Talmud Torah schools were created as a form of public primary school for boys of modest backgrounds, where they were given an elementary education in Hebrew, the Scriptures (especially the Pentateuch), and the Talmud (and Halakhah). This was meant to prepare them for Yeshiva or, particularly in the movement's modern form, for Jewish education at a high school level. The Talmud Torah was modelled after the Cheder, a traditional form of schooling whose essential elements it incorporated, with changes appropriate to its public form rather than the heder's "private" financing through less formal or institutionalized mechanisms, including tuition fees and donations.