 As has already been noted, Ramus’ endeavors to increase the efficiency of education and, in this way, make it possible for students of lesser means to study, pushed him to change the curriculum radically and shorten it. It would take no more than seven years to complete, which was a considerable reduction compared to all other curricula. Nevertheless, he included some mathematical sub-disciplines such as mechanics that were normally not studied. His lectures on the history of mathematics revealed an increasing disapproval of the ancient Greeks’ inclination for making mathematics too abstract and, consequently, neglecting its application; Euclid was considered one of those who was most to blame. Ramus even censured Archimedes for not having assigned sufficient importance to utility and for having been too prone to direct his projects towards pure contemplation. Ramus himself lauded the way the German city of Nuremberg had instead supported and encouraged the study of the mechanical arts; for him, such a syllabus was the key to the future (Ramus, Scholarum mathematicarum, p. 28 and Collectaneae praefationes, epistolae, orationes, pp. 136–137, and see Hotson 2007: 80).