SWITZERLAND.
Each of the twenty-five cantons of Switzer land has its own separate and independent school organization, and there are very few federal regulations on the subject. The Federal Constitution of 1874 empowers the Band to es tablish and maintain or assist a university or other institution for 'higher education.' This power has not been used except to continue the support of the Federal Polytechnic at Zurich, and to subsidize various cantonal higher insti tutions. The Constitution further states that all education, whether middle or private, must be under the control of the cantons. They must provide for it, and make it compulsory and gratuitous. That they do this well is evident from the fact that in 1S98-99 the ratio of attendance to population was great er there than in any other country in the world, while of the recruits in 1899 only .23 per cent. could not read. All attempts to estab lish anything like a centralized system have met with determined opposition by those who feared interference with linguistic or religious instruc tion in the schools. Indeed, the problems of education in Switzerland are more complex than in most countries. Some cantons arc predomi nantly French, others are German. others Italian, and there is still a fourth vernacular. Romansch, extensively spoken. In cantons where one lan guage predominates, another is usually the sole one spoken by a considerable part of the people. r.Nlore,)ver, Catholicism and Protestantism are face to face everywhere, and both fear that the free-thinkers might endeavor to exclude religious instruction from the schools if their control were centralized. The Constitution provides, however, that "it must he possible for the public schools to be attended by the adherents of all beliefs without hurting their freedom of belief or con science." That not more than 3 per cent. of the attendance is in private schools, which are, 11101•00Ver, patronized almost entirely IT children of non-Swiss parentage, attests the satisfactory nature of the religious instruction in the public schools. A few cantons, as Geneva, exclude it
entirely from the public system. Three addi tional Federal regulations affect education. The first forbids the labor in factories of children under fourteen. and limits that of those under sixteen. The second prescribes an examination for every recruit on entering the army at his twentieth year. The results of this are made known, and it stimulates educational effort, be sides bringing into existence improving schools for recruits, and increasing the attendance at continuation schools. The final regulation con cerns military drill, which by the acts of 1874, 1877, and 1883 is made a required part of every school programme, to be given to children be tween ten and fifteen years of age.
At the foundation of the school system of Switzerland wc have at present the communal primary schools taking children from six to eleven years of age. After this they go either to the cantonal secondary schools proper, or to the advanced elementary schools, the so-called 'secondary' schools, the district for one of which embraces several communes, or to the communal continuation schools, usually held in the evening. There are also courses for adults given in the communes. The secondary schools are main tained by the cantons, and include professional and technical schools, with others variously styled middle schools, gymnasia. or pro-gym nasia. These are supplemented by cantonal uni versities and a Federal polytechnic. The teachers are licensed IT cantonal governments on examina tion, or in sonic cantons on a diploma from a normal For the higher grades of work, an additional examination is required. There were in 1900 thirty-eight normal schools in Switzerland, most of them public institutions maintained IT the cantons. In most cantons teachers are elected for life, either by a school board or at a general election. They are also usually pensioned at the end of their term of service. This is, in general, partly provided for by a fund to which they make regular con tributions.