 In later years Erasmus alleged that he had been pressured into taking the vows. His misgivings found expression in one of his first works, De Contemptu Mundi (On disdaining the World, written in the 1490s, published 1521). Ostensibly a praise of monastic life, it began by recommending seclusion and withdrawal from the world but ended in a lament about the decline of monasticism and a warning to postulants not to take the vows rashly. Erasmus himself discovered that he was constitutionally and psychologically unsuited to the monastic life. He would have preferred to go to university. In 1495 he saw a chance to realize this goal when Bishop Hendrik of Bergen sent him to the Collège de Montaigu in Paris and promised him financial support. It is uncertain how much, if any, theological training Erasmus received during his brief stay at the college. In any case, he did not find the Parisian brand of theology to his liking, declaring that scholasticism “repelled him” (CWE 4: 408).When the promised financial support did not materialize, Erasmus left the college, then renowned for its strict discipline and harsh living conditions, and supported himself by tutoring well-to-do young men. This experience produced a number of educational handbooks and aids, among them De Epistolis Conscribendis, a letter-writing manual (1522); De Copia, a handbook of style (1502); Colloquia, a collection of dialogues meant to teach correct Latin (1518), and the Adagia , an anthology of proverbs to be used as rhetorical tools to embellish style (1500). All of these books saw multiple editions, some of them expanded and given a larger purpose. Thus some of the proverbs provided starting points for essays, and many of the colloquies likewise became opinion pieces on issues of the day.