Johannes Sturm

Johannes Sturm (1507 to 1589), also called Jean Sturm and Latinized as Ioannes Sturmius, was a German educator and Protestant reformer born in Schleiden. After studying at Liege and Leuven and lecturing in Paris on Cicero and Demosthenes, he accepted a call to Strasbourg in 1537 and set up the Protestant gymnasium there the following year, the Schola Argentoratensis. He directed it for 43 years, and its graded classes and humanist curriculum made it a model for the modern German gymnasium and for secondary schools across Reformation Europe. He was often consulted on founding or reforming schools, and his influence shows in the school regulations of Wurttemberg, Brunswick and Saxony. His later years were troubled by confessional disputes with strict Lutherans, and he was relieved of his post in 1581.