Although most clerical youth savers favored establishing continuation schools and continued to support them after their establishment, many criticized the absence of religion in the Prussian schools. Others questioned whether these schools served as an adequate bulwark against secularization or the ostensible moral dangers facing young urban males, even in states like Bavaria, where religious education was mandatory. All agreed that however useful, continuation schools failed to provide sufficient moral fortification and could under no circumstances supplant pastoral care for the young. Hence as the youth campaign quickened at the turn of the century, both major churches undertook much more strenuous and systematic drives to recruit young employed males to religious youth associations. Despite certain differences in accent, such as the far more straightforward championing of youth welfare legislation by Catholic officials, the purposes, organizational forms, and activities of both Catholic and Protestant youth associations were broadly similar. Yet the results of these drives diverged considerably. Except in a few anomalous cases like Essen, Protestant efforts to woo young workers were minimally effective, whereas the Catholic Church was generally able to build, if not retain, a significant base of young workers. In order to explain these divergent results, we will examine the youth work of the Protestant Church before turning to that of the Catholics.

By 1900 the Evangelical Church could already rely on a lengthy experience of working with youth. The first youth associations were organized in northern Germany during the Protestant revival of the 1830s, and the Inner Mission could look back with pride on a long history of charitable endeavor on behalf of orphans, the poor, and other endangered youths.