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directing the French Huguenots, inspiring the Protestants of Holland, advising the ministers of Edward VI of England, teaching John Knox, who went from Geneva to mold Scotch Presbyterianism, and dominating the thought of English and American Puritanism. The civic and religious governments of Geneva went hand in hand and furnished the model for the theocracy (religious state) which the Puritans organized in Massachusetts. In reforming the degenerate moral life of the city the most austere and strict rules of conduct were prescribed, having both civic and religious sanction. This ideal of asceticism, that is, the denial of all æsthetic and other natural or worldly pleasures, was also copied by the Puritans.

Early English Reformation largely political instead of religious. The Reformation in England was largely a political rather than a spiritual or religious movement. There was relatively little dissatisfaction with the fundamental religion of the Catholic Church among Englishmen. Henry VIII (r. 15091547), who inaugurated the break with the Roman Church, was actuated purely by personal and political motives; in the divorce question, by sensuous motives and the desire to have a male heir; in the destruction of the monasteries, by the desire to secure funds; in the encouragement of Protestants, by the desire to secure the assistance of Protestant German princes against the Catholic king of France and the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who desired to conquer England. But he remained a Catholic at heart, as were most Englishmen at the time of his death.

He always believed in rites and ceremonies; he might dally with Lutheranism, or rather permit his ministers to dally with it for political purposes, but he always remained a Catholic at heart. His convictions were not due to ignorance, for few men were so well-read in heretical theology; he kept a private cabinet full of Lutheran books and read them with eagerness and intelligence. (3: 83.)

During his reign Lutheran books and theories circulated considerably in England, but though the Church of England had

declared its independence from Rome (1534), it condemned Lutheranism as heretical.

Under Henry's successor, Edward VI (r. 1547-1553), Calvinism made some progress in England, yet the people received the next ruler, the Catholic Queen Mary (r. 1553-1558), with great acclamations of joy. The persecutions instituted by Mary, however, and the fear of Spanish supremacy, developed in the people such a strong anti-Catholic spirit that when Elizabeth (r. 1558-1603) came to the throne she found it to her advantage to encourage Protestantism. The Elizabethan English Church retained many practices of the Catholic Church, such as the kneeling posture at the Lord's Supper, the sign of the cross in baptism, the use of the surplice, the bowing at the name of Jesus, the reading of apocryphal lessons.

Puritans represent real spiritual element in English Reformation. Against these practices there was a strong protest by the Calvinistic element, which had grown up under Edward VI, and while banished under Mary and living on the continent had become more Calvinistic than before. Owing to their desire to purify the English Church of the forms or practices mentioned above, these Calvinists became known as Puritans. They represented a very strong movement among the English people, but were generally opposed by Elizabeth (r. 1558-1603), James I (r. 1603-1625), and Charles I (r. 1625–1649). The Puritans were most oppressed from 1629 to 1640, during the period of personal government by Charles, when Parliament had no meeting. Many of the most prominent and liberal Puritan leaders were imprisoned for political as well as religious opinions, and others were subjected to enormous fines. These persecutions were pushed by Archbishop Laud, who was determined that the Puritans should conform to the liturgy and beliefs of the established English Church. This was the period of the great Puritan migration to America. Almost all the Englishmen who were to emigrate

to New England did so between 1628 and 1640. Some of them were moved by unsatisfactory economic conditions at home, but most of them by their Puritan opinions and the desire to worship as they believed. When Parliament convened in 1640 it had a majority of Puritans, who through persecution had become a "compact body, austere in morals, dogmatic in religious belief, ready to make use of political means for religious ends." The long struggle which followed between Parliament and the king resulted in victory for the former, and Charles was beheaded in 1649. From 1649 to 1660 England was governed by the Puritan Commonwealth under the leadership of Cromwell, "without King or House of Lords."

This brief sketch of the Protestant Reformation, particularly in England, will help us to appreciate the educational aspects which we shall consider later. Before turning to these, however, it will be worth while to consider two other phases of the social background of elementary education, first, the place of the Bible in Catholic and Protestant theory, and second, the invention of printing and its influence in creating a reading public.

