ABSTRACT
In the history of the West, the Protestant Reformation is said to be one of the greatest positive forces toward the spread of literacy and schooling. It can easily be viewed as an educational reform movement: “The basic assumptions of the reformers were that one must start with the young, that indoctrination is necessary for religious and moral improvement . . . , that this indoctrination must be done in public schools. . . .”1 The Reformation involved factors far beyond the religious and theological. Its roots lay in the Middle Ages; economic, political, cultural, and social issues inextricably intertwined to give rise to a deep and bitterly divisive mass movement. Its conflicts lasted through much of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the reformation of social life was
a long-term endeavor in Western society and culture, to which literacy was often central.
