Sturm was a strong and masterful man, with a genius for organization. Probably adopting the plan of the French colleges (R. 136), he organized his school into ten classes, [6] one for each year the pupil was to spend in the school, and placed a teacher in charge of each. The aim and end of education, as he stated it, was "piety, knowledge, and the art of speaking," and "every effort of teachers and pupils" should bend toward acquiring "knowledge, and purity and elegance of diction." Of the ten years the pupil was to spend in the _gymnasium_, seven were to be spent in acquiring a thorough mastery of pure idiomatic Latin, and the three remaining years to the acquisition of an elegant style. Cicero was the great model, but Vergil, Plautus, Terence, Martial, Sallust, Horace, and other authors were read and studied. Except that the Catechism was first studied in the native German, Latin was made the language of the classroom. Great emphasis was placed on letter-writing, declamation, and the acting of plays. Rhetoric, too, was made a very important subject of study. Greek was begun in the fifth year of school and continued throughout, all instruction in Greek being given through the medium of the Latin. [7] The instruction in both Latin and Greek was much like that of the court schools of Italy, except that in Greek the New Testament was read in addition. The plays and games and physical training of the Italian schools, however, were omitted; much less emphasis was placed on manners and gentlemanly conduct; and in educational purpose a narrow drill was substituted for the broad cultural spirit of the French and Italian schools. Sturm was the greatest and most successful schoolman of his day. In clearly defined aim, thorough organization, carefully graded instruction, good teaching, and sound scholarship, his school surpassed all others. Sturm's aim was to train pious, learned, and eloquent men for service in Church and State, using religion and the new learning as means, and in this he was very successful. In a short time after taking charge his _gymnasium_ had six hundred pupils, and in 1578 there were "thousands of pupils, representing eight nations," in attendance. Sturm became widely known throughout northern Europe, and scholars and princes passing through Strassburg stopped to visit his school and secure his advice. He corresponded with scholars in many lands, and the influence of his institution was enormous. He was the author of many school textbooks, and of half a dozen works on the theory and practice of education. He fixed both the type and the name--_gymnasium_--of the German classical secondary school, which to-day is not very materially changed from the form and character which Sturm gave it. Sturm's work deeply influenced many later foundations in Germany, and also helped to mould the educational system devised later on by the Jesuits.