What factors in society ended sectarianism in schools, and made them secular? Probably no single movement so greatly affected colonial America as the Protestant Reformation. Most of the Europeans who came to America were Protestants, but there were many denominations. Lutherans from Germany and Scandinavia settled in the middle colonies along with Puritans and Presbyterians. The Reformation was centered upon efforts to capture the minds of men, therefore great emphasis was placed on the written word. Obviously schools were needed to promote the growth of each denomination. Luther’s doctrines made it necessar