The turn of the nineteenth century witnessed the beginning of what was to become the demise of the Victorian Era. With the Victorian generation aging and slowly fading away, a new generation with ground-breaking ideals emerged. These Modernists adopted completely radical ideas; women no longer sat at home, and children revolted against their parent's Victorian ideals, displaying sexual freedom, and generally abandoning religion altogether.# The older generation saw their precious Victorian values slipping away. With no other solution in sight, they adopted the strict and quite over-bearing doctrine of fundamentalism. The central theme of their new movement was the literal interpretation of the Bible and, accompanying the movement, were ideals of temperance, gentility, and sexual repression.# With a large following, Fundamentalists easily passed laws to curb the rise of Modernism. One of the most influential laws of the era became the law against teaching evolution in schools. At the climax of the battle between Modernism and Fundamentalism was the Scopes Trial. Within the Modernist generation was a class of scientists in which secularism was building. One teacher, John Scopes, agreeing with the idea that science and religion occupied two different spheres, taught the theory of evolution to his students. He sought only to advance the modern knowledge in his students, but instead was indicted for violating the new law. Scopes challenged his charge, and thus, the Battle of the Ages began. Although there was a plethora of issues whirling around the trial, Religion was the most central issue involved. The trial was a simple matter of deciding whether Scopes taught "any theory that denied the story of the divine creation of man as taught in the Bible,"# but it ultimately served as the battleground between the Fundamentalists" literal interpretation of the Bible as the arbiter of the natural and supernatural and the Modernists" interpretation of the Bible as a guide for only faith and morality.
