to the principles of your Society, and by its means valuable friends are raised up, and the co-operation of numerous and able auxiliaries is procured. To the beneficial effects of this intercourse on the general course of your Society, your Committee can add their testimony to that of former Committees, and in corroboration of their own views they refer with pleasure to the communications of their various Correspondents. With respect to the Office in Dublin, your Committee are of opinion that the increasing business of your Society, arising from the enlarged sphere of its operations, will call for additional means to maintain this necessary and important department in an efficient state. Your Society affords assistance in Books to the Schools in connexion with it, and a large portion of your funds is employed in procuring the necessary supplies for this important purpose. Your Committee at the same time feel, that a very inadequate idea of the value of your Society must be entertained by those who suppose this to be its sole business. A most interesting and important part of your labours in Ireland is to kindle, by means of agency and correspondence, a spirit of disinterested and gratuitous exertion in the cause of Sunday School instruction; a spirit which calls forth benevolent Christians, of different rank and profession, to devote a portion of their time and labour to the work of scriptural education. Your Committee would now refer your friends and supporters to the experience of the past, for a pledge of the future usefulness of your Society, and beg their attention to this striking fact, that in the year 1809, when your Society was established, there were (as far as your Committee can learn) in the whole of Ireland but 73 Sunday Schools, containing about 7000 Scholars; and there are, by your last returns, 2117 Sunday Schools, and 173,613 Scholars in connexion with your Society alone. In conclusion, your Committee, with humble gratitude to the Giver of all good for the blessings He has already vouchsafed, again commit your cause to His protection and fostering care, being confident that having begun a good work through the instrumentality of your Society, He will perform it until the end. Since the Accounts were closed, on 1st March, the following sums have been received from Associations, Sunday School Unions, &c. IRELAND. Mrs. Loft, and Miss R. Cartwright, Westgate, Louth, Lincolnshire One-third of a collection made at the Rev. Mr. French's Church, Norwich Auxiliary ... Leeds Association, by Rev. G. Walker Hull Association, by W. H. Dikes, Esq. Retford Sunday School Union Schools in the neighbourhood of Hereford-trans mitted by Rev. H. Gipps Rev. H. Gipps ... ... 300 £5 15 0 6 16 0 Bond-street Sunday School, Leicester-from teachers and scholars London-Ebenezer Sunday School, Hammersmith, by Rev. J. Day Swallow-street Sunday School, from teachers and scholars by Mr. Baisler Maze Pond Girls Sunday School, by Mr. Haighton and scholars by Mr. Tudor Poultry Chapel Sunday School (additional) Well-street (Hackney Sunday School Wem Association, by Miss Hill Exeter and Devon Union Society, by J. Synge, Esq. scholars of 18 Sunday Schools ... Shrewsbury and Shropshire Auxiliary Society, by R. Phayre, Esq. Contributions from Glasgow, by William M‘Gavin, Esq. |