 In 1822 he began the reform of the Talmud Torah school, where the poorer children of the community had until then been taught Hebrew and arithmetic.He added lessons in German, natural science, geography, and history as important parts of the curriculum, and by 1827 what had formerly been merely a religious class had been changed to a good elementary public school.The council of the community wanted to take a greater part in the supervision of the course of instruction, and in consequence of differences with the Chakam resulting from these claims, they withdrew the subvention of the school in 1830; but through the intervention of the senate of Hamburg this was again granted in 1832, though Bernays was denied the presidential seat he had till then occupied in the council of the school and was made instead "ephorus" of the school.