I have increasingly felt the need to supplement primary documents on the events, debates, peoples, organizations, and contexts of the history covered on the Newsstand with very occasional contemporary pieces written from my, admittedly partisan, but I hope honest, perspective and understanding. Here is a brief look at the history of the Socialist Sunday School and its marvelous Ten Commandments. Far better than those now mandated to be displayed in Louisiana’s public schools.

‘The Ten Commandments of the Socialist Sunday Schools’ by Revolution’s Newsstand.

‘…We desire to be just and loving to all our fellow men and women, to work together as brothers and sisters, to be kind to every living creature, and so help to form a New Society, with Justice as its foundation and Love its law…’

Photo of the Ten Commandments of the Socialist Sunday School adorning Walthamstow’s William Morris Hall opened in 1909 to serve the London borough’s working class and trade unionists. These ‘commandments,’ their authors anonymous, soon found themselves reprinted and posted across the English-speaking socialist world.

The Socialist Sunday Schools movement first began early in the United States, with the first record being an 1880 school of thirty children held in New York City by Branch 14 of the Socialist Labor Party. Institutionalized and expanded by British workers in late the 1880s, the movement affiliated with the Social Democratic Federation and counted two hundred schools and many thousands of students by 1892. Earnestly embraced by U.S. comrades, hundreds of schools developed in over sixty towns and cities across twenty states, with New York City alone boasting fourteen such schools in 1912.

Socialist Sunday School Ten Commandments

1. Love your schoolfellows, they will become your fellow workers and companions in life.

2. Love learning, which is the food of the mind; be as grateful to your teacher as to your parents.

3. Make every day holy by good and useful deeds and kindly actions.

4. Honour good people, be courteous and respect all, bow down to none.

5. Do not hate or offend anyone. Do not seek revenge, but stand up for your rights and resist tyranny.

6. Be not cowardly, protect the feeble and love justice.

7.Remember that all good things of the earth are the result of labour. Whoever enjoys them without working for them is stealing the bread of the worker.

8. Observe and think in order to discover the truth. Do not believe what is contrary to reason and never deceive yourself or others.

9. Do not think that he who loves his own country must hate and despise other nations, or wish for war, which is a remnant of barbarism.

10. Help to bring about the day when all nations shall live fraternally together in peace and prosperity.