The Swiss Republic

No inquiry can be more important than that which proposes to discover the legitimate purpose and the best course of general education. All men, how much soever they may be distinguished from each other by a variety of circumstances, connections, and pursuits, have yet one common set of duties to perform; and it is in forming this character, and imparting the ability to discharge these duties, that the business of what may be called, in the most general sense, a good education, properly consists. Such an education may, therefore, fitly be described to be that course of discipline which is accommodated to man, as he is man; which is to lay the firm foundation of excellence in future life; and by which it is designed to effect the highest preparatory culture of his whole nature. It happens, however, that the foundation of those virtues which are to render us useful and happy must be laid at a time when we are least willing to receive instruction,—when we are in search rather of amusement for our imagination than of employment for our reason. Aware of these difficulties, the instructors of mankind have been in all ages solicitous to discover popular and efficacious methods for their admonitions. Theories once embraced as judicious and complete are succeeded by others which, in turn, are declared as erroneous and defective. Plans at present deemed ill-concerted or impracticable are the same which it was once thought reasonable to adopt. Where government, national or state, insists upon having every child given over to it for the first and formative educational period, it assumes an infinite responsibility for the judicious and reasonable training of the young committed to its care. And they have, in turn, the right to conclude that the instruction given is that, of all others, which the wisdom and wit of the age have pronounced to be the most beneficial and important for them to receive. The system of education is proportionately more enlightened and liberal as the liberty of the subject is the basis and aim of the constitution. The interested caution of a despotic government cares not to open too wide every avenue to science. The state of public instruction is one of the greatest glories of Switzerland. There is no country where primary instruction is more developed and more wide-spread. A Switzer will tell you that every child in the Confederation, unless under the school age or mentally incapacitated, can read and write. This is true to the extent that the exceptions to the rule are not sufficient to constitute an illiterate class. Keeping school is the permanent business of the state, and the attention to it is not merely a fixed and formal business, but an unceasing and engrossing duty. A school is one of the first things present to the eyes of a Swiss child, and one of the last things present to the mind of a Swiss man. On reaching a certain age, the right to stay at home and play ceases; the school seizes the child, holds him fast for years, and rears him into what he is to be. The two great items of expense which figure in the budget of a Swiss Canton are the roads and public instruction. The sum bestowed on the latter is immense, relatively to the total means of the Canton, standing far ahead of the disbursements for military service, which, in Europe, is a startling fact. On the continent, with the exception of Switzerland, the cost of the public forces, even in times of absolute peace, is estimated to be nearly fourteen times that of the public schools.72 The passion for public education, and the large expenditure so cheerfully made for its support, are but natural in the land that gave birth to Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Fellenberg. John Henry Pestalozzi, born at Zurich in 1746, was the most celebrated of Swiss educational reformers and philanthropists. His system furnished the basis and gave the first impetus to the public school organization; it furnished also a model for the rest of Europe, and especially for Germany. The main features of this system, with the improvements made upon it, are to-day regarded in Switzerland as the chief corner-stone of their superb educational condition. His whole school apparatus consisted of himself and his pupils; so he studied the children themselves, their wants and capacities. “I stood in the midst of them,” he explains, “pronouncing various sounds and asking the children to imitate them. Whoever saw it was struck with the effect. It is true, it was like a meteor which vanishes in the air as soon as it appears. No one understood its nature. I did not understand it myself. It was the result of a simple idea, or rather of a fact of human nature, which was revealed to my feelings, but of which I was far from having a clear consciousness. Being obliged to instruct the children by myself, without any assistance, I learnt the art of teaching a great number together; and as I had no other means of bringing the instruction before them than that of pronouncing everything to them loudly and distinctly, I was naturally led to the idea of making them draw, write, or work, all at the same time.” Combining the experience with the ideas he had received many years before from Rousseau, he invented his system of object-lessons. The Yverdon Institute had soon a world-wide reputation. Many came to wonder, many to be educated, many to learn the art of education. Pestalozzian teachers went from it to Madrid, to Naples, to St. Petersburg. Kings and philosophers joined in doing it honor. While Pestalozzi did not invent the principle that education is a developing of the faculties rather than an imparting of knowledge, he did much to bring this truth to bear on early education, and to make it not only received, but acted on. We must, at least, concede to him the merit, which he himself claims, of having “lighted upon truths little noticed before, and principles which, though almost generally acknowledged, are seldom carried out in practice.” The motive power of his career was the “enthusiasm of humanity.” He never lost faith in the true dignity of man, and in the possibility of raising the Swiss peasantry to a condition worthy of it. “From my youth up,” he says, “I felt what a high and indispensable human duty it was to labor for the poor and miserable, that he may attain to a consciousness of his own dignity through his feeling of the universal powers and endowments which he possesses awakened within him, so that he may be raised not only above the ploughing oxen, but also above the man in purple and silk who lives unworthily of his high destiny.” It is claimed of him that he was the first teacher to announce convincingly the doctrine that all people should be educated; that, in fact, education is the one good gift to give to all, rich or poor, and, unlike any other giving, it helps and does not hinder self-help. Pestalozzi was no friend to the notion of giving instruction always in the guise of amusement, contending that a child should very early in life be taught the lesson that exertion is indispensable for the attainment of knowledge. At the same time he held that a child should not be taught to look upon exertion as an evil; he should be encouraged, not frightened, into it. “An interest,” he claims, “in study is the first thing which a teacher should endeavor to excite and keep alive. There are scarcely any circumstances in which a want of application in children does not proceed from a want of interest; and there are, perhaps, none in which the want of interest does not originate in the mode of teaching adopted by the teacher. I would go so far as to lay it down as a rule that, whenever children are inattentive and apparently take no interest in a lesson, the teacher should always first look to himself for the reason. Could we conceive the indescribable tedium which must oppress the young mind while the weary hours are slowly passing away, one after another, in occupations which it can neither relish nor understand, could we remember the like scenes which our own childhood has passed through, we should no longer be surprised at the remissness of the school-boy, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school. We must adopt a better mode of instruction, by which children are less left to themselves, less thrown upon the unwelcome employment of passive listening, but more roused by questions, animated by illustrations, interested and won by kindness.”