The vernacular Bible; fundamental for Protestants, accessory for Catholics. The difference between the Catholics and the Protestants in the use of the Bible in the sixteenth century is an important factor in understanding the development of elementary schools. For the Protestants the Bible was the authoritative guide and source for spiritual life. For the Catholics the Church served these purposes primarily, although the Bible was deemed an important source of moral teachings for all people. In the Protestant theory the Bible was a primary and final necessity of the religious life; with the Catholics it was accessory or supplementary.

Catholics did not oppose orthodox vernacular Bible. —These differences, however, have often been distorted or exaggerated so as to give an unfair impression of the use of the

Bible by Catholics and Protestants. It is probably a fair statement to say that, in general, the Catholic Church did not oppose the use of the Bible in the vernacular by the common people, except where variation in translation or interpretation encouraged wholesale heresy or departure from the authoritative teachings of the Church. In fact, before the Reformation there are many examples of Catholic authorities' putting the whole or parts of the Bible into the vernacular, to be used as a source of moral lessons by the common people. One of the most notable examples of this on a large scale is found in the activities of the Brethren of the Common Life, founded in the Netherlands in 1384. They were orthodox Catholics organized to copy and disseminate manuscripts for moral and religious instruction. These manuscripts were largely in the Dutch language and were often distributed gratis. It is sometimes erroneously assumed that Luther was the first to translate the Bible into German. As a matter of fact, many manuscript translations had been made before his printed translation was issued.

Sir Thomas More proved circulation of Catholic English Bibles. In England we have good evidence from Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) that the English Bible was often in the hands of orthodox Catholics. More said:

I myself have seen and can show you Bibles, fair and old, written in English, which have been known and seen by the bishop of the diocese, and left in the hands of laymen and women, whom he knew to be good and Catholic people who used the books with devotion and soberness. (2: 239.)

Another quotation from More, although somewhat biased by his Catholic sympathies, gives a fair summary of the English situation.

If the having of the Scriptures in English be a thing so requisite of precise necessity that the people's souls must needs perish unless they have it translated into their own tongue, then the greater part of them must indeed perish, unless the preacher further provide that all people

shall be able to read it when they have it. For of the whole people, far more than four tenths could never read English yet, and many are now too old to begin to go to school.... Many, indeed, have thought it a good and profitable thing to have the Scriptures well and truly translated into English, . . . although many equally wise and learned and also very virtuous folk have been and are of a very different mind. . . .

I would not, for my part, withhold the profit that one good, devout, unlearned man might get by the reading, for fear of the harm a hundred heretics might take by their willful abuse. (2: 249, 242.)

These quotations show the division of opinion among good Catholics. In actual practice the Church as a rule prohibited the circulation only of vernacular Bibles which did not have its approval.

Erasmus expressed liberal Catholic attitude. - The most favorable of the Catholic attitudes toward the Bible was expressed by Erasmus as follows:

I would to God the ploughman would sing a text of the Scripture at his ploughbeam. And that the weaver at his loom with this would drive away the tediousness of time. I would the wayfaring man with this pastime would expel the weariness of his journey. And to be short, I would that all the communication of the Christian should be of the Scripture, for in a manner such are we ourselves as our daily tales are. (10: 51.)

The Protestant attitude; Luther said Bible is sole guide. Luther argued at great length for the study of the Bible as the primary necessity for a religious life. The following statements are quoted from his writings :

The Scriptures, and they alone, are our vineyard, in which we are to exercise ourselves, and to labor.

Above all things, let the Scriptures be the chief and most frequently used reading book, both in primary and high schools; and the very young should be kept in the gospels. Is it not proper and right that every human being, by the time he has reached his tenth year, should be familiar with the holy gospels, in which the very core and marrow of his life is bound?

The soul can do without everything except the Word of God. Without this it suffers need. But when it has the Word of God, it needs nothing more, but has in the word enough — food, joy, peace, light, art, righteousness, truth, freedom, and every good thing in abundance.

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