Gift of Bethlehem and school system

I know it is past Thanksgiving, but if you are reading this article I suggest you thank your parents and/or a teacher and/or a private or public school system ... and while you are at it, don't forget to thank the Gift of Bethlehem. The Gift of Bethlehem and education? What does the Gift have to do with education?

With over 60 colleges and universities just in Texas and a public school available to every community, it may seem strange to give credit to a birth in a manger in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago. But just where did the idea of modern universities originate? And while answering that question, how about education for everyone, what was its inspiration?

Modern universities

Historians document the rise of modern universities to three models each founded around 1200 AD: universities at Paris in France, Bologna in Italy and Oxford in England. For Paris and Oxford the primary focus was Christian theology, a secondary focus was Aristotelian thought. At Bologna the focus was church and civil law. These three models were replicated in other towns maintaining a primary focus on a pursuit of God in a systematic manner.

This primary emphasis carried over in America with the establishment of its first college, Harvard, in 1636 AND almost every other college founded in the next 140 years! One historian has written, "Every collegiate institution founded in the colonies prior to the Revolutionary War [over 100] - except the University of Pennsylvania - was established by some branch of the Christian church."

Education for everyone

Based upon the Mosaic command for parents to teach their children the Word of God, Jews and later Christians became known as "people of the Book." While literacy seriously declined following the fall of the Roman Empire it was the diligence of Christian monks in copying major Christian and non-Christian classics that preserved texts for the educational explosion to come.

Two changes in the 15th and 16th centuries fueled that explosion. First, the invention of the printing press in the 15th century facilitated much greater availability of resources to read. Then secondly, the Reformation gave a widespread incentive to read. American educator Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld explains, "The modern idea of popular education - that is education for everyone - first arose in Europe during the Protestant Reformation when papal authority was replaced by biblical authority." He continues, "…it became obvious to Protestant leaders that if the reform movement were to survive and flourish, widespread biblical literacy, at all levels of society would be absolutely necessary."

Space prohibits a more lengthy explanation, but suffice it to say the fires of the Reformation fueled the zeal for childhood education in the American colonies. Massachusetts, for instance, became the first colony to mandate the education of children, believe it or not, to help them learn and apply the Word of God! While later changes in education de-emphasized that spiritual heritage, if you are reading this article I encourage you to give thanks to the Gift of Bethlehem.

Peter Johnston, an East Bernard resident, earned a history degree from Cornell University and is a former high school history teacher.