The efforts of Pestalozzi went down in clouds, and when he died, at the age of eighty-one, in 1827, he had seen the apparent failure of all his toils. He had not, however, failed in reality. And when twenty years later the centenary of his birth was celebrated by school-masters, not only in his native country but throughout Germany, it was found that Pestalozzian ideas had been sown, and were bearing fruit, over the greater part of central Europe. Even to-day school-masters might learn much from Pestalozzi, in aiming more at a plan of education founded on a knowledge of human nature, and its modes of instruction which shall better develop their pupils’ faculties. The true functions of Pestalozzi, it is alleged, were to educate ideas, not children. Even those who are most averse to theoretical views, which they call unpractical, will admit, as practical men, that their methods are probably susceptible of improvement, and that even a theorist might lead them to make many observations which would otherwise have escaped them; might teach them to examine what their aim really was, and then whether they are using the most suitable methods to accomplish it. Such a theorist is Pestalozzi. He points to a high ideal, and bids us measure our modes of education by it. When Switzerland would honor Pestalozzi’s name, the monument she built was more than brass or bronze. It was a school,—a school where the memoirs of the man were carved, not on wood or stone, but in the minds of happy, growing youths, the fortunate beneficiaries of a system whose foundation he laid.73 Down to 1848 all the public schools in Switzerland had been in the hands of the Cantons; in the federal constitution, adopted at that time, it was provided that the Confederation might establish a university and a polytechnic school. A proposition for a university was soon thereafter submitted and rejected. Subsequently a law was passed, in 1854, establishing a federal polytechnical school. In view of the antagonism existing between the German, French, and Italian Cantons, and the social friction that followed between the adherents of the different creeds, it was found important that the Confederation should be in a position to strengthen and direct the forces which make for unity, and attention was directed to the vital forces which proceed from a wisely-arranged system of public instruction. This resulted in more extensive power being conferred upon the Confederation, in the revised Constitution of 1874, with respect to education. The 27th Article of the Constitution declares: “The Confederation has the right to establish, besides the existing polytechnical school, a federal university and other institutions for higher instruction, or may assist in the support of said institutions. The Cantons shall provide for primary education, which must be adequate, and shall be placed exclusively under the direction of the civil authorities. It is compulsory, and in the public schools free. The public schools shall be open to the adherents of all religious sects without any offence to their freedom of conscience or of belief. The Confederation shall take the necessary measures against such Cantons as shall not conform to these provisions.” Primary instruction was first made compulsory under this Constitution of 1874. The promotion and organization of the elementary education are left in the hands of the Cantons, subject to the control of the Confederation; but it must be exclusively under the civil authority. This does not exclude the clergy—if not Jesuits—from the position of teachers and other school officers, but simply requires, if occupying these positions, they must stand on the same footing as laymen. No person who belongs to a religious order, claiming allegiance paramount to the state, can be a teacher in the public schools. The provision guaranteeing freedom of conscience and belief is complied with by the Cantons in a way suitable to their wants. Religious instruction is usually given on fixed days, at stated hours, so that every facility for absenting themselves is afforded to children whose parents wish them only to receive secular instruction. In many instances the religious instruction is confined to truths common to all Christians, and to readings from the Bible. In reference to the relation of the schools to religion in Switzerland, Matthew Arnold reported: “Whoever has seen the divisions caused in a so-called logical nation like the French by this principle of the neutrality of the popular school in matters of religion might expect differently here. None whatever has arisen. The Swiss communities, applying the principle for themselves and not leaving theorists and politicians to apply it for them, have done in the matter what they consider proper, and have in every popular school religious instruction in the religion of the majority, a Catholic instruction in Catholic Cantons, like Luzern, a Protestant in Protestant Cantons, like Zurich; and there is no unfair dealing, no proselytizing, no complaint.” The first school-year varies from five to seven years of age, and runs up to twelve, except in a few Cantons, where it extends to the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth years. Primary instruction is left to the determination of the several Cantons, only it must be, under the constitution, “adequate.” With the exception of the Canton of Solothurn, where all children must receive their primary instruction in the public schools, a person is not obliged to send his children to the public school. He is perfectly free to have them instructed wherever he wishes, provided they receive an education, at least as good as that which is given in the public schools. Parents who neglect or refuse to do one or the other are cited before the authorities and subject to a fine, and in case of a repetition of the offence to imprisonment. In most of the Cantons the gratuity covers books and other school-materials to children of indigent parents. There is no class of vagrant or destitute children which the system fails to reach; even to those too poor to obtain proper food and clothing, both public and private assistance are freely rendered. The obligation resting upon the Confederation to see that the Cantons meet the constitutional requirements has so far not been supplemented by any federal legislation, prescribing the method of such enforcement, or imposing any penalties for disregard of the law. Certain Cantons having failed to do their duties in this respect, the Federal Assembly in 1882 instructed the Federal Council to take steps to insure a general compliance with the provisions of the constitution. The Council proposed the creation of a Federal Department of Public Instruction, with a number of inspectors, whose duty it would be to enforce the law. So soon as the Assembly submitted this suggestion in the form of a federal law, nearly two hundred thousand citizens demanded its subjection to the Referendum (30,000 was sufficient to do so), and upon the taking of the popular vote, it was rejected by the extraordinary majority of 146,129. It was an indignant protest against what was regarded as an attempted interference with their local home-government of the schools. Therefore the details of school administration, organization, and inspection still remain in the hands of the educational department of each Canton. In some Cantons inspectors are appointed by the educational department; in others, it is voluntarily conducted by a board composed chiefly of professional men,—pastors or persons of influence. These inspectors decide as to the course of studies, the books to be used, and act as a sort of tribunal to hear and decide all controversies that may arise between the teachers and the local authorities. As a rule, women are not eligible as school inspectors. Every Commune, in addition to the inspectors, has a school commission, elected by the communal assembly. They are charged with providing sufficient school accommodation, and keeping the buildings in repair; also to visit the schools and see that any suggestions made by the inspector have been properly carried out. The Commune provides the sites for the school buildings, and these are erected at the joint expense of the Commune and Canton. Great attention is given to the construction of these school-houses, as to their comfort and convenience; the windows must face the east or southeast, and the benches so arranged that the light falls upon the pupil’s left hand. Then there is sure to be a large and grassy plot for the children’s play-ground, with a fountain of pure water on it, shady trees, and all the accessories for athletic exercise. The school-house is the most commodious, modern, and handsome edifice to be seen in a Swiss town. One may look in vain for the court-house and town-hall, but on the most central and costly site is the school-house, the pride of every city square and village slope. The schools are not mixed, and when the Commune is not able to sustain separate schools, the boys attend in the morning, and the girls in the afternoon. Saturday is not a holiday. Each class has so many hours of schooling for the week, apportioned among the six days. Every form of corporal punishment is forbidden. No bodily pain, no bodily shame, is suffered in the schools. Chastisement, it is claimed, first brutalizes a child; second, makes him cowardly; and, third, blunts his sense of shame, which must soon form the bulwark round virtue. “A lad has rights,” says the Swiss teacher. “We cannot stint his food, we cannot lock him up, we cannot crown him with a dunce’s cap, or we cannot make a guy of him. Our discipline is wholly moral; our means are prizes, good words, all leading up to public acts of honor. Should we have any incorrigible ones, they are expelled, but expulsion is a very serious matter, and must be exercised under prescribed rules, with due notice to parents and the school officials; and at first only temporary and conditional, and never final and absolute, without the formal sanction of the school commission. This emergency rarely occurs. A threat or admonition suffices, for expulsion is considered only one degree from ruin.” Obedience which is rendered merely because there is a sense of authority about the commander destroys the sympathetic relation which should exist between the teacher and pupil. The best and only true discipline is that which is secured, not through habits created from the will of the teacher, says Professor Shaler, of Harvard, but won through the exercise of the will of the pupil; only when accomplished by sympathetic stimulus, is the effect truly educational. Manliness, sincerity, and conscientiousness are its legitimate fruits; it fosters honesty and truthfulness more than any regimen discipline.

The pupil’s manners and appearance are also cared for. He is taught how to appear and act no less than how to read and write; how to walk, stand, and speak; that his hands and face should be kept clean, as well as his papers and books. A blot upon his page and a smudge upon his face are regarded as equally bad. “A book befouled,” the teacher tells us, “with grime is wasted, and our simple economical habits will not suffer such waste; turn over any of these books, which are in daily use, no leaf is torn or dog-eared, nor the covers defaced with scribbling.” The same observation would apply to the school furniture and building. The desks, though extremely plain, look as if they are daily washed and polished; not a spot nor splash of ink to be seen on their surface, not any evidence of the bad boy’s knife; the large corridors and spacious stairways show no scratch or scrawl; the wall free from fingermarks and inscriptions, and no bits of paper on the floor. The children, representing all classes of society, from the patrician to the poorest peasant, are neatly and comfortably clad; none dirty, ragged, or shoeless. To an expression of surprise at this, we are informed “that if a child comes to school with face begrimed or clothes torn, he is washed, cleaned, and mended up, and then sent home; the mother gets ashamed on finding that some other woman, or it may be a man, has had to wash her child; the child also becomes mortified, and it is never necessary to repeat the treatment.” The moment that a pupil is on the street he has passed from the circle of his home, and that moment has commenced the school’s authority. The regulations, printed on slips and dropped in every house, contain, among a score of others, the following rule relating to conduct on the street: “Delay of any kind between the scholar’s home and school is not allowed. No whooping, yelling, throwing stones and snow-balls, teasing children, ridiculing age or deformity can be endured. Grown persons shall be met with kind civility, politely greeted as they pass, and thus shall honor be reflected on the school.” There is very little contumacious absence from school. The children have the habit of going to school as a matter of course, and the parents equally the habit of acquiescing in their going. The Federal Factory Act of 1877, with a purpose of preventing any interference with attendance at school, forbids the employment, in a mill or public workshop, of any child until he has attained the age of fifteen. And every Swiss recruit for military service is required to pass an examen pédagogique, with a view of enabling the authorities to ascertain the degree of instruction attained by the youth of the country. This examination consists of arithmetic, geography, and Swiss history; and those who do not come up to the minimum educational standard are required to undergo instruction at the recruit school, and the odium attendant upon this is found to exercise a marked beneficial effect on the education of the peasantry. The teachers of the primary schools are nominated by the school inspectors and elected by the Communal Assembly. Teachers of the higher schools are appointed by the Cantonal Director of Education and confirmed by the Board of Educational Department. They are elected for a term of six years, and after service on a differential scale are retired on a pension of not less than one-half of their salary at the time of their retirement. Each Commune decides for itself whether male or female teachers shall be employed. The teachers are trained for a period of four years in one of the cantonal normal schools. In the Grisons and Neuchâtel, normal schools are attached to the secondary schools, but in the Cantons of Zurich, Bern, Luzern, Schwyz, Freiburg, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, and Valais separate establishments exist. The students are usually lodged and boarded at the actual cost; and free and half-free places are open for those unable to pay in full. Each Commune must pay to the primary school-teacher a minimum salary of 550 francs, but these salaries will run from 600 to 1000 francs, with free lodging and fuel, the latter being an important item of expense. Those in the larger towns receive from 1200 to 1700 francs, secondary school-teachers are paid from 2200 to 2500 francs, and teachers in the gymnasiums an average of 3300 francs. The Cantons assist the Communes in augmenting the lower salaries and in the payment of the pensions. After thirty years of service, or in case of disability or illness contracted in the line of professional duty, teachers may retire on the pension above indicated. In some Cantons, after five years of service, 100 francs are added to the salary, and an additional 100 for each quinquennium. In Basel a female teacher, after ten years of service, is entitled to a supplemental salary of 250 francs per annum; after fifteen years, 357 francs per annum, and then on voluntary retirement, after fifteen years of service, a pension for life equal to two per cent. on the amount she was being paid at time of retirement. Thus the Swiss teacher has pragmatic rights,—that is, he has a legal claim to a fixed salary, and to a retiring pension in case of age or illness. The Swiss teacher is to his pupil a father and companion. He leads and assists on the play-ground the same as he does in the school-room; a free and unrestrained companionship, beautiful as it is beneficial, unmixed with foolish fondness or paternal pride. Together they will run and leap and laugh and dance and sing as well as learn. The hours of study past, the pupil and teacher wander to the forests and the field; together pluck wild flowers and plants; together climb the hills, cross lakes and streams, searching for curious rocks and plants, learning again from them the lessons of the day. This is the very essence of education: for a man who professes to instruct to get among his pupils, study their character, gain their affections, and form their inclinations and aversions, together with that affectionate vigilance which is experienced in the best home-circle. These men regard the school as a psychological observatory, where they are to practise the very difficult art of discovering the capacities of the pupils, receiving them with a tender consideration for the good and evil they bring with them, and with an apt adjustment of the resources of education to their individual needs. The primary or communal schools come first in number. In every hamlet, where there may be twenty girls and boys, the communal officials must provide a school-house and hire a master. These are supposed to embrace the pupilage for the first five or six school-years. The lessons average from twenty to thirty weekly, and they have annual vacations from ten to twelve weeks. The children who are old enough to assist in work at home are only required to attend one-half of the day during the harvest season, or other busy times. In some instances there is provided for this class what is known as the supplementary school, which is held only on two mornings of the week; the aim being to help the pupil retain what he has already learned in the primary school until he can again resume his regular attendance. A curious custom prevails in some of these communal schools with respect to the supply of the necessary firewood in winter. Every boy or girl must contribute a piece; and in winter the children may be constantly seen tearing down-hill, each with a log of wood tied to a luge (little sledge) as his contribution to the school-fire.

The course of study in the primary school embraces:

1. Religion.

2. Native language.

3. Arithmetic.

4. Writing.

5. Physical and political geography.

6. History of Switzerland.

7. Elements of civic instruction.

8. Drawing.

9. Elements of natural science.

10. Singing.

11. Gymnastics; and

12. (For the girls) Manual work in knitting and sewing.

Connected with the primary schools in some Cantons is the secundar-schule, or secondary school; this school is open on Sundays and in the evenings, during the winter months; and the course includes book-keeping, business composition, such as letters, bills, contracts, and obligations of various kinds appertaining to trade and industry. In many Cantons the secondary or advanced division of the primary school is free, and attendance compulsory; in others, attendance optional, with a nominal charge of five francs. The course is three years for boys and four for girls. In the Cantons of Zurich and Luzern, the children from the primary schools are given four years of gratuitous instruction in these supplementary schools. By the last accessible report, it appears there were in attendance at the primary schools 455,490 pupils, under the care of 8763 teachers. Sixteen Cantons provided 437 secondary schools, with 20,500 pupils. The intermediate schools present much variety, and have only one feature in common, in that they represent a higher grade than the primary, with an enlarged and more deepened course of study. They extend to elements of literature in the mother tongue, composition of an advanced kind, reading of classical authors, higher mathematics, and foreign languages (which practically are confined to French for the German and Italian Cantons, and to German for the French Cantons); geography and history also become much extended.

These schools, however, do not have any pretensions beyond what their title of intermediate indicates. There are several grades of these intermediate schools, such as the district school and under-gymnasium. In these, still more advanced literary, technical, and artistic instructions are given. The ancient languages, Greek, Latin, natural history, physics, and chemistry are taught. Many of them are free, and in no case does the fee exceed 25 to 40 francs for the scholastic year. The greater portion of the expense of these schools is defrayed by the Communes, some of the cantonal governments assisting. The Canton of Bern pays one-half the salaries of the teachers, and pensions meritorious and indigent pupils from 50 to 100 francs per annum. The highest grade of an intermediate school is the high-school or gymnasium. The course is from three to six years, and is preparatory for the university. Pupils who obtain a “certificate” at the close of the gymnasium curriculum are, as a rule, enabled to enter the university or the polytechnic without examination. These schools are all subject to cantonal control and supported by them, except in a few of the largest towns, where they are under municipal authority, and then the towns bear much of the expense. With the exception of the federal palace, the most costly structure in Bern is the gymnasium, and the same relative superiority prevails as to these school buildings throughout Switzerland. The age for admission is from fifteen to seventeen years, with a fee from 10 to 100 francs covering the annual session. There are 58 of these gymnasiums, with 12,500 students. As a fair sample, the weekly curriculum of a first-class girls’ gymnasium in Bern may be given:

Monday, history; Tuesday, religion; Wednesday, arithmetic; Thursday, religion; Friday, French; Saturday, religion, eight to nine o’clock.

Monday, German; Tuesday, French; Wednesday, geography; Thursday, singing; Friday, German; Saturday, French, nine to ten o’clock.

Monday, arithmetic; Tuesday, natural history; Wednesday, German; Thursday, history; Friday, natural history; Saturday, geography, ten to eleven o’clock.

Monday, gymnastics; Tuesday, singing; Wednesday, French; Thursday, German; Friday, arithmetic; Saturday, arithmetic, two to three o’clock P.M.

Monday, drawing; Tuesday, readings; Wednesday, holiday; Thursday, book-keeping; Friday, readings; Saturday, holiday, three to four o’clock P.M.

There are four universities in Switzerland, located respectively at Basel, Bern, Zurich, and Geneva. The one at Basel was founded in 1460, and in the early Reformation times was one of the most famous institutions in Europe; attracting Erasmus, of Rotterdam, from his professorship at Cambridge, and the German Œcolampadius, one of the most learned men of his country, and to whose patient teaching and moderate temper was due no little of the taking root of the Reformed doctrines in Switzerland.74 Each university contains the four faculties of law, theology, medicine, arts and philosophy, and will compare favorably in teaching-power, apart from the mere accessories of endowments and splendid buildings, with any universities to be found in Europe. The tuition depends on the number and character of the faculties attended, varying from 2½ to 10 francs per week, and 100 to 200 francs per annum. The degree conferred is equivalent to that of “Doctor” in the German, and “Bachelor” in the French universities. The matriculation of these universities by the last report was 2371, including 107 female students, and employing 200 teachers. In addition to these universities, of the same rank with them is the Polytechnic at Zurich, founded in 1854. This is, in fact, the only educational institution which is directly and exclusively under the control of the Confederation. The federal authorities do not interfere with the methods of instruction and matters of detail in the different schools that may be assisted by the Confederation. The total annual expenditure of the Polytechnic is about 500,000 francs, and is defrayed by the government. Extensive improvements and additions are in course of construction, under a federal appropriation of 1,000,000 francs for that purpose.

The Polytechnic comprises seven distinct schools, with courses varying from two and a half to three and a half years, viz.:

1. Architectural.

2. Civil engineering.

3. Mechanical engineering.

4. Chemical technology (including pharmacy).

5. Agriculture and farming.

6. Normal school.

7. Philosophical and political science.

There are two hundred distinct courses of lectures given during the year, by forty-five professors and thirteen assistants, in the German, French, and Italian languages. The average number of students is from seven to eight hundred, and they represent almost every nation. The female students number from fifty to sixty. The charge for a complete course in any one of the polytechnical schools varies from 400 to 500 francs. Between all Swiss schools, from the primary to the university, there is an “organic connection;” the university, in the natural continuation and correspondence, crowning the work begun in the primary school. The Swiss method of teaching is never mechanical; it is gradual, natural, and rational. It is patient, avoids over-hurry; content to advance slowly, with a firm securing of the ground passed over. The fundamental maxim is from the intuition to the notion, from the concrete to the abstract, founding habits alike of accurate apprehension and clear expression. The system is not wooden, but appreciates that variety in mental food is as important as in bodily nourishment for healthy growth; that children at school are often tired and listless, because they are wearied and bored. From this the Swiss school finds relief in drill, gymnastics, singing, and drawing. Especially do music and drawing play a leading part in the programme. It is natural for children to imitate; thus they acquire language, and thus, with proper direction and encouragement, they find pleasure in attempting to sing the melodies they hear, and to draw the simple objects around them. By drawing, the eye is trained as well as the hand; the attention to the exact shape of the whole and the proportion of the parts which is requisite for the taking of an adequate sketch is converted into a habit, and becomes productive both of instruction and amusement. The Swiss system seeks to adapt the methods to the mental process; every effort is made to interest the pupil and to make learning palatable, and, like Lucretius, “to smear the rim of the educational cup with honey.” It is a common practice in schools of the United States to give children the rule for doing a sum, and then test them by seeing if, by that rule, they can do so many given sums right. The notion of a Swiss teacher is, that the school-hour for arithmetic is to be employed in ascertaining that the children understand the rule and the processes to which it is applied. The former practice places the abstract before the concrete, the latter works in the opposite way. The Swiss instruction aims to render the pupil capable of solving independently and with certainty the calculations which are likely to come up before him in ordinary life. In a word, the Swiss possess and follow a carefully-matured science of pedagogy. If a school is fate to a Swiss child, the vision comes to him in the likeness of a fairy; it is made, by public and private acts, a centre of happy thoughts and pleasant times; it shares the joy of home and the reward of church. The children have tasks to do at home nearly equal to the tasks at school. The hours of study, school-work, drill, and home-work are frequently from ten to twelve a day. Indeed, you may say, these Swiss children must tug at learning in a way that would create a rebellion with the young American. In spite of these long hours and manifold duties, the attention is never unduly strained, and, at intervals, never exceeding two hours, the class disperses for a few moments to the corridors or play-grounds for recreation and a romp. No people can boast of so many schools in proportion to population, or of a system of education at once so enlarged and simplified, so instructive and attractive, so scientific and practical. Healthy, for it takes care of the body as well as the mind; practical, for it teaches drawing, which is the key of all industrial and mechanical professions; moral and patriotic, because it is founded on love of country. In many countries it is a political or governing class which establishes popular schools for the benefit of the masses. In Switzerland it is the people, the Communes, which establish and sustain the schools for their own benefit. The same general equality of conditions prevails as in the United States, and these schools are freely used by all classes. This is as it should be in a free commonwealth, where character and ability are the only rank, and men are thrown together in later life according to the groups they form at school. Every child of superior merit, however humble and poor, has an equal chance to mount the highest round of the educational ladder. This building of human minds means business in Switzerland. Everywhere you find a school,—a primary school, a supplementary school, a secondary school, a day school, evening school, school for the blind, school for the deaf, industrial school, commercial school, linguistic school, intermediate school, gymnasium or high-school, university, polytechnical school, schools of every sort and size, class and grade, with the happy motto carved over many a door: “Dedicated to the Children.” It is a business, standing far ahead of petty politics and hunting after place, or the worship of Mammon; a business that, when nobly done, brings bountiful return in love of order, law, right, and truth.

The Swiss cantonal constitutions declare that the happiness of the people is to be found in good morals and good instruction; and that, in a free country, every citizen should have placed within his reach an education fitting him for his rights and duties. Every Canton has in its constitution some expression embodying the idea that the business of a public teacher is to make his boys good citizens and good Christians. In some Cantons the distinct announcement is made that the true end of public instruction is to combine democracy with religion. In that of Zurich it is announced: “The people’s school shall train the children of all classes, on a plan agreed upon, to be intelligent men, useful citizens, and moral, religious beings.” In Luzern it is laid down that “the schools shall afford to every boy and girl capable of receiving an education the means of developing their mental and physical faculties, of training them for life in the family, in the Commune, in the church, and in the state, and of putting them in the way of getting their future bread.” In Vaud it is declared that “teaching in the public schools shall be in accordance with the principles of Christianity and democracy.” In fact, the organic law of each and every Canton demands a system of public education, sound, solid, moral, and democratic. They all bespeak the early and imperishable impress of that great Swiss educational reformer who, more than a century ago, uttered the memorable invocation: “Patron saint of this country, announce it in thunder tones through hill and valley that true popular freedom can only be made possible through the education of man!” Since the two zealous Irish monks, Columban and Gall, went to the continent, A.D. 585, and the latter founded the famous monastery of St. Gallen, the descendants of the Helvetii have powerfully contributed to European civilization and progress; learning and science finding a home not only at St. Gallen, but at Basel, Zurich, Geneva, and Bern. In the age of the Carlovingians, more than a thousand years ago, the Abbey of St. Gallen was the most erudite spot in Europe. It had the original manuscript of Quintilian, from which the first edition was published. The art of printing, when in its infancy everywhere else, had already been carried to a high degree of perfection at Basel; and the crusaders, who conquered Constantinople, met there A.D. 1202. Geneva was early distinguished in the annals of literature and science as well as for progress in the arts. Learned men, some of the exiles of Queen Mary’s reign, among whom was Whittingham, who married Calvin’s sister, devoted “the space of two years and more, day and night,” to a careful revision of the text of the English Bible, and the preparation of a marginal commentary upon it. The result of these labors was the publication, in 1560, of the celebrated Geneva Bible. The cost of this was defrayed by the English congregation at Geneva. Queen Elizabeth, to whom it was dedicated, granted a patent to John Bodley, the father of the founder of the Bodleian Library, for the exclusive right of printing it in English for the space of seven years. Its advantages were so many and great that it at once secured and—even after the appearance of King James’s Bible—continued to retain a firm hold upon the bulk of the English nation. While Switzerland can hardly be said to possess a truly national literature, it has always maintained a very good literature in German and in French; but these literatures are not the expression of a common national life. The Swiss have displayed remarkable powers in science, in political philosophy, in history, and in letters. Among the distinguished workers in these intellectual fields may be mentioned Lavater, whose eloquence, daring, and imagination as a physiognomist procured European celebrity; Pestalozzi, the originator of a system of education to which he devoted a life of splendid sacrifice; De Saussure, the indefatigable philosopher, the inventor of a thermometer for ascertaining the temperature of water at all depths, and the electrometer for showing the electrical condition of the atmosphere; Bonnet, the psychologist; Gesner, the poet, whose “Death of Abel” has been translated into many languages; Müller, a historian remarkable for his patience in research, picturesque writing, and disgust for traditionary tales, and who is reported to have read more books than any man in Europe, in proof of which they point to his fifty folio volumes of excerpts in the town library of Schaffhausen; Zwingli, the Canon of Zurich and the co-laborer of Calvin, a man of extensive learning, uncommon sagacity, and heroic courage; Mallet, the illustrious student of antiquities of Northern Europe; Constant, philosopher of the source, forms, and history of religion; Sismondi, a writer of history, literature, and political economy; Necker, brilliant in politics and finance, and his celebrated daughter, Madame de Staël; Rousseau, who fired all Europe with his zeal for the rights of the poor and the free development of individual character, and who wielded the most fertile and fascinating pen that ever was pointed in the cause of infidelity; D’Aubigné, the well-known historian of the Reformation; Agassiz, the greatest naturalist of his age, and Guyot, his compatriot and fellow-worker, to whom we owe the inception of that system of meteorological observations called the Signal Service; Haller, Horner, Dumont, and many others who won an honorable place in learning and literature. The remarkable resources of its modern schools and universities, and the zeal of the rising generation for learning, promise well for the intellectual future of Switzerland. To be quick in thought and quick in action; to have practical, scientific, and technical knowledge; to be capable of appreciating new facts, and of taking large views; to be patient and painstaking; to have the power of working mentally for distant objects; to have an instinct of submission to law, both to the laws of society, which aim at justice to all and at order, and to the laws of nature, submission to which enables a man to use effectually his own powers and to turn to account the powers of nature; to raise life into a higher stage; to give to every one free opportunities for participation in the knowledge and moral training, combined with freedom and political equality, which will elevate the idea of humanity,—these are the moral and intellectual qualities with which the Swiss school system would fain endow the whole people. Just as their old agrarian system made land, so their new educational system is making intellectual training common to all. The powers it confers are now, in a sense, common pastures, upon which all may keep flocks and herds; common forests, from which all may get fuel and building-materials; and common garden ground, by the cultivation of which all may supply their wants. The quaint words of John Knox contain a sentiment still potent in Switzerland, “That no father, of what estate or condition that ever he may be, can use his children at his own fantasie, especially in their youthhood; but all must be compelled to bring up their youth in learning and virtue.”