The Study Of Educational Charitable Donation In Early Modern England (1500-1660)

English education has been controlled by the church in Medieval Ages, and the education was full of religious characteristic greatly. But England began to appear a tide of educational donation from the late 15th century, not only the bishop donated and built schools, but also the King, gentlemen, merchants, professionals even lower classes had participated the tide of donation, as a result education began to be secular. At the same time British society began to be transited from the 16th to 17th century, national state is gradually established, and British capitalist economy gradually developed. The control of the university transferred to the hands of the King due to the influence of the reformation, so the education became more and more secular. In addition, because of the social mobility, population expansion, the influence of puritanism and changes in the concept of people, British educational philanthropy donation began to rise and developed rapidly. In addition to the poor, the king, gentry, businessmen, professionals and civilian had the great enthusiasm to donate and built schools, some wealthy upper women also participated the tide of donation and made great contributions to education. They not only donated elementary education, grammar schools, universities (mainly Cambridge and Oxford) and provided funds for further development, but also established public libraries for social welfare. From these we can see the whole society presented humanity feelings. During this period, the charitable activities presented special characteristics:the fluctuation of the growth rate, the differences of the focal point of the donation and the comprehensiveness of receiver. Through a series of educational philanthropy activities, every class of child had the opportunity to receive education, which promoted the popularization of British education and raised the literacy rate. The improvement of literacy rate promoted the quality of the whole nation and social civilization and accelerated the transformation of the British society in this period as well.Although all classes took part into the education donation tide in addition to the poor in this period, the instability of educational environment affected the social effect of education charity in a certain extent. However, in general, these activities are favor to the development of society.