In the German states there were many illustrations of the spread of elementary education and civic control. As an immediate result of Luther’s _Letter to the Mayors_ in 1524, the city of Magdeburg united its parish schools under one management and adopted the Protestant ideals. So, in 1525, the school at Eisleben, organized upon a Protestant basis (see p. 128), included elementary as well as secondary work. Similar ideals and organization appear in the provision for ‘German’ schools in the ‘Church orders’ sent out by Bugenhagen (see pp. 128 f.) to the Protestant cities and states of Northern Germany. A further step was taken in 1528 when Melanchthon drew up a plan for schools throughout the entire Electorate of Saxony. This, the first state school system in history, was followed by one in Würtemberg, where in 1559 Duke Christopher adopted an improvement upon the Saxon plan, which called for a religious and elementary training for the children of the common people in every village of the duchy. Brunswick in 1569, and Saxony in 1580, followed the lead of Würtemberg in revising their school systems. Before the middle of the next century, a number of other states of Germany, such as Weimar, Hessen-Darmstadt, Mecklenburg, Holstein, Hessen-Cassel, and Gotha modeled elementary school systems after those of Saxony and Würtemberg. While the Catholics did not in general maintain public elementary education, the Christian Brothers and others undertook a great work in this direction, and Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria even ordered throughout his state the establishment of ‘German’ schools with instruction in reading, writing, and the Catholic creed. This organization of universal education continued its advance, despite the decimation and the general havoc upon finance and education wrought by the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), and by the end of the eighteenth century practically every village throughout the German states had its _Volksschule_ or ‘people’s school.’ These institutions were under the direction of the pastor of each parish, and while actual conditions may often have been somewhat below the statutory level and in many cases were a wretched apology, every child not studying at a secondary school was in theory obliged, between the ages of six and thirteen, to attend one of these schools of the people (Fig. 20). [Sidenote: Holland,] [Sidenote: Scotland,] [Sidenote: and the American colonies.]