ed, tried to avoid teaching it
in the Universities and schools. Their bishops, however, insisted that
it should be taught, placed some recalcitrants under the lesser ban, and
deprived them of their posts.

[Footnote 78: Busch, _Our Chancellor_, vol i. p. 139, where he quotes a
conversation of Bismarck of Nov. 1883. On the Roman Catholic policy in
Posen, see _ibid_. pp. 143-145.]

When these high-handed proceedings were extended even to the schools,
the Prussian Government intervened, and early in 1872 passed a law
ordaining that all school inspectors should be appointed by the King's
Government at Berlin. This greatly irritated the Roman Catholic
hierarchy and led up to aggressive acts on both sides, the German
Reichstag taking up the matter and decreeing the exclusion of the
Jesuits from all priestly and scholastic duties of whatever kind within
the Empire (July 1872). The strife waxed ever fiercer. When the Roman
Catholic bishops of Germany persisted in depriving "Old Catholics" of
professorial and other charges, the central Government retorted by the
famous "May Laws" of 1873. The first of these forbade the Roman Catholic
Church to intervene in civil affairs in any way, or to coerce officials
and citizens of the Empire. The second required of all ministers of
religion that they should have passed the final examination at a High
School, and also should have studied theology for three years at a
German University: it further subjected all seminaries to State
inspection. The third accorded fuller legal protection to dissidents
from the various creeds.

This anti-clerical policy is known as the "Kultur-Kampf", a term that
denotes a struggle for civilisation against the forces of reaction. For
some years the strife was of the sharpest kind. The Roman Catholic
bishops continued to ban the "Old Catholics", while the State refused to
recognise any act of marriage or christening performed by clerics who
disobeyed the new laws. The logical sequel to this was obvious, namely,
that the State should insist on the religious ceremony of marriage
being supplemented by a civil contract[79]. Acts to render this
compulsory were first passed by the Prussian Landtag late in 1873 and by
the German Reichstag in 1875.

[Footnote 79: Lowe, _Life of Bismarck_, vol. ii. p. 336, note.]

It would be alike needless and tedious to detail the further stages of
this bitter controversy, especially as several of the later "May Laws"
have been re