Causes of Failure

When searching for the reasons things fall, one can usually find the causes planted in the thing itself. Puritanism was established as the power in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but over time that power was eroded and eventually it was destroyed. While many things contributed to it’s eventual destruction, three causes in particular have their seed planted within Puritanism which caused to to crash to earth from its lofty perch. The need for education, ingrained in Puritanism, open the door for unconventional ideas. The Puritan principle of needing to be a visible saint made it too big to fail. The belief that successfulness is given by God presented new and more problems for the Puritans in New England.
Education was a key part of Puritanism when it was established in New England. Before arriving in the new world John Winthrop and other leaders of the exodus set out what they thought would be required of them in God’s special commision. In what they, wrote they talked about what role education would play in their society. The established that, “Parents were obliged to take care that all their children and apprentices learned to read”(Morgan 71). Edmund S. Morgan related what they established in this part of his book The Puritan Dilemma. He shows how from the very beginning education, especially the ability to read and write was taught to every Puritan child at a young age.
The Puritans found it necessary to educate every child for a variety of reasons. Morgan narrows down the reason to a simple point, “so that everyone would be able to see for himself in the Bible what opportunities for salvation God offered to man and what sins He forbade”(Morgan 71). The Puritans used mainly two texts to teach small children, first the bible...

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...r the Puritans it also lead to fear among citizens of the next Native attack. This eroded the trust of the leaders and thus their power. Both expansion and greed were results of the Puritan belief that success was given to them by God and should continue to be fought for.
More and more problems arose from the puritans desire to be found in God’s favor and successful. Problems also arose from the belief Puritans had that they were better, and must remain batter that those not living in the city upon a hill. The education of everyone presented problems about being right. All three of these reason were sown into Puritanism itself, however, they also lead to the downfall of Puritanism. It is an occasional occurrence that a seed might grow to produce fruit that is rotten, however, it is a rare thing for seed to grow and produce fruit so rotten it ruins the entire crop.