With the exception of a few attempts made by Farel towards the re-establishment of the College, this was the condition of public education in Geneva, when Calvin returned from Strasburg and took up his abode there in 1541. In the following year, 1542, he proposed to the Council: 'In the first place to extend and improve the College, and also to establish an academy in which the citizens and strangers might pursue more advanced and important studies.' He thus from the first disclosed his whole plan; which was that the College should consist of an elementary and a classical school, and that there should be an _academy_ or university above it. But the times were stormy; political and theological contests were all-absorbing; there was a lack both of men and means, and sixteen years passed before any step was taken beyond the purchase of a house for the projected university. At length in 1558 the theological disputes were terminated, and the Libertines, who were completely defeated, had withdrawn from the contest. {351} Calvin again submitted his proposition to the Council, asking them to take measures for procuring the necessary funds, and offering to assist in obtaining them. The Council summoned the notaries, 'in order to give them express commands that for the future, in drawing up wills, they should exhort their clients to leave a legacy for the support of the College.' They also set apart for this purpose a portion of the fines inflicted in the courts of justice. Calvin himself made a house-to-house collection, explaining fully the nature of the two establishments for which he was soliciting contributions. At the end of six months he presented the sum of ten thousand and twenty-four florins to the Council. [Footnote 135] [Footnote 135: From 1,200_l_. to 1,600_l_.--some 30,000 or 40,000 francs.]