The highest level of Reformed education in Transylvania was represented by the colleges successively created in the 17th–19th centuries. The first steps towards the establishment of Reformed higher education were taken by Prince Gábor Bethlen, who brought the question in front of the Diet of 1622. This was followed by the opening of the first Reformed college in Alba Iulia. Our exhibition, which looks back over the 400 years, aims to capture the changes and developments in the history of the colleges, with a special focus on their role in the culture of collecting in Transylvania. Reformed colleges developed as centres not only of education but also of academic life. The wide range of activities that took place in the schools makes the collections of the 19th century colleges the most varied holdings of art collection and museology in Transylvania. Despite being the first public collections, their assets were dispersed after nationalisation in 1948. They were either used as part of the core collections of the newly established regional museums and libraries, or their tools are still enriching the out-of-use collections of various successor schools, while other items are lying unidentified. The middle of the 19th century marks a turning point in Transylvanian collecting. Until then, this activity had been performed exclusively by schools, but the museums that were established after the fall of the Revolution took over the task of collecting and preserving objects of historical value. From then on, school collections focused exclusively on the acquisition of teaching aids. We therefore consider the mid-19th century as the upper chronological limit of our exhibition.