NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS
At a conference of friends of Sunday-schools, held in Philadelphia during the anniversary of the American Sunday-School Union and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church, May 23, 1832, thirteen states and two territories, numbers suggesting the beginning of our national independence, were represented. A resolution was adopted recommending the superintendents and teachers throughout the country to convene to consider the duties and obligations of officers of Sundayschools, and the best plans of organizing, instructing and managing a Sunday-school. A committee was appointed to prepare lists of questions covering the Sunday-school effort as then understood, to be sent to Sunday-school workers over the land. The committee prepared seventyeight questions on thirteen different sections as follows: Schools, organization, discipline, visiting, modes of instruction, union question books, other question books, libraries, other means of success, superintendents, Bible classes, adult classes and miscellaneous. Three hundred answers were received, many of them copious, and the collection is preserved in a quarto volume of twenty-four hundred pages, in the library of the American Sunday-school Union, Philadelphia.
FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION
The first national convention was held in New York, in the Chatham Street Chapel, October 3, 1832, as a result of the Philadelphia conferHon. Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, one of the eminent men of the time, was chosen president, and two hundred and twenty delegates were present, representing fourteen of the twenty-four States and four Territories of the Union. Hon. Gerritt Smith was one of the vice-presidents, and the body was a notable one, including many of the religious leaders of the day, both clergymen and laymen. Among the topics considered were: Infant Sunday-school Organization; Qualifying Scholars to become Teachers; Organization of County and other Unions; and the Propriety of having more than One Session a Day. The sessions of the convention were continued through three days. "The novelty of the occasion, the stimulus of large audiences, the sub