We cannot conclude this portion of our subject without referring to the goitres, wens, or excres cences on the neck, to which in certain districts the Swiss are so liable. These excrescences are of in credible size, varying, as Mr. Coxe assures us, from the size of a walnut to almost the bigness of a peck loaf. They are not hereditary, as has been alleged, because many persons whose parents were free of them, have either been born or have become goitrous. Of the causes of goitres there have been various conjectures. The notion that snow-water occasions them is totally devoid of foundation; for on that supposition they would be most common in the interior and southern portions of the kingdom; which is not the case. They are as common in the north as elsewhere; and, besides, goitres are found to obtain, not merely in the champaign districts in the north of Italy, and in the neighbourhood of Na ples, but in several parts of the East Indies, where snow is unknown. Nor is the opinion, that they owe their origin to the concentrated heat of the cli mate, and to the stagnation of the air, better found ed. The truth is, it seems now to be universally believed, that the excrescences in question are to be attributed to the carbonate of lime, or tuf, as it is called in Switzerland, with which the springs are impregnated. The following illustration of this opinion, in the correctness of which subsequent writers most fully agree, we owe to an intelligent traveller, to whose work we have so often referred. " A surgeon, whom I met at the baths of Leuk," says Mr. Coxe, " informed me that he had not un frequently extracted concretions of from several goitres; and that from one in particular, which suppurated, he had taken several flat pieces, each about half an inch long. He added, that the same substance is found in the stomach of cows, and in the goitrous humour to which even the dogs of the country are subject. The same gentleman assured me that in the course of his extensive prac tice, he had diminished and cured the goitres of many young persons by emollient liquors and ex ternal applications; that his principal method, in order to prevent them in future, consisted in re moving the patients from the places where the springs are impregnated with tuf or calcareous matter; and, if that could not be contrived, by for bidding the use of water which was not purified. He confirmed the report that infants arc occasion ally born with guttural swellings; particularly those whose parents are goitrous; and remarked that one of his own children had at its birth a goitre as large as an egg. although neither he nor his wife, who were both foreigners,* were afflicted with that malady. Ile had dissipated it by external reme dies,* and, since that period, had invariably pro hibited his family from taking the spring waters, unless they were distilled, or mixed with wine or vinegar, by which means he was able to preserve them from those humours in the throat that were extremely common among the natives of the town which he inhabited."—(Travels, i. Goitres, we may conclude by mentioning, are most common in the cantons of Berne, Lucerne, Friburg, and Val lais, but particularly in the last; and in all of them the carbonate of lime is found in solution in almost all the springs.
Goitres have been described as checking respira tion, and rendering those afflicted with them indo lent and languid. But this, it is feared, is not their only effects. They are regarded as producing idiocy, or, it is supposed that the same causes that produce the one, occasion the other, thus affecting both the mind and the body. This fact is certain, not only that idiocy prevails most where goitres abound, but that idiots are most frequently both goitrous themselves, and are descended of parents so afflicted. The truth, in fine, is that idiocy, whatever is the cause, and the one assigned is the most likely, obtains more in Switzerland, particu larly in the Vallais, than in any other known coun try or district in the world.
Switzerland is remarkable for nothing more than for the means of education it possesses, and the consequent intelligence of its inhabitants. In this respect it is not inferior to the best educated coun tries in Europe. When the means of education are sufficiently ample in a country, from one-ninth to one-tenth of the population are attending school.
In Scotland, where our parochial schools afford us such facilities, the proportion undergoing education is below that average. In England, the deficiency is still more apparent. In France not more than the 28th part of the people are enjoying the bless ings of education; while in the Pays de Vaud the proportion is one-eighth, being more than the ave rage; so that the inhabitants of this district have been pronounced the best educated in Europe. The state of schools, however, is different in the dif ferent cantons. In none of them, however, is this important subject neglected; but education is more generally diffused among the catholic than the pro testant states. The most improved plans of in struction, such as that of Bell and Lancaster, have been introduced; and every means have been used to promote the great object in view,—the educa tion of the people. Nor has Switzerland merely in troduced the plans of others; she has, with great success, tried methods of her own, and has thus lent her aid to the great cause of education. The celebrated school of Pestalozzi, at Yverdun, in the Pays de Vaud, has been visited and celebrated by every traveller. This was the first seminary in which the intellectual system, as it has not inaptly been called, or that system which consists, not in mechanical routine, as is still too common in schools, but in illustrating the rationale of every subject taught, and of cultivating the mental facul ties, had its origin, and was brought to great per fection. It embraces also the plan of mutual in struction on the part of the pupils, as recommend ed by Bell and Lancaster. Of the old and new sys tems, as ascertained in this canton, the compara tive result is most clearly favourable.
By the Old System. By the New System.
40 out of 100 read well. 50 out of 100.
37 do. wrote well. 59 do.
21 do. understood orthography. 80 do.
15 do. arithmetic. 31 do.
38 do. catechism. 49 do.
Nor is the establishment termed the School of Industry, of Mr. Fellenberg, at Hofwyl, in the can ton of Berne, less celebrated than that of Pestalozzi. The object of this seminary is to combine scholastic education with industry; which at Hofwyl is agri cultural, but which might, in towns for example, be manufacturing, or of any kind whatever. We have not time to examine into the real merits of this scheme, for an account of which we refer to Simond's Travels, (vol. i. and to an excel lent article in No. 64 of the Edinburgh Review; but we may mention that, like that of Pestalozzi, it has given a great impulse to education through out the country, and has produced some very emi nent scholars. Pupils of the highest rank come to it from Germany, France, England, &c.—Of the other seminaries in Switzerland the character stands high. In most of the cantons education is a mat ter of state, and is under the immediate protection of government. Not to speak of the schools in the country districts, most of the large towns enjoy similar most efficient institutions; and in Zurich, Berne, and Lausanne, there are academies or col leges of great reputation. The universities of Basil and Geneva have long been celebrated, and can ex hibit in the list of their pupils and professors some of the greatest names in Europe. Since the revival of learning, Switzerland can boast Zuinglius, and Oecolampadius, Bullinger, and Beza, the reformers; Hans Holbein, the celebrated painter;; Ischudi, who died in 1592, and who has been characterised by M. Simond, as " the first and greatest historian in Switzerland;" Paracelsus, the physician and alchy mist; Turretine; Ostervald; Conrad Gesner, and his descendant John Gesner, both naturalists; Solo mon Gesner, styled the Theocrates of Germany; also Bodmer, " justly denominated," says Mr Coxe, " the father of German literature;" Hottinger, the historian; Senebier, the literary historian; Bonnet, the naturalist and metaphysician; Mallet, the his torian and antiquary; Leonard Meister, the histo rian; Albert Haller; the two Bernoullis, mathema ticians; Saussure and de Luc; Zimmerman; Rous seau; Lavater; Euler; Necker. Physical philosophy and natural history, profane history and antiquities, biography and bibliography, are the branches in science and literature most cultivated in this coun try.