Over the years the school developed into a prestigious institution whose alumni include numerous notable historical individuals.

A fast crash of Joseph's reforms, showed all the haste and imprudence of this gesture, since instead of the state gymnasium for all religions in the orthodox part of Novi Sad, a Roman Catholic school was founded.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a prominent merchant from Novi Sad, Sava Vuković of Beregsova, wanted to leave a permanent legacy through his philanthropic work.

On Saint Sava's Day 1810, blind and seriously ill, Vuković donated 20 000 forints for foundation of a Serbian gymnasium in Novi Sad.

This meant that all graduated students of the school had the right to enroll any academy, lycee and university in Habsburg Monarchy without taking entrance or differential examinations.

A first school of music was opened in the Serbian Grand Orthodox Gymnasium in 1841 and it was led by a conductor, composer and singer Aleksandar Morfidids-Nisis.

The curriculum at that time included the following subjects: History with Geography, Religious Lessons, Latin, Greek, German, Serbian and Arithmacy.

The administration of four-class gymnasium was a great load for the Patronage and the council of the Orthodox Church in Novi Sad.

The offer was gladly accepted, but five years had passed before Hungarian regency council informed the Patronage that it was ordered by emperor's resolution to raise the school in Novi Sad to the level of a great gymnasium with eight classes.

[5] At that time the school offered classical humanistic education, which was most evident in the number of classes dedicated to language studying.

Back then, the following were the compulsory subjects: Latin, Religious Studies, Serbian, Hungarian, Geography, History, Natural Sciences, Physics, Geometrical Drawing, Philosophy and Calligraphy.

In 1865, the school's library restarted its function, when the Orthodox Church Municipality of Novi Sad assumed the responsibility to regularly finance its work.

Since then the Patronage was under direct supervision of the representatives of the Hungarian government, who carried out inspection twice a year and observed the final exams.

Due to its vicinity to the battlefield of the Great War, the school's premises were taken over by the Austro-Hungarian army in 1914 and in 1915 it was turned into a military hospital.

During the school years 1916/1917 and 1917/1918 regular classes and teaching was carried out but with a lot of difficulties due to the lack of both teachers and money.

This decision came at just the right time, since due to the war-ruined economy, inflation and agrarian reform, the Patronage could no longer cope with economic hardships and finance the school's work on its own.

In 1914 the students of this school founded the FC Vojvodina and doing that they laid the foundation of the sports society, which today is one of the biggest in Europe.

The minister of education Anton Korošec tried to turn back the time when he gave the permission for the renewal of Serbian Grand Orthodox Gymnasium of Novi Sad in September 1939.

The dynamic development of The State Men's Real Gymnasium of King Alexander I was stopped by the April war in 1941.

The aim of this educational institution was to develop the sense of loyalty to Great Hungary and to make the preconditions for the process of magyarization through the lessons of Hungarian language and history.

The aggressor decided that the school library can hold only the samples of the books printed before the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire i.e. before the creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croatians and Slovenians.

[5] During the difficult days of occupation the people were expelled and killed on a massive scale (the Novi Sad raid in 1942) and all the suffering finished in October 1944.

After the war, three real gymnasiums were founded in Novi Sad on 28 February 1945: Male (which was previously on the spot of Platoneum and was later moved to the building in Futoška Street), Mixed (on the former spot of Isidor Bajić Secondary School of Music) and Female (in the building of the previous Civil school).

[5] After the liberation of the country, because of the large-scale poverty and the lack of basic didactic device, the classes were held with the great dedication of the teachers.

The lack of course books and professional teaching staff as well as classes with the great number of students represented one more difficulty of that time.

The church was severely criticized by the Communist regime so that religious education was put out of the curriculum for the first time since the school's foundation.

The high school has been used by education authorities as an indicator of success of certain reforms, showing its reputation in the new socialist society.

General teaching involved: Serbo-Croatian and literature, history, sociology with the basics of political-economics, Yugoslav social system, logic and psychology, philosophy, art, foreign language (besides Russian which was dominant after the liberation, English, German and French were introduced), biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, crafts, physical education and pre-military training.

The aim of this kind of teaching was to make a basis for further specialized training and to create a socialist point of view to the world.

The decline of the country, economic and political isolation caused not only the reconsideration of the values in the society but also the crisis of educational system.