ory of Europe the universities and
education in general were nearly all under the domination of
the Church. The secularization of primary education in
England took place only late in the nineteenth century, and it
is not yet a generation since the battle over the secularization
of education was waged in France. All religious sects
maintain on a smaller or larger scale educational functions.
Parochial and convent schools and denominational colleges
are contemporary examples.

THE SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RELIGION. The
consequences of institutionalized religion in social development
have been very marked. The mere association of large
groups in a common faith and a common religious interest has
been a considerable factor in their integration. There is to
be noted in the first place the common emotional sympathies
aroused by the participation of great numbers in identical
rites and ceremonies. Any widespread social habit becomes
weighted with emotional values for its members. Particularly
is this true of religious habits, the mystery and magnificence
associated with which deeply intensify their emotional
influence. Again religious habits are given a unanimous and
high social approval, especially where the prohibitions and
commands enforced by religion are conceived intimately to
affect the welfare of the tribe. The prophets reiterated to the
people of Israel that their calamities were the result of their
having ceased to follow in the ways of the Lord. The possession
of a common religious history and tradition may also give
a people a deepened sense of group solidarity. The national
development of the ancient Hebrews was undoubtedly promoted
by their sense of being the chosen people, of possessing
exclusively the law of Jehovah.

Again religious sanction is given to codes of belief, modes of
conduct, and to institutions, thus at once strengthening them
and making change difficult. It is not merely customs that
are obeyed and disobeyed, but the sacred commands. A
premium is put upon the regular and traditional because of
the divine sanction associated with them. To violate a
prohibition, even a slight one, becomes thus the most terrible
sacrilege. Customs that, like the hygienic rules of the Mosaic
code, may have started as genuine social utilities are maintained
because they have become fixed in the religious traditions
as enjoined by the Lord. In consequence there may be a
Pharisaical insistence on