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The programmes of the several lessons* in both sections are prepared by the masters, and submitted to the council of public instruction every year before the beginning of the course.

Besides these lectures and recitations, the pupils are required to attend such other lectures at the faculty of letters or of sciences of the university, or any other public institution, as may be designated to them. At the termination of the third year's course, in the month of July, they are examined. in the school, and present themselves as competitors for the places of adjuncts, according to the special studies which they have pursued.

The courses of the school are arranged in reference to the competition for these places, an account of the examinations for which has already been given in the general description of secondary instruction in France. In this competition they are brought in contact with the best talent which has chosen a different road to preferment from that offered by the normal school. Success in this trial is, of course, not always a fair criterion of the state of the school, but certainly offers, on the average, an idea of the merits of its different departments, and is so used in directing their improvement. It may be of interest, therefore, to give the results of one of these competitions, namely, that for 1836. The judges of the competition for the places of adjuncts in philosophy report ten candidates for the six places; of these, five of the successful ones were from the normal school, but the first was from another institution. For six vacancies in the higher classes of letters there were thirty candidates examined, and of these, two of the successful ones, including the first upon the list, were pupils of the school. For adjuncts in the sciences there were eight places and nineteen candidates, the school furnishing six of the successful competitors, and among them the first on the list. In history and geography there were eight candidates for five places; the institutions from which they came are, however, not stated. In grammar, there were forty-one candidates for eight places; of the successful competitors the school sent five, and among them the first on the list.

The keen nature of this competition, while it excites the pupils of the school to great exertion, produces a most deleterious effect upon the health of the more feeble. Indeed, their general appearance, when compared with those of other young men of the same age, is far from favorable. It is part of a system which is considered adapted to the national character, but which is certainly by no means a necessity for men in general, since the teachers of the German gymnasia are prepared without its severe pressure.

The collections subsidiary to the instruction are-1st. A library of works relating to education and to the courses of study, which is open for two hours every day, and from which the students may receive books. This library is under the charge of the sub-director of studies. The students are, besides, furnished with the books which they use in their classes at the expense of the school, and which, unless injured, are returned by them after use. 2d. A small collection of physical apparatus. 3d. A collection of chemical apparatus connected with a laboratory, for practice in manipulation. The courses of manipulation are not, however, carried out to their due extent, and the study-rooms are common to many individuals. The pupils are divided into two sections for study, each of which is in charge of one of the superintending masters.

Discipline. Though there are minute regulations for discipline, the age of the pupils and the character of their pursuits and expectations render the exercise of severity but little necessary. At the time of my visit to the school, in 1837, the youngest pupil was seventeen years of age, and there were but four of between eighteen and nineteen connected with it.

Much difference of opinion exists as to whether the frequent permissions to individuals to leave the premises should not be replaced by excursions made by the whole of the pupils, under the supervision of an officer. At • A series of programmes is given in full in M. Cousin's work, before referred to.

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present, Sunday is a day of general leave of absence, and on Thursday afternoon individual permissions are freely granted by the director of studies.

This institution occupies the same rank with those attached to some of the Prussian universities, and intended to prepare masters for the gymnasia. It has an advantage over them in the spirit produced by the greater numbers of its pupils, and by the closer connection with the school, which results from their studying and residing within its walls. It is, in turn, inferior to the seminaries for secondary teachers at Berlin, in the absence of arrangements for practical teaching, and in even a more important respect, namely, the want of that religious motive of action which forms the characteristic of the Prussian system. The deficiencies of this great school, in regard to both religious and practical education, struck me, I must confess, very forcibly.*

* In the general tenor of the foregoing remarks, I have the sanction of M. Cousin, in the pref ace to his account of the Normal School, already referred to.

VIII PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN SWITZERLAND.

THE following general outline of the educational institutions of Switzerland, will be found to contain not only an interesting notice of the Normal Schools of that country, but also valuable hints respecting the compulsory attendance of children at school, and school inspection, as well as the relations of education to pauperism. It is abridged from a recent work by Joseph Kay, published by J. Hatchard and Son, London, 1846, entitled "The Education of the poor in England and Europe."

"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 connection 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 traveler 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 Argovia and Berne are partly Protestant and partly Roman Catholic. Not only, therefore, does the traveler 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 gov

ernment.

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 du

ties.

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 afterward, until they attain the age of fourteen or fifteen. In the canton of Argovia, 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, Argovia, Zurich, Thurgovia, 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 seven and fifteen 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 heart-rending 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, groveling 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 susceptible minds of the young, quarreling, 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 fountain-head 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 favorable 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 n 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 onehalf its capital, supports and carries on an educational system greater than that which our government maintains for the whole of England and Wales! Knowing that it is hopeless to attempt to raise thé character of the education of a country without first raising the character and position of the schoolmaster, Switzerland has established, and at the present moment supports, thirteen Normal schools for the instruction of the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, whilst England and Wales rest satisfied with six! Eleven of these schools are permanent, and are held during the whole of the year; the remaining two sit only for about three months yearly, for the purpose of examining monitors recommended by the masters of the primary schools, and desirous of obtaining diplomas to enable them to act as schoolmasters. In the majority of these schools the members of the different religious sects are received with a willingness and with a Christian charity, which puts to shame our religious intolerance. Nor does this liberality proceed from any carelessness about the religious education of the people, for no master can obtain, from his canton's government, a diploma, to enable him to officiate as schoolmaster, without having first obtained from a clergyman of his own church a certificate of moral character and of competency to conduct the religious education in the school for which he is destined; but it proceeds rather from a recognition of this great truth, that the cause of religion must be deeply injured by neglecting the secular education of the people, and from a Christian resolution in all parties to concede somewhat, for the sake of insuring what must be the foundation of all social improvement, the advancement of the intelligence and morality of the people. M. Gauthey, a Presbyterian clergyman, and director of the Normal schools at Lausanne, M. Vehrli, director of the Normal school near Constance, the professors of the Normal school in Argovia, M. Schneider von Langnau, minister of public instruction in the canton of Berne, and M. Fellenberg, of Hofwyl, all assured me that they did not find the least inconvenience resulting from the instruction of different sects in the same schools. Those who differ in faith from the master of the school are allowed to absent themselves from the doctrinal lessons given in the school, and are required to attend one of their own clergy for the purpose of receiving from him their doctrinal instruction.

Even in Fribourg, a canton governed by Catholic priests, Protestants may be found mingled with the Catholics in the schools, and are allowed to absent themselves during the hours of religious lessons; and, in Argovia, a canton which has lately so distinguished itself by its opposition to the Jesuits of Lucerne, I found that several of the professors in the Normal school were Catholics, and that the utmost tolerance was manifested to all the Catholics attending the cantonal schools.

The Swiss governments perceived, that if the powerful sects in the several cantons were to refuse education to the Dissenters, only one part of the population would be educated. They perceived also, that secular education was necessary to the progress of religious education, and that they could secure neither without liberality; and therefore they resolved that all the children should be required to attend school, and that all the schools should be opened to the whole population.

In the canton of Neuchâtel, they have no Normal school, but they choose their masters from the monitors of the primary schools, who are most carefully educated and trained by the masters of the primary schools

In 1846 the population of Switzerland was about 2,400,000.

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