he, in 1621, was appointed professor poesos at Uppsala university. His second course of study was crucial to his life's work. In spite of all Lutheran-confessional regulations and scholastic-theological educational goals, he was exposed and deepened himself in the ethico-religious renaissance during his visits to Holland, England and France, not least in England, where there was a reaction to Calvinist neo-confessionalism, which prevailed at the Synod of Dort in 1619, and which Gothus' himself faced in a dissertation in Giessen. Professorship and Rectorship of Collegium Illustre By the time Gothus returned home at the age of 32, he was a mature man with European broad-mindedness like no other Swedish theologian. He immediately became professor of theology at Uppsala University and rector and professor of the newly founded Collegium Illustre in Stockholm. At the time of the House of Knight's establishment, king Gustavus Adolphus had realised that the nobility needed education to maintain their position. Already in the preamble of the knight house order, the long-gone plans of a special school, exclusive to the nobility and located at the knight house, were clarified. This teaching work was subsequently established in 1626 and was initially a success. The seven-year schooling would prepare the noble youngster for a career in the top tier of the kingdom. Johannes Matthiæ Gothus was appointed professor and principal. One of the school's facilitators, the Swedish National Council Johan Skytte, had the room decorated for teaching and published textbooks. Gustavus Adolphus, who sometimes heard the school's disputes, promised on 24 April 1627, an annual grant from the state funds for this so-called Collegium illustre on 2,000 dollars silver coins. The rest of the costs were taken out of the knight's house. The Swedish Council, Johan Skytte, had the main leadership in its establishment and governance. Gothus provided the curriculum, Ratio studiorum; Plan of Studies. One of the most characteristic features of humanistic pedagogy was the practice of keeping notebooks; schoolboys were encouraged to compile commonplace books for reference use when they could read and write reasonably accurately. Ratio Studiorum lavished praise on notebook practice. Like numerous humanistic teaching programmes, it suggested that the students should excerpt sentences, proverbs, similes and other literary elements, write them down in a notebook and memorise them. According to Gothus, a schoolboy should begin at the age of eight with moral sentences of Publilius Syrus, Terence, Seneca, Cato and Cicero; at the age