HOW A DEMOCRACY CAN EDUCATE ITSELF.

MHE Canton of Zurich is afflicted with an impossible Consti- tution,—impossible, that is to say, according to all ap- proved theories of political and economic science. It has so little respect for the sanctities of representative government, that no law passed by its Assembly can take effect until con- firmed by the people at large. It has gone so far in the practice of what the French would call a " subversive" political economy, that for nearly forty years it has substituted for all other imposts a progressive income and property-tax. It seems to stand thus, as it were, transfixed upon those "rocks ahead" of which our native Cassandra has lately been prophesying tons.

Strange to say, it has not yet gone to pieces on its rocks, but on the contrary, seems to fare very well upon them. Although much of its soil is not under culture, and its arable land supplies but a very small portion of its consumption in cereals, its population is proportionately double that of Eng- land. The north-west portion of Switzerland, of which econo- mically, if not geographically, it forms part, is reckoned to be, in Continental Europe, the region where, in relation to area, there is the largest amount of accumulated capital. The flourishing manufactories of Zurich are among those which are held up habitually as bugbears to our own producers, to inculcate the heinousness of strikes and the necessity for long hours of work. Pauperism, properly speaking, is unknown - in the canton, and the well-being of its people rather increases in proportion to the distance from the towns. The average wealth per family of its population is reckoned to be three times that of France. As elsewhere in Switzerland, agriculture and manufactures are combined in the occupations of the • people. The father and his sons work in the fields, the mother throws silk at home, or too often with her daughter goes to the factory. But there is no infant labour. It is only at 'twelve years of age that children can go to work, and even then their schooling, as will be presently seen, continues.

It is the Educational system of the Canton which most deserves to be examined, and which probably more or less explains all the rest. Education is obligatory, and in the public schools gratuitous, the private schools being also under Government inspection. It is made, indeed, a matter of complaint that infant schools (for children up to the age of six) are left entirely outside of the sphere of State action. But primary instruction, beginning at six, lasts no less than nine years, of which six are spent in ' elementary ' and six in 'com- plementary' schools, the number of school-hours per week rising from 20 hours the first year to 28 in the sixth ; or for girls, 32, including their sewing-lessons. In the complementary schools, the teaching consists of eight hours per week, four each in the Tuesday and Thursday forenoons, during which the previous studies are gone over again. Even during the tenth year the pupils have to return once a week to the school-house for a singing-lesson (their musical instruction having begun at seven). An effort was, indeed, lately made to raise the school-hours in the complementary schools to twelve, but the people (Cassandra may have the benefit of the fact) rejected the law. In the year 1872, 33,000 children attended the primary schools, and cost the State 634,000fs.,—say £25,360, or a trifle over 15s. a head. Subsidies are given to printers and lithographers with a view to cheapening school publications. The result is said to be marvellous, school-books being published by the 40,000,50,000, and 100,000. A first- rate atlas, in the hands of every scholar, costs next to nothing. In addition to some 600 .primary schools, there are also 76 secondary schools, which, since last year, have also been made gratuitous. Attendance is here optional, and it is observed that the number of girls, though increasing, is yet far short of that of boys,-32 percent. Education, which is mixed throughout almost all the primary schools, remains so frequently also in the secondary schools. The school-hours are generally 34 per week, and the course comprises modern languages, history, geography, physical science, drawing, writing, geometry for

boys, " conversation " and needlework for girls, besides gymnastics. Rather more than 3,000 pupils attend the secondary schools, and cost the canton a little over £6,000 a year. In the primary and secondary schools, the Communes name the teachers. For successful teachers there is great com- petition. The minimum pay for primary teachers is £48 a year, with a house, fuel, and a kitchen-garden ; but the Com- munes may increase the pay at pleasure, and the State may contribute to such increase up to £60. For secondary teachers the minimum pay is £72 (of which half is defrayed by the State), with the same advantages, and may, in like manner, be increased, the State contributing to the increase up to £80. The State, moreover, allows retiring pensions, rising from £4 for from 7 to 12 years' service to £16 for 25 years' and over. Compare these figures with France, where the official pay is £28 for a primary teacher of 5 years' standing, and his retiring pension from £3 4s. to £3 12s. a year. Two peculiarities attach to the Zurich school-system. One, which will soon disappear, is that till now only men-teachers have been employed, although, as before observed, the classes are generally mixed. The other is that (beyond a few exhibi- tions in the industrial school and gymnasium, to be presently spoken of) no prizes are given ; everything depends on marks. With good marks, the poor scholar can obtain remission of school fees in the higher grades of instruction next to be noticed.

