First of all, we are today experiencing in all the German lands how schools are everywhere being left to go to wrack and ruin. The universities are growing weak, and monasteries are declining. The grass withers and the flower fades, as Isaiah [40:7–8] says, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it through his word and shines upon it so hot through the gospel. For now it is becoming known through God’s word how un-Christian these institutions are, and how they are devoted only to men’s bellies. The carnal-minded masses are beginning to realize that they no longer have either the obligation or the opportunity to thrust their sons, daughters, and relatives into cloisters and foundations, and to turn them out of their own homes and property and establish them in others’ property. For this reason no one is any longer willing to have his children get an education. “Why,” they say, “should we bother to have them go to school if they are not to become priests, monks, or nuns? ‘Twere better they should learn a livelihood to earn.”
The thoughts and purposes of such people are plainly evident from this confession of theirs. If in the cloisters and foundations, or the spiritual estate, they had been seeking not only the belly and the temporal welfare of their children but were earnestly concerned for their children’s salvation and eternal bliss, they would not thus fold their hands and relapse into indifference, saying, “If the spiritual estate is no longer to be of any account, we can just as well let education go and not bother our heads about it.” Instead, they would say, “If it be true, as the gospel teaches, that this {monastic} estate is a perilous one for our children, then, dear sirs, show us some other way which will be pleasing to God and of benefit to them. For we certainly want to provide not only for our children’s bellies, but for their souls as well.” At least that is what truly Christian parents would say about it (Luther’s Works, v. 45 p. 348-349).