 Within Geneva , Calvin 's main concern was the creation of a collège , an institute for the education of children . A site for the school was selected on 25 March 1558 and it opened the following year on 5 June 1559 . Although the school was a single institution , it was divided into two parts : a grammar school called the collège or <unk> <unk> and an advanced school called the académie or <unk> publica . Calvin tried to recruit two professors for the institute , Mathurin Cordier , his old friend and Latin scholar who was now based in Lausanne , and Emmanuel Tremellius , the Regius professor of Hebrew in Cambridge . Neither was available , but he succeeded in obtaining Theodore Beza as rector . Within five years there were 1 @,@ 200 students in the grammar school and 300 in the advanced school . The collège eventually became the Collège Calvin , one of the college preparatory schools of Geneva , while the académie became the University of Geneva . 
