Historians of science know by now that the historical relationship between science, enlightenment and worldliness, which are seen as crucial markers of modernity, and religion is eminently complex – in particular as science and religion are two slippery phenomena, which are impossible to define unambiguously. Certain religious movements, though, appear to be firmly and unequivocally on the side of anti-modernity. One such movement is (Lutheran) pietism, which originated in the late seventeenth century with the work of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705). Pietism stressed personal transformation through spiritual rebirth and renewal, Bible study, personal religious experience and devotional practice. Since at least the early twentieth century, the image of pietism as a beacon of anti-modernity has, though, been under attack in theology and history. It is short-sighted to focus solely on individual piety: pietism prospered by founding institutions and their interconnectedness with the state. The success of pietism in eighteenth-century Prussia was built on its organization of the educational system and in this way it became irrevocably entangled with, and not opposed to, modernity and enlightenment. Kelly Joan Whitmer's concise study draws attention to one central institution of the pietist enterprise in Prussia, the Halle Orphanage (in Germany better known as the Franckesche Stiftungen).

The Halle Orphanage was founded in 1695 as a Christian, social and educational work by August Hermann Francke (1663–1727), a pietist theologian and professor of Greek and oriental languages in Halle, which, since 1680, was part of the margraviate of Brandenburg. The institution quickly grew and encompassed an elite school, the Pädagogium; schools for the sons of artisans, soldiers and clergy; an apothecary; a botanical garden; a hospital; a bookshop; and collection of architectural models, naturalia and scientific instruments. The science pursued at the Francke Foundation has attracted only little attention in historical scholarship, and Whitmer's study attempts to close this gap. She describes how the founders of the Orphanage were deeply involved in an international discourse about the reform of the sciences and how to teach them in schools.

Five episodes from the history of the Orphanage serve Whitmer to support her interpretation of seeing the Orphanage involved in this reform of scientific practice and education. The author starts off by exploring the conversations between Francke, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the mathematician Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus about how to best teach mathematics and experimental physics. Tschirnhaus advocated, and found support from Leibniz for, a step-wise approach to the teaching of mathematics, from practical, simple experimentation to theoretical study and finally to intensive study of experimental physics, inspiring children with real objects and instruments. The following chapter addresses how the Orphanage became involved in the politics of eliminating confessional differences in Brandenburg, where policies were unlike those in any other German state. Instead of promoting toleration, radical steps should be taken to eradicate theological differences and the Halle Orphanage became involved as a promoter of the tool of ‘eclecticism’, which freed one from having to choose a particular philosophy by seeing the good in as many perspectives as possibly could be applied to a certain issue. The third chapter describes a topic more familiar to historians of science, the use of material models. As in the teaching of mathematics, other subjects also needed, according to Francke, to combine empiricist and rationalist approaches to knowing the world. The observation of beautiful and morally upright models engaged body and mind and led to prudent knowledge, or Klugheit. Whitmer illustrates this approach with a fascinating case study of a model of Salomon's Temple constructed in the Orphanage by the mathematics teacher Christoph Semler.

Leibniz became interested in the Orphanage because he saw it as a kind of academy that would help to create a network of trained scientific observers. Whitmer relates the story of one such Observator, Christoph Eberhard, who travelled all over Europe and Russia, promoted the educational philosophy of the Orphanage and became known for the magnetic inclinator he built with the help of Semler in Halle. The final chapter demonstrates how highly successful the Francke Foundations were as a model. Replica institutions were founded all over Protestant Europe, in the Russian Empire and in North America. The scientific ideals embodied by the Halle Orphanage throve also in unexpected contexts: for example in the Danish–Norwegian colony of Tranquebar in southern India. Whitmer has shown in other work (Annals of Science (2013) 70, 337–356) that, counter to the standard narrative concerning science in colonial contexts, the naturalists of the Danish–Halle mission were in fact interested in indigenous world views or schemes of usage of the specimens they collected and sent back to Halle. The focus of the book on Halle and how it served as a model for education unfortunately does not allow the author to dwell in more detail on this fascinating aspect of pietist science and how it challenges standard narratives.

Whitmer's book is nevertheless highly welcome as she adds another instructive example showing how deeply intertwined natural philosophy and theology (and politics) were in early modern Europe and even well into the eighteenth century. She does not offer a new and innovative theoretical perspective on this issue, but the succinct and still broad coverage should make this book of interest to anyone fascinated by the intricacies of early modern European intellectual history.