ABSTRACT
We have seen that there was no necessary opposition between revealed religion and the new learning. On the contrary the religious motive was one of the contributing causes of the reform. We should, therefore, expect institutions controlled by the Church to participate in the general trend towards realistic education. In the seventeenth century both Churchmen and Dissenters equally contributed to the growth of the Royal Society and the introduction of experimental methods. It was a bishop of the Church, T. Sprat, who clearly formulated the new educational theory in his History of the Royal Society. Many well-known Puritans conformed after the Restoration and became deans and bishops without changing their attitude towards the new education. The Church, therefore, included many leading members, who promoted scientific research and desired a reform. Having said as much we have to agree that the High Church party, which controlled the Church system of education, was traditionalist and orthodox. They looked with suspicion on the spread of heterodox opinions and on the deistic creed, which they connected with the new views on education. They tried to entrench themselves in the Grammar Schools and the two Universities, but they could not prevail against the spirit of the time. The Test Acts did not help much; about 2,000 Puritans, as well as many non-jurors, were ejected, but many more conformed and retained their Church appointments. There was a strong minority group within the Church which sympathised with the new tendencies. The casual outbreaks of intolerance like the Sacheverell agitation were looked upon with disgust not only by the deists and Dissenters but by many Churchmen as well. Among the Grammar School masters and University teachers the same division took place.