• Besides the gratuitous secondary schools, there are also cantonal schools, which are largely subsidised by the State, so that for abut £2 a year the pupil receives an education cost-

ing £10, of the State defrays four-fifths. Here, after two years' study—the courses comprising arithmetic, geometry, geography, history, German, and French—a choice has to be made between the gymnasium for humanities, and the indus- trial school, which itself, after the first year, divides itself into two branches,—the commercial and technical. In the com- mercial branch two years are spent in studying English, Italian, commercial arithmetic, book-keeping, and a little chemistry. In the technical branch, after the first year, there is a further subdivision between chemistry and mathematics, which take up eighteen months longer. In the gymnasium the courses last four years. Thus the school years of working-men are from six to fifteen (or sixteen, if we include. the last year's singing-class). Those of the trader are from six to seventeen (six years in the primary schools, two in the secondary or can- tonal schools three in the industrial schools) ; those of the engineer, architect, chemist, Sm., from six to seventeen and a half ; those of the lawyer, doctor, theologian, &c., from six to eighteen. It should be observed that the industrial school is open upon examination to the pupils leaving the secondary schools, who, indeed, furnish the majority of its scholars.

It may be asked how the "religious difficulty" is met. The catechism and sacred history are regularly taught by the masters, without restriction on the expression of their opinions. On the other hand, parents can always withdraw their children from religious instruction. No figures are at hand for the primary or secondary schools, but in 1872-3, the abstentions from religious instruction were twenty-three per cent, of the whole number in the gymnasium, and forty-two per cent. in the industrial school. Twenty per cent, of the pupils in the latter have been, as we should say, confirmed. Beyond the schools lie two closely-connected institutions, but one of which is maintained by the Federal Government, and the other by the Canton itself,—the former for the higher scien- tific instruction (medicine excepted), the latter for the higher humanities, with medicine. Perhaps it will be expected that the former class of studies—practical and positive—will be those of which the Zurich democracy has taken upon itself the burden. Quite the contrary. It is the Confederation

which has established and keeps up the " Polytechnicum '." it

is the Canton which maintains the University, with its four faculties of Law, Theology, Philosophy, and Medicine, and its sixty-nine professors, besides " Privat-docenten," the 'students paying a fee of 8s. per year for each course of lectures of one hour a week.

To sum up, the cost of public instruction in the Canton is about £52,000 a year, or at the rate of 4s. 71d. per head for

its inhabitants, exclusively of the contributions by the Communes.

Proportionately, the sum expended is from thirteen to fourteen times more than in Prance. There is no likelihood that the Educational budget of the Canton will be stinted. Zurich is proud to call itself the Athens of German Switzerland. In almost every neighbourhood the school is the finest building to be seen ; the cantonal schools in particular are generally placed in the most commanding situations, just outside the towns. Zurich is yet far from deeming its educational system complete, and various new institutions are commenced or pro- jected besides those already noticed.

It follows, then, that this impossible democracy, with its 1 aws Toted or vetoed by the people at large, and its progressive income and property-tax, not only supplies gratuitous instruc- tion during nine to ten years for its working-class, but provides in the most liberal manner for the education of its commercial and professional classes,—giving them two years of gratuitous secondary instruction, taking upon itself four-fifths of the cost of their higher instruction till they are from seventeen to eighteen years old,—and then opens to the professional classes a richly-maintained university, in which men like Oken and Schonbein have held classes. Could it well do more, if it cultivated the soundest economic traditions ?

