Many will be familiar with the famous Monty Python sketch, in which a first century Judean crowd is asked, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" The crowd then lists off benefit after benefit of Roman rule until the speaker tells them to be quiet. If someone were to ask, "What has Christianity ever done for us?" one of the answers to that question is the Sunday school movement, the precursor to today's universal schooling. In the mid-1700s, it was only boys from wealthy families who enjoyed education. Many were educated at home by tutors, while others were sent to grammar schools. The children of workers had no education. The person credited with founding the Sunday School movement was a newspaper editor called Robert Raikes (1736-1811) from Gloucester (although before him, there were Sunday schools before that at High Wycombe and Nottingham). Raikes took an interest in the inmates at Gloucester Prison, and discovered many of them came from very disadvantag...