Education measured by our present day standard was on a low level. The Reformation broke down old customs and practices and it can hardly be said that it improved the higher education and culture in the nation. It took a generation to re-establish what had been changed, in some cases with too violent a hand. But the early reformers laid much stress on the education of the masses, and their efforts were not without result. During the first half of the seventeenth century public schools were established in many places for the instruction of the people, and commercial colleges were founded, where merchants could be trained in the most necessary branches of business. Secondary schools and so-called _Gymnasier_ were created, which gave courses preparatory to the university. The University of Upsala was re-organized, and new universities were chartered at Abo and Dorpat. The Royal Library in Stockholm and the University Library at Upsala date from this period; the Royal Archives and the College of Antiquity as well as the first Swedish newspapers owe their existence to this enterprising age. Education, especially that of the people, was under the direct control of the Church, and the knowledge imparted was largely religious. The first instruction was given at home, afterwards supplemented by the Church. It was the business of the Church to see to it that her members understood her teachings, and her best men such as Paulinus, Rudbeckius and others wrote books on pedagogy and labored with much diligence “to scatter the spiritual darkness” of their country. Laymen like Per Brahe, Axel Oxenstierna, Johan Skytte, De la Gardi and Gyllengren did much to improve the instruction and organize the school system of this period. Amos Cominius (or Komensky), the great pedagogue who was several centuries in advance of his contemporaries, was twice called to Sweden for the purpose of re-organizing the schools according to his educational theories. At the expense of the government he was engaged to write a series of pedagogical works, many of which were translated into Swedish, in some cases going through a number of editions. It is natural that such efforts should bear fruit. Even in 1632 Professor Menius of Dorpat, speaking of higher education said: “That Melancthon’s prophecy was about to be fulfilled, that the liberal arts, expelled from the countries, where they formerly flourished, ... would find refuge in the north.” The thought and discussions in the earlier part of the century with reference to public education finally crystallized into the school ordinance of 1649, “with a system of instruction equal to which no other country could show a parallel, whether we refer to the completeness and thoroughness of the formal and pedagogical principles or the extent or content of the material studied.”