The response to this perceived decline was a mass reform movement throughout the country which responded in different ways to the colonial situation. This included waves of Buddhist publishing, preaching, and the founding of hundreds of lay Buddhist organizations, as well as the promotion of vegetarianism, Buddhist education, moral and religious reform and the founding of schools. Lay persons, including working class individuals such as schoolteachers, and clerks, merchants were quite prominent in this Buddhist revival. They now assumed the responsibility of preserving the "sasana", one which had previously been taken by the king and royal elites.