THE

EDUCATION OF THE POOR.

CHAPTER II.

The present state of Primary Education in Switzerland, France, Prussia, Wirtemberg, Baden, &c., Bavaria, Austria, Holland, and Denmark.

My intention in the present chapter is to give a brief outline of the national systems of Education in each of the above countries, and to show how the difficulties arising from differences in religious creeds have been surmounted, and what machinery the several governments have deemed essential to the realization of the education of their people. Nor can I regard this to be a useless study for Englishmen, as we are yet only inquiring how to overcome the difficulties which impede the progress of this question, whilst nearly all the countries of Europe and of North America have some years ago built up their national systems, and are now watch. ing one another's progress, and perfecting that which they have severally done, by adopting those improvements which their several experience shows to be best adapted to promote the great end of all their efforts.

Perhaps of all countries Switzerland offers the most instructive lesson to any one investigating educational systems and institutions. It is divided into twenty-two independent cantons, each of which manages its own internal policy after its own peculiar views; so that the educational systems of the several cantons differ very materially, whilst the federal government which unites all, brings all into intimate connexion one with another, and facilitates improvement, as the institutions which are found to work best are gradually adopted by all the different governments. Each canton being acquainted with the systems pursued by the others, the traveller is enabled, not only to make his own observations on the various results, but is benefited also by the conversation of men accustomed to compare what is being done by their own government with what is being done by others, and to inquire into the means of perfecting their educational systems.

But the advantage to be derived from an investigation of the various efforts made by the different cantons, is still further increased by the fact of their great difference in religious belief. Thus, the population of the canton of Vaud, for example, is decidedly Presbyterian, -that of Lucerne is almost exclusively Roman Catholic, whilst those of Argovie and Berne are partly Protestant and partly Roman Catholic. Not only, therefore, does the traveller enjoy the advantage of studying the educational systems of countries professing different religious creeds, but the still greater one of witnessing the highly satisfactory solution of the various difficulties arising from differences of religious belief existing under the same government.

I shall endeavour, therefore, first, to give a general outline of the educational institutions of Switzerland, so far as they agree with each other, and I shall then speak more particularly of the progress education has made in the different cantons.

The great development of primary education in Switzerland, dates from 1832 or 1833, immediately after the overthrow of the old aristocratical oligarchies. No sooner did the cantonal governments become thoroughly popular, than the education of the people was commenced on a grand and liberal scale, and from that time to this, each year has witnessed a still further progress, until the educational operations of the several governments have become by far their most weighty and important duties.

Throughout all the cantons, with the exception of Geneva, Vallais, and three small mountainous cantons on the Lake of Lucerne, where the population is too scanty and too scattered to allow of the erection of many schools, education is compulsory; that is, all parents are required by law to send their children to school from the age of six to the age of fourteen, and, in several cantons, to the age of sixteen. The schoolmasters in the several communes are furnished with lists of all the children in their districts, which are called over every morning on the assembling of school; the absentees are noted, and also the reasons, if any, for their absence; these lists are regularly examined by the inspectors, who fine the parents of the absentees for each day of absence.

In some of the manufacturing districts, the children are permitted to leave school and enter the mills at the age of eleven, if they have then obtained from the inspectors a certificate of being able to read and

write, but they are obliged to attend a certain number of periodical lessons afterwards, until they attain the age of fourteen or fifteen. In the canton of Argovie, however, which is one of the manufacturing districts of Switzerland, the children are not allowed to enter the mills until they attain the age of thirteen, and I was assured by several of the manufacturers of this canton, that they did not suffer any inconvenience from this regulation, although it had been warmly opposed at first by the commercial men.

It ought to be remembered, that these laws are enforced under the most democratic forms of government.

The people themselves require attendance at the schools, so conscious are they of the necessity of education to the encouragement of temperance, prudence, and order.

In the cantons of Berne, Vaud, Argovie, Zurich, Thurgovie, Lucerne, and Schaffhouse, where this law is put into force most stringently, it may be said with truth, that all the children between the ages of 7 and 15 are receiving a sound and religious education. This is a most charming result, and one which is destined to rapidly advance Switzerland, within the next eighty years, in the course of a high Christian civilization. One is astonished and delighted in walking through the towns of the cantons I have mentioned, to miss those heartrending scenes to be met with in every English town; I mean the crowds of filthy, half-clothed children, who may be seen in the back streets of any of our towns, grovelling in the disgusting filth of the undrained pavements, listening to the lascivious songs of the tramping singers, witnessing scenes calculated to demoralize adults, and certain to leave their impress on the suscep

tible minds of the young, quarrelling, swearing, fighting, and in every way emulating the immorality of those who bred them. There is scarcely a town in England and Wales whose poorer streets, from eight in the morning until ten at night, are not full of these harrowing and disgusting scenes, which thus continually show us the real fountainhead of our demoralized pauperism. In Switzerland nothing of the kind is to be seen. The children are as regularly engaged in school, as their parents are in their daily occupations, and henceforward, instead of the towns continuing to be, as in England, and as they have hitherto been in Switzerland, the hot-beds and nurseries of irreligion, immorality, and sedition, they will only afford still more favourable opportunities, than the country, of advancing the religious, moral, and social interests of the children of the poor. How any one can wonder at the degraded condition of our poor, after having walked through the back streets of any of our towns, is a thing I never could understand. For even where there are any schools in the town, there are scarcely ever any playgrounds annexed to them; so that in the hours of recreation the poor little children are turned out into the streets, to far more than forget all the moral and religious counsel given in the school. It is strange that we do not understand how invaluable the refuge is, which a school and playground afford to the children of the poor, however indifferent the education given in the school.

This small country, beautified but impoverished by its Alpine ranges, containing a population less than that of Middlesex, and less than one half its capital, supports and carries on an educational system greater than that which our Government maintains for the whole