The question of Church-State relations in Italy in the 19th and early 20th centuries was as critical a problem to Italian statesmen as that of the “Mezzogiorno” The hostility of the Roman Catholic Church towards the new Italian nation spanned five popes and almost seventy years, lasting until the signing of the Lateran Accords in 1929 during the pontificate of Pius XI. During this entire period the Vatican refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Italian government; the “non-expedit” forbidding Catholic participation in politics was not lifted entirely until 1919; and the Holy Father remained in voluntary exile in his apartments until after 1929. In return, the Italian governments of the Liberal Era used the power of the state to harass the Church, encouraging anti-clericalism and Masonry among the people and limiting the influence of Catholicism whenever possible. Although gradually the Church and the Italian State became accustomed to the status quo and the strongest waves of anticlericalism seemed to have passed by 1963, there nonetheless remained a strong current of suspicion which lasted well into the 20th century. Indeed, by 1900 it was not possible to speak of the realization of Cavour's celebrated formula, “A free Church in a free State”, for Italians had been embittered by the inflamed passions emanating from both sides of the Vatican walls.

Research on the educability of Africans in the past focused narrowly on the learning process: could blacks learn as well as whites? Did they learn in the same manner? More recently attention has turned to broader themes. One recent interpretation of white views about black minds holds that philosophical and psychological preconceptions influenced both the amount and the type of schooling provided for blacks in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Other recent works suggest the past psychological focus has obscured the basic question of who should be educated and for what purposes? Thus, one may ask, were white views about black minds only philosophical and psychological guides to pedagogical practice or were they also bulwarks to perpetuate class and caste structures? Moreover, how did such white views serve the self-interests of those who expounded them? This essay examines these questions during the formative years of the educational system in Belgian Africa—the Leopoldian Period (1879–1908). The educational system then established underwent little change until after World War II.

Educational policy has too frequently been understood as that body of weighty pronouncements on educational matters issued by higher authorities. Encapsuled in official reports and policy statements, educational policy appears rigid, changing only as one official document replaces another. Consequently, the study of educational policy has also acquired a static, one-dimensional quality in some hands. Emphasizing the contents of reports and their relationships to previous and subsequent policy statements, these analyses fail to penetrate the surface to reach a more profound understanding of educational policy.

One reason that educational institutions are of interest to the historian is that they provide direct access to values and beliefs, both explicit and implicit, that are deemed worthy of transmission from one generation to the next. A case in point is the Victorian Sunday school. As a product of the evangelical revival, its primary purpose was the inculcation of religious and moral principles. Yet the moral education that it offered was by no means limited to Christian doctrine. The teachings of the Sunday school comprised a number of disparate and intertwined elements, each the product of a different history. At the core of the instructional program was the moral theology of evangelicalism, affirming the Christian faith against the competing claims of “the world.” Alongside orthodox doctrines that remained formally intact, however, were other beliefs and attitudes characteristic of the surrounding culture. Juxtaposed with the doctrine of original sin, so fundamental to evangelical theology, was a distinctly Pelagian view of man. In a number of other ways also the teachings of the Sunday school reflected an evangelical subculture that had in fact become comfortably adapted to the world around it. Conceptions of God and Providence had a Victorian coloration. The social values of the middle and lower middle classes took their place beside such traditional virtues as piety, charity, and honesty. Also conspicuously present were the consensus ideals of Palmerston's England.