Above all, the most important and most usual teaching, in both the universities and the lower schools, ought to be concerned with the Holy Scriptures . . . Oh! how unwisely we deal with our poor young folk, whom we are commanded to train and instruct [Prov. 22:6]! But we shall have to give a serious account of our stewardship, and explain why we have not set the Word of God before them . . . We fail to notice the present pitiful distress of the young people. Though they live in the midst of a Christian world, they faint and perish in misery because they lack the gospel in which we should be training and exercising them all the time.

 

- Martin Luther, “An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality as to the Amelioration of the State of Christendom,” in Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (New York: Anchor, 1962)