Neumann entered the school in a class of 103 students, of whom less than fifty ultimately completed the six-year gymnasium course. The curriculum included Latin, mathematics, geography, history, and Christian doctrine in the first four years and was devoted to Latin and Greek classical authors in the last two years. Neumann was disappointed with the course's slow pace in his first years and thought he might easily have been able to advance to the third year, but this was not allowed. In the middle of the third year, Neumann's professor was dismissed for appearing before a public gathering while drunk and was replaced with a much stricter man who was resolved to make up for lost time and was very inclined to teaching by rote learning, a method Neumann disliked. The pace now became too fast for many students, and about twenty of Neumann's classmates dropped out, but he persevered and passed the examination that year with a fair average, as he had the two previous years.