Gymnasium St. Augustine

Gymnasium St. Augustine in Grimma Gymnasium St. Augustin zu Grimma
Gymnasium St. Augustine seen from Mulde river
Address
St. Augustine
Klosterstraße 1 04668 Grimma Landkreis Leipzig Germany
Coordinates	51°14′09″N 12°43′52″E / 51.2358°N 12.7312°E / 51.2358; 12.7312
Information
Type	gymnasium
Motto
Established	14 September 1550 (1550-09-14)
Principal	Wolf-Dieter Goecke
Faculty	77 (2015/2016)
Years offered	5 – 12
Enrollment	897 (2015/2016)
Color(s)	purple – white – green
Newspaper	Augustiner Blätter
Website	http://www.staugustin.de

Gymnasium St. Augustine in Grimma (Gymnasium St. Augustin zu Grimma, historically known as Fürstenschule Grimma or Landesschule Grimma) is the only regular gymnasium offering boarding in Saxony. It is heavily steeped in tradition as one of the foremost schools in the country. Founded in 1550 as one of the three Fürstenschulen in Saxony, it has prepared young people for university studies since then.

Following the Protestant Reformation, Maurice, Elector of Saxony had the school founded in 1550 as the third of the Fürstliche Landesschulen ("Princely State Schools") after St. Afra in Meißen and Pforta near Naumburg (founded in 1543) with the aim of educating able and reliable scholars for the evangelical church and the administration of the Saxon lands. These schools contributed substantially to the stabilisation of the Reformation and the Lutheran church, the role of the Saxon parsonages, and the cultural development of Saxony. Originally, the new school was to be established in Merseburg, but the persevering resistance of the catholic Merseburg bishop lead to the decision to locate it in the former Augustine monastery in Grimma which had been left by the monks in 1541. After the river Mulde it was also called Collegium Moldanum. The first rector was the humanist Adam Siber (1516–1584) who applied the rules - including the compulsory use of the Latin language - of a school in Chemnitz of which he had been rector before.