What factors in society ended sectarianism in schools and made them secularized? Arguably no single movement influenced colonial America as much as the Protestant Reformation. Most of the Europeans who came to America were Protestants, but there were many denominations. Lutherans from Germany and Scandinavia settled in the middle colonies along with Puritans and Presbyterians. The Reformation was centered on efforts to capture the minds of men, so great emphasis was placed on the written word. Obviously schools were necessary to foster the growth of each denomination. Luther's doctrines made it necessary for boys and girls to learn to read the Scriptures. Although the schools founded by settlers in the 17th century in the New England, Southern, and Central colonies were different from one another, each reflected a concept of education that had been left behind in Europe. Most poor children learned through apprenticeships and received no formal education. Those who attended elementary school were taught reading, writing, arithmetic and religion. Learning consisted of memorization, which was stimulated by whipping. The first “basic textbook,” the New England Primer, was America's contribution to education (Pulliam, Van Patten 86). Used from 1609 until the early 19th century, it was intended to teach both religion and reading. The child who learned the letter a, for example, also learned that "In the fall of Adam, we all sinned." As in Europe, therefore, schools in the colonies were also strongly influenced by religion. This was especially true of schools in the New England area, which had been founded by Puritans and other English religious dissenters. School in colonial New England was not a pleasant place, either physically or psychologically. Great emphasis was placed on the brevity of life and the torments of hell. Like the Protestants of the Reformation, who established vernacular elementary schools in Germany in the 16th century, the Puritans sought to make education universal. They took the first steps toward government-supported universal education in the colonies. In 1647, Puritan Massachusetts passed a law requiring that every child be taught to read. [The main object of that deluded old man, Satan, being to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures,... it is therefore ordained that every township... after the Lord shall have increased them to the number of fifty heads of families,. .. will appoint... one in their town to teach all the children to resort to reading and writing. It is also ordered that where a city reaches the number of one hundred families... a classical high school will be established, whose teacher will be able to educate the young people to the extent that they are suitable for university.