Learning to read

Did you know that Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a tireless advocate for universal schooling for the young? He championed free schools for all children as an important aspect of public welfare. In his Letter to the Mayors and Aldermen of All Cities of Germany on Behalf of Christian Schools, he said: “What would it avail if we possessed and performed all else, and became perfect saints, if we neglect that for which we chiefly live, namely, to care for the young? In my judgment there is no outward offense that in the sight of God so heavily burdens the world, and deserves such heavy reproach, as the neglect to educate our children. We cannot deny that, although the Gospel has come and daily comes through the Holy Spirit, it has come by means of the languages, and through them must increase and be preserved.”

Not only did Luther believe that municipalities should provide basic education at public expense, but he also believed that school attendance should be compulsory. He argued: “If magistrates may compel their able-bodied subjects to carry pike and musket and do military service, there is much more reason for compelling their subjects to attend school. For there is a far worse war to be waged with the Devil, who employs himself secretly in harming towns and states through the neglect of education.”

Many years later, the Puritans in New England used this line of argument to institute compulsory schooling in the famous Old Deluder Satan Act of 1647. Its preamble argued eloquently that: “It being one of the chief projects of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men (sic) from knowledge of the Scripture, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading them from the use of tongues . . . Learning may not be buried in the graves of our fathers in the church and the commonwealth. The Lord assisting our endeavors . . . towns of 50 or more families are instructed to appoint a schoolmaster to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read; such schoolmasters to be paid either by the parents of such children or by the inhabitants in general.”

Thus, Protestant Christianity and compulsory, state-supported elementary schooling, primarily for instruction in basic literacy have grown up together for centuries.

Reading God’s story

But why should Christians, of all people, be particularly interested in learning to read? We are born into a community of stories and storytellers. The Bible is God’s story of creation-fall redemption and restoration. In order to understand our place in God’s world, we must learn to read God’s story, and each of us is called to discover the role we must play in it. Also, reading helps us, and our children, to access the stories of our neighbours world-wide, whom we are called to love and serve.