The original Kiev-Mohyla Academy, founded by the Metropolitan of Kiev Petro Mohyla in 1615, was one of the most distinguished and earliest among higher educational institutions in Eastern Europe. Its aim was to master the intellectual skills and learning of contemporary Europe and to apply them to the improvement of education in Ukraine. Taking his most dangerous adversary as his model, Petro Mohyla adopted the organizational structure, the teaching methods, and the curriculum of the Jesuit schools. An objective in establishing this type of school was to raise the standard of Eastern European education to Western European degrees of excellence. From its beginnings, this school was conceived by its founder and first rectors as an institution of higher learning, offering philosophy and theology courses and supervising a network of secondary schools. The academic programme was based on the liberal arts and was organized into fourteen grades.