Page "John Calvin" Paragraph 51

Within Geneva, Calvin's main concern was the creation of a collège, an institute for the education of children.

A site for the school was selected on 25 March 1558 and it opened the following year on 5 June 1559.

Although the school was a single institution, it was divided into two parts: a grammar school called the collège or schola privata and an advanced school called the académie or schola publica.

Calvin tried to recruit two professors for the institute, Mathurin Cordier, his old friend and Latin scholar who was now based in Lausanne, and Emmanuel Tremellius, the Regius professor of Hebrew in Cambridge.

Neither was available, but he succeeded in obtaining Theodore Beza as rector.

Within five years there were 1, 200 students in the grammar school and 300 in the advanced school.

The collège eventually became the Collège Calvin, one of the college preparatory schools of Geneva, while the académie became the University of Geneva.