Styled Sunday School. 'Eben-Haëzer', Vinkenbuurt, Noord-Gein, Abcoude, De Ronde Venen, The Netherlands
On the gentle slope down to the polder from the north levee that urges the Gein River onward to Driemond, stands this pretty building. A Sunday School, it was built in 1932 in the architectural style of the Amsterdam School; note especially the doors and the handsome steeple.
The cash-strapped community of the Vinkenbuurt had long used an old and derelict building a bit further down on the dike and also the premises of two farmers, Thomas Groenendaal and Jan Randeraad. So something new was in order. The new building was funded by the three well-to-do Schalij bachelor-brothers of the farmstead 'Oost-Gein' just across the river. It is said it was erected where an eighteenth-century chapel had stood before and it was used until 1975. Today it's an artist's studio.
Grateful for this gift, the villagers called the School 'Eben-Haëzer'. This is often translated from the Old-Testament Hebrew of I Samuel 7,12 as 'Hitherto the Lord has helped us'. Actually, that's not the exact meaning of 'Eben-Haëzer'. Those words mean 'Stone of Help' or even just 'commemorative stone', but this is immediately 'glossed' by Samuel to that common understanding.
Schools such as these were devised first in England at the end of the eighteenth century. Notable patron was Robert Raikes (1736-1811) who sought a semblance of (christian) education for young people, mostly boys, factory-bound for six days a week with only a free Sunday. In the late 1830s his example was taken up in The Netherlands especially by people such as Abraham Capadose (1795-1874) associated with the so-called 'Réveil', an influential religious awakening movement.
Styled Sunday School. 'Eben-Haëzer', Vinkenbuurt, Noord-Gein, Abcoude, De Ronde Venen, The Netherlands
On the gentle slope down to the polder from the north levee that urges the Gein River onward to Driemond, stands this pretty building. A Sunday School, it was built in 1932 in the architectural style of the Amsterdam School; note especially the doors and the handsome steeple.
The cash-strapped community of the Vinkenbuurt had long used an old and derelict building a bit further down on the dike and also the premises of two farmers, Thomas Groenendaal and Jan Randeraad. So something new was in order. The new building was funded by the three well-to-do Schalij bachelor-brothers of the farmstead 'Oost-Gein' just across the river. It is said it was erected where an eighteenth-century chapel had stood before and it was used until 1975. Today it's an artist's studio.
Grateful for this gift, the villagers called the School 'Eben-Haëzer'. This is often translated from the Old-Testament Hebrew of I Samuel 7,12 as 'Hitherto the Lord has helped us'. Actually, that's not the exact meaning of 'Eben-Haëzer'. Those words mean 'Stone of Help' or even just 'commemorative stone', but this is immediately 'glossed' by Samuel to that common understanding.
Schools such as these were devised first in England at the end of the eighteenth century. Notable patron was Robert Raikes (1736-1811) who sought a semblance of (christian) education for young people, mostly boys, factory-bound for six days a week with only a free Sunday. In the late 1830s his example was taken up in The Netherlands especially by people such as Abraham Capadose (1795-1874) associated with the so-called 'Réveil', an influential religious awakening movement.