School struggle (Netherlands)

In 1840 they handed a list of complaints to King William I, showing the backlog of the Roman Catholics in the country.

[1] Part of the solution came from the constitution of liberal politician Johan Rudolph Thorbecke in 1848, in which freedom of education was included.

Thorbecke himself was in favor of public education, but he thought that anybody should be allowed to establish a school, if the teachers were of good quality.

In 1857 a law was introduced which made it more expensive to go to a school for children, caused by arrangements on salary of teachers, class size etc.

[2] In 1878 again a new law was introduced by Kappeyne van de Coppello, which increased the cost of education even more.

The revolts of the people resulted in a petition to King William III, in which they asked him not to sign the new law.

The Protestant and Catholic parties, the Anti-Revolutionary Party and Christian Historical Union and the General League of Roman Catholic Caucuses respectively, wanted their religious schools to receive financing equal to that received by public schools, while maintaining their freedom in, for example, curriculum policy and teacher appointments, that came with their religious tradition.

They could not succeed to change the constitution in this manner, without support of a substantial part of the religious parties.