Melanchthon's course of study (Schulplan) for Saxony had appeared in 1528, and in 1558 the school law of Wuertemberg, by far the best yet enacted, went into force. Other German provinces adopted more or less efficient school systems, and for the first time in the history of Christian education, the duty of the State to assume the responsibility of the education of its subjects was recognized. Out of these primitive systems have grown the completer systems of the present, after more than three centuries of experiment, study, and struggle. The Reformation taught the right of every person to an education, primarily, it is true, for religious ends, and it gradually came to be understood that the State must assume that duty. For the Church had neither the means nor the power to accomplish universal education. But it was not till the nineteenth century that this end was reached, whereby the advantages of education were offered to the child of every parent of whatever rank or station, and the State assumed full control of the schools. This was the great work marked out by Luther and Melanchthon, and their pupils and disciples carried that work to its fulfillment. Among these immediate followers we may mention Sturm,[56] Trotzendorf, and Neander, who contributed to educational reform. STURM[57] (1507-1589) Johann Sturm is counted among the greatest schoolmen that the Reformation produced, though he belonged to the French rather than the German reformers. He received an excellent training in the schools of Germany, and completed his education at Paris, where he afterward became professor of Greek. He soon gained such a wide reputation that when only thirty years of age he was called to the rectorship of the _Gymnasium_ at Strasburg, a position which he held for forty-seven years, and where he gained lasting fame. This fame rests not on his work as a teacher, but as an organizer and an executive. Paulsen doubts his having been a great teacher. He says, "He was a man who gave his attention to great things. He had his hands in universal politics; he was in the service of nearly all the European potentates, drawing his yearly salary from all.... It is not probable that such a wonderful man was also a good schoolmaster."[58] But his great work was the organization of the Strasburg _Gymnasium_, especially its course of study, which became the model for the Latin schools for many years. Sturm's counsel was sought by schoolmen all over Europe, and he came to be the recognized leader of educational forces. His school course took the boy at six years of age and provided at first a nine years', afterward a ten years' course, ending at the sixteenth year of age. He added a five years' course to this later, and evidently planned to found a university.[59]