True to the Calvinistic teaching of putting principles into practice, they organized an extensive system of schools, extending from elementary education for all, through secondary schools or colleges, up to eight Huguenot universities. As a people they were thrifty and capable of making great sacrifices to carry out their educational ideals. The education they provided was not only religious but civil; not only intellectual but moral, social, and economic. Education was for all, rich and poor alike. Their synods made liberal appropriations for the universities, while municipalities provided for colleges and elementary education. They emphasized, in the lower schools, the study of the vernacular and arithmetic, and in the colleges Greek and the New Testament. The long list of famous teachers found in their universities reveals the character of their instruction. Foster has well summarized the distinguishing characteristics of Huguenot education in France, before they were driven from the land, as follows: [4] The significant characteristics of Huguenot education were: an emphasis on the education of the laity; training for "the republic" and "society" as well as for the Church; insistence upon virtue as well as knowledge; the wide-spread demand for education, and a view of it as essential to liberty of conscience; a comprehensive working system of elementary, collegiate, and university training for all, poor as well as rich; an astonishing familiarity with Scripture, even among the lowest classes; utilization of representative church organization for founding, supporting, and unifying education; readiness to sacrifice for education, a spirit of carrying a thing through at any cost; business-like supervision of money, and systematic supervision of both professors and students; a notable emphasis on vernacular, arithmetic, Greek, use of full texts, and libraries; and finally a progressive spirit of inquiry and investigation. In the Palatinate (see map, Figure 88) some progress in founding churches and schools was made, especially about Strassburg, and the universities of Heidelberg and Marburg became the centers of Huguenot teaching. In the Dutch Netherlands, and in that part of the Belgian Netherlands inhabited by the Walloons, Calvinist ideas as to education dominated. The universities of Leyden (f. 1575), Groningen (f. 1614), Amsterdam (f. 1630), and Utrecht (f. 1636) were Calvinistic, and closely in touch with the Calvinists and Huguenots of German lands and France. Popular education was looked after among these people as it was in Calvinistic France and Geneva. The Church Synod of The Hague (1586) ordered the establishment of schools in the cities, and in 1618 the Great Synod held at Dort (R. 176) ordered that: