There is no standing army in Switzerland, but every citizen is obliged to serve as a soldier, and military drill is taught at all the schools. The Swiss regular force numbers 120,000; the reserve 92,000. The whole expense of the military establishment was, in 1878, estimated at 13,298,367 francs. The estimated national revenues amounted (1878) to 40,442,000 francs, and the expenditure to 42,818,000 francs.
Language and the sequestered valleys of the Grisons, two-thirds of the population still speak a Latin dialect known as the Rornaunsh; Italian dialects have pen etrated up the valleys of Ticino; French patois has invaded western Switzerland by the Rhine and the valleys of the Jura, to Laufen, the frontier of Soleure, lake Morat, the Upper Saane, and Siders in the Valais. In the rest of Switzerland the dialects are German. Of every 1000 Swiss, 702 speak German, 226 French, 55 Italian, and 17 Romaunsh. The Swiss reformation spread chiefly from Basel, Bern, and Geneva, and the chief Protestant districts are the countries communicating with these towns. The Alpine region is almost entirely Roman Catholic, the seven Catholic cantons being Lucerne, Zug, Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, Valais, and Ticino. Out of 1000 Swiss, 411 are Roman Catholics, 587 Protestants, and 2 Jews.
no country is elementary instruction more widely diffused. Parents are compelled to send their children to school, or have them privately taught from six to twelve. There are 'universities on the German model at Basel, Bern, and Zurich, and academies on the French plan at Geneva and Lausanne. The number of clubs for scientific and literary, musical and social purposes, is most remarkable. There are no pursuits to which a class of men can devote themselves which are not represented by societies in Switzerland. The local political assemblies and other public meetings give ample employment to the newspaper and periodical press. In Switzerland there are accordingly 188 political journals, and 167 periodicals devoted to literature and science. There are 40 daily papers. This active intellectual life is, however, chiefly confined to the Protestant cantons.
was in Roman times inhabited by two races—the Helvetii, sup posed to have been Celts, on the north-west; and the Rlhetians (of whose origin we know nothing) on the south-east. After the conquest of Gaul, both races adopted the lan guage and habits of Rome. When the invasions took place, the Burgundians settled in western Switzerland; while the Alemanni, another Germanic tribe, took possession of the country east of the Aar. A third Teutonic people, the Goths, entered the country from Italy, and took possession of the country of the Rhwtians, which nearly corre sponded with the Grisons. The Burgundians adopted Christianity in the end of the 5th the Helvetii retained their old pagan creed until the 7th c., when they were con
verted by Irish monks, who founded abbeys and churches, which survive to our own time. Switzerland, in the early part of the middle ages, formed part of the German empire, and feudalism sprang up in the Swiss highlands even more vigorously than it did elsewhere. During the 11th and 12th centuries, the greater part of Switzerland was ruled on behalf of the emperors by the lords of Zahringen (q. v.), who did much to check civil wars, and to promote the prosperity of the towns. They, however, became extinct in 1218, and then the country was distracted by wars which broke out among the leading families. The great towns united in self-defense, and many of them ob tained imperial charters. In 1273, Rudolf of Hapsburg, a Swiss nobleman who had favored the independence of the towns, became emperor. After doing so, he continued the same policy; but his son, Albert I. (q. v.), took another course. He attacked the great towns and was defeated. The leading men of the forest cantons, which for ages had yielded a merely nominal recognition of the empire, and had acknowledged no feudal superior, met on the Ruth meadow, on Nov. 7, 1307, and resolved to expel the Austrian bailiffs or landvogte. See TELL. The war terminated in favor of the Swiss at Morgarten in 1315. Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, with Lucerne, Zurich, Glarus, Zug, and Bern, eight cantons in all, in 1352, entered into a perpetual league, which was the foundation of the Swiss confederation. Other wars with Austria fol lowed, which terminated favorably for the confederates at Nafels (q. v.) and Sempach (q. v.). In 1415, the people of the cantons became the aggressors. They invaded Aargau and Thurgau, parts of the Austrian territory, and annexed them; three years later, they crossed the Alps and annexed Ticino, and constituted all three subject states. The Swiss were next engaged in a struggle on the French frontier with Charles the bold of Burgundy. They entered the field with 34,000 men, to oppose an army of 60,000, and yet they were successful, gaining the famous battles of Granson and Morat in 1476. In 1481 the towns of Freiburg and Soleure were admitted into the confeder acy. In 1499 the emperor Maximilian I. made a final attempt to bring Switzerland once more within the bounds of the empire. He sought to draw men and supplies from the inhabitants for his Turkish war; but in vain. He was defeated in six desperate engagements. Base] and Schaffhausen (1501), and Appenzell (1513), were then received into the confederation, and its true independence began. The abbacy of St. Gall, the cities of St. Gall, 3Ifflilhausen, and Blaine became associated states with a vote at the diet. Geneva, Neufchatel, Valais, and the Grisons, also became associated states, but without a vote.