<P> As the Reformers wanted all members of the church to be able to read the Bible, education on all levels got a strong boost . By the middle of the eighteenth century, the literacy rate in England was about 60 per cent, in Scotland 65 per cent, and in Sweden eight of ten men and women were able to read and to write . Colleges and universities were founded . For example, the Puritans who established Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628 founded Harvard College only eight years later . About a dozen other colleges followed in the 18th century, including Yale (1701). Pennsylvania also became a centre of learning . </P> <P> Members of mainline Protestant denominations have played leadership roles in many aspects of American life, including politics, business, science, the arts, and education . They founded most of the country's leading institutes of higher education . </P> <P> The Protestant concept of God and man allows believers to use all their God - given faculties, including the power of reason . That means that they are allowed to explore God's creation and, according to Genesis 2: 15, make use of it in a responsible and sustainable way . Thus a cultural climate was created that greatly enhanced the development of the humanities and the sciences . Another consequence of the Protestant understanding of man is that the believers, in gratitude for their election and redemption in Christ, are to follow God's commandments . Industry, frugality, calling, discipline, and a strong sense of responsibility are at the heart of their moral code . In particular, Calvin rejected luxury . Therefore, craftsmen, industrialists, and other businessmen were able to reinvest the greater part of their profits in the most efficient machinery and the most modern production methods that were based on progress in the sciences and technology . As a result, productivity grew, which led to increased profits and enabled employers to pay higher wages . In this way, the economy, the sciences, and technology reinforced each other . The chance to participate in the economic success of technological inventions was a strong incentive to both inventors and investors . The Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution . This idea is also known as the "Protestant ethic thesis ." </P> <P> However, eminent historian Fernand Braudel (d . 1985), a leader of the important Annales School wrote: "all historians have opposed this tenuous theory (the Protestant Ethic), although they have not managed to be rid of it once and for all . Yet it is clearly false . The northern countries took over the place that earlier had been so long and brilliantly been occupied by the old capitalist centers of the Mediterranean . They invented nothing, either in technology or business management ." Social scientist Rodney Stark moreover comments that "during their critical period of economic development, these northern centers of capitalism were Catholic, not Protestant--the Reformation still lay well into the future," while British historian Hugh Trevor - Roper (d . 2003) said, "The idea that large - scale industrial capitalism was ideologically impossible before the Reformation is exploded by the simple fact that it existed ." </P>

How do you explain the variety that is called protestantism