Excerpt from History of the Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. 1: 1789-1908 The alarming spread of the Liberal theories of State supremacy and secularism has been most apparent in the sphere of education. The absolute rulers had already asserted their rights of control in the universities; but this control was strengthened, and the few universities still remaining in the hands of the Church were secularised during the Napoleonic wars. University education, and to a lesser extent secondary education, passed from ecclesiastical to secular control. But for a long time the primary schools remained in the hands of the religious bodies. It was only, roughly speaking, in the second quarter of the century that the states of Europe began to interest themselves in primary education, and to support the schools by direct financial assistance. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.