Let us look now at the general results. The theory of the Swiss Constitution is well known to be that every citizen is a soldier. Military education begins in the complementary and secondary schools, or, say, between the ages of twelve and sixteen, taking up on an average three hours a week. In order to test the acquirements of recruits when actually called under arms, examinations were carried on in the years 1871-2, bearing on reading, writing, and arithmetic. The reading exercises consisted in a few pages of Swiss history. What were called exercises in writing were, in fact, exercises in composition, the recruit being called upon to describe his father's house, the school where he had been educated, his barracks, &c. In arithmetic, sums were set in interest or rule of three.

The very nature of the exercises suffices to low the sur- prisingly high standard which the men were expected to have attained. But the results are more surprising still. They were denoted by the marks 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0. In reading, 0 did not mean that the recruit could not read at all, but simply that he did not do so fluently ; 1, meant that he committed faults; 2, that he "left something to be desired as respects understanding and punctuation ;" and 4 and 3, either that he read fluently and with expression, and with a full understanding of the subject (4), or (3), that he did so somewhat less perfectly. Out of 1,000 recruits only 5 had the mark 0, 83 had 1, 273 had 2, 462 had 3, and 177 had 4. In writing again, 0 meant not that the recruit could not write at all, but that he could only form words or letters ; 1 that he could just write and spell ; 2 that (besides writing and spelling), he could just be understood ; 3 that the substance of the composition was right, but the form not perfect ; 4, that the composition was correct, and in an agreeable style. Here, again, only five had the 0, 134 the 1, 395 the 2, 355 the 3, and strange to say, 411 the mark 4, so that literally the largest of the five classes was the one with full powers of written expression. In arithmetic, lastly, where 0 denoted blunders in the four first rules, 1 a knowledge of those rules only, 2 a comprehension and more or less satisfactory solution of problems, 3 a correct but slow r‘nd heavy solution of them, and 4 the rapid and correct solution of them, both mentally and in writing, 6 had 0, 43 had 1; 233 had 2, 518 had 3, and 200 had 4,—the third class here being, as in reading, the most numerous. Hence it follows that out of 1,000 Zurich recruits only from 5 to 6 read, write, or cypher badly (not "and cypher," for out of 1,479 in all, only two had 0 in everything); whilst from 639 to 766 read fluently and understand what they read, express themselves in writing correctly and intelligibly, or solve correctly sums in interest and rules-of-three. One hundred, moreover, out of 1,479, were in the fourth class in every instance. In other words, from six-tenths to seven-tenths of the Zurich popula- tion are educated men, qualified to rise by further self-improve- ment to any position whatever ; and one-tenth have a superior education. The examinations, it may be added, were not con- tinued beyond 1872, as the results were found to be exactly the same on all points, except that there was a slight rise in the marks, the average being 2.68 in 1872 against 2.62 in 1871.

Compared with France, it is found that 250 French con- scripts out of 1,000 know less than the five who know least among the Zurich recruits ; whilst only between 62 and 63 would come up to the standard of the Zurich second class. In our own Army, the figures of the latest report of the Director- General of Military Education are not quite so bad as those of 'France ; though, as they apply to the whole Army, and not to re- cruits only, and therefore include, presumably, to some extent the results of the education which is being given in the Army itself, the comparison they afford is not an exact one. Out of 178,356 men, 10,724 can neither read nor write, giving a pro- portion of over 60 per thousand as against the French 250, but as against less than two in Zurich. 9,543 can read, but not -write, making over 53 per thousand, as against five in Zurich. With respect to the 99,910 English soldiers who can read and write, and the 58,179 who are better educated, it is impossible to establish any comparison with the Zurich results. But, on the whole, we shall probably be within the mark if we say that the army of the Zurich democracy is at least ten times as well educated as our own. At the same time, it may be said that the standard of an army raised by conscription from the whole population ought to be higher than that of one like our own, voluntarily recruited in great measure from ite lowest class.

Now, it is not pretended that the institutions which may suit a small canton with the population of a large English city are adapted to those of the -United Kingdom, with its over 30 millions of inhabitants. But the example of Zurich shows that the fullest power given to the whole people may be wielded for the benefit of the whole people. Rocks ahead there may be, nay, there must be, in the course of any ship of State. But there are channels between those rocks, and this Swiss canton, instead of being wrecked upon them, as from a distance we might fancy it was, has found a way through them. We may surely do the same, trusting in God, and in the good-sense and good-feeling of our people.*