The Gift of an Education: Sarah Trimmer’s Oeconomy of Charity and the Sunday School Movement

Abstract

When Sarah Trimmer published The Oeconomy of Charity; or, An Address to Ladies; Adapted to the Present State of Charitable Institutions in England, With a Particular View to the Cultivation of Religious Principles, among the Lower Orders of People in 1787 and again in 1801, she strove to convince her readers that contributing time and money to the establishment and management of free Sunday Schools to teach reading and religious principles to the children of the poor would pay off by ensuring social stability and national security during a period when there was serious anxiety about potential revolution and social upheaval. Trimmer’s book was based on her own experience setting up Sunday Schools at Old Brentford in Middlesex, and it included both a defense of such schools and practical tips for running them efficiently. The Sunday Schools that Trimmer and other philanthropists, including Robert Raikes and Hannah More, advocated spread throughout England and educated hundreds of thousands of working-class children and adults.¹ The movement has been credited with increasing literacy rates in England and is regarded as the origin of the idea of universal education.²