“The School Gives Us Hope for Better Times”

According to his letters, the arrival in Philadelphia must have been a shock to the Lutheran pastor Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711–1787). He only found rudimentary ecclesiastical structures in the Lutheran congregations for whom he was supposed to assume responsibility. The same applied to the local school system. First alone, then with the help of his 13 colleagues, who were sent from the Pietist Glaucha Institutions at the gates of Halle to colonial Pennsylvania between 1742 and 1769, he quickly started organizing school life. The education and upbringing of the youth belonged to the core concerns of Pietist theologians, because it was the key to a pious lifestyle and finally to a true conversion of the heart. This chapter aims to investigate the concepts which the pastors brought from Halle to Pennsylvania to educate their German-Lutheran congregations. The role of rules and moralizing writings will be examined as well as the pastors’ efforts to establish a functioning school system, based on the ideas of August Hermann Francke’s (1663–1727) pedagogy. A special focus lies on the relationship between the pastors and their pupils examined in their diaries and correspondences.