RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Church Registers Church and School
church registers was altogether due to himself and the secular government, according to a decree of 1667. Further decrees were issued in
6. Ecclesi- France in 1736 and 1792. They were astical and received into the civil code of Napo-
Civil leon, and with the Napoleonic con- Registers, quests were carried over to Belgium in 1796, then to Holland and to several states of Germany. In Germany, the entire separation of civil affairs from connection with the Church was brought about especially by the revolutionary movement of 1848. The Prussian constitution of 1850 provided for the introduction of provisions like those of the French in regard to records of persons. This provision was made a law in Prussia in 1874; accordingly, special civil registry-offices were introduced, and from that time church registers lost their importance in public affairs. In 1875 these same decisions were applied to the whole German empire. Clergymen are not eligible as registry officers. In 1895 civil registers were introduced also in Austria-Himgary. But with the enactment of these laws church registers did not disappear in Germany; on the contrary, they regained their original significance and were given back to the Church. In place of the secular authorities, the ecclesiastical leaders, in Prussia the members of the consistories and of the Evangelical Superior Church Council, assumed the supervision of the church registers. The kingdom of God and the civil order of the State are two different spheres with their own special aims and purposes. Registration of baptisms and of admission into the congregation, of marriages and funerals, of attendance at confessions and the Lord's Supper, and of spiritual discipline are facts for the church registers, while data concerning physical births and deaths, matrimony from the civil point of view, together with all facts concerning the physical and natural being of man, are a matter of the civil registry.
In modern times collections of church registers have been undertaken; there is a genealogi costatistical center in Denmark, in the academy of Sweden, and in state archives in Mecklenburg and Oldenburg. But in case of such collections duplicate copies should always be made, because it is essential that at least one copy of the
7. CoUec- church register remain with the local tionsof church. The collections should be Church under the supervision of church author- Registers, ities and be deposited in church archives, not in state archives or other
secular institutions. As a result of the French Hevolution and subsequent wars, the church records of Alsace-Lorraine, the Netherlands, the Rhine i^alatinate, the Lower Rliine, and the duchy of tSerg are in state archives or in superior district courts. In Prussia and German Austria-Hungary the church registers were left with the churches, in spite of the introduction of civil registry-offices, ^.ecently attempts have been made in Germany, uenmark, Sweden, Austria, England, and Belgium w consolidate the different collections of church registers for statistical purposes. In Belgium a generaUndex for all old church registers was prepared in 1865. In Austria a statistical central
commission was instituted in 1882 for a similar purpose. In England an enormous amount' of material has been collected in the Record Office on the basis of the Parish Register Act of 1882. '
(E. Jacobs.)
Bibhogeaphy: J. C. W. Augusti, Handbuch der christlichen Archaologte, m. 690-730, Leipsic, 1837; J. S. Burn Hist of Parish Registers, also of the Registers of ScotUrk Ire
^""f c- J'^'^t™^. i>i« Volkszahl
deutscher Stadte, Berlin, 1876; R. E. C. Waters, Parish Registers in England, London, 1883; H. Trusen Das preussische Kirchenrecht im Bereiche der evangelischen Landeskirche, Berlin, 1894; E. Friedberg, Lehrbuch des evangelischen und katholischen Kirchenrechts, Leipsic, 1895; Episcopal Registers of the Diocese of Winchester London, 1897; J. Gmelin, in Deutsche Geschichtsbaltter, i (1900), 155-170; Krieg, in Korrespondenzblatt des Gesamt. vereins der deutschen Geschichta- und Altertumsvereine 1907, no. 25, pp. 192-195.
CHURCH AND SCHOOL.
Public Schools not Originally Maintained by tha Church (§ 1).
Influence of the Reformation (§ 2). Pietism (§3).
Compulsory Education (§ 4).
Religion and Coercion Exclusive (§ 5).
Compulsory Religious Instruction not Desirable (§ 6).
Position and Attitude of Teachers (§7).
Denominational and Undenominational Schools (§ 8).
Clerical Control of Schools (§ 9).
The question of the relation of Church and School did not become a burning one until after the Reformation, when the modern State began to recognize its duty to provide public elementary schools for its subjects and make school-attendance obligatory. Since compulsory attendance was the necessary condition for the success of public elementary schools, the Church, from its very nature prevented from employing coercion, could not compete with the State in this field. It was necessary, therefore, for Church and State to come to an understanding, particularly as the latter never organized its schoolsystem de novo, but took over and developed the educational organization of the Church.
The proposition that the School is the daughter of the Church is not confirmed by the history of the early Church. Religious education was considered the business of the family and the community; and education in any other sense was a private matter. During the Middle Ages I. Public the Church maintained schools for Schools not future clerics and a few noblemen, and Originally prepared children for confirmation. Maintained It was Charlemagne who gave the first by the great impetus to popular education. Church. Even at the close of the Middle Ages the writing-schools in Germany were maintained either by the cities or by private individuals, not by the Church.
With the Reformation, the Church assumes a different attitude toward popular education. Luther insists on the establishment of schools; and Melanchthon declares that the union of 2. Influence Church and School is necessary. Popof the Ref- ular education is demanded for religormation. ious reasons; but the right to provide for the same is recognized as belonging to the State. The existing elementary schools in the towns were reorganized; and the introduction
Church and School Church and State