232 EDUCATION AND ILLITERACY. 



EGYPT. 



cordance with the law. In a circular, dated 

 April 25th, Cardinal Donnet, the venerable 

 Archbishop of Bordeaux, said the masters 

 would do nothing contrary to the new law by 

 meeting the scholars in the morning, before 

 the hour for opening the school, for prayer 

 and study of the catechism in a private room 

 outside the school proper; and, where that was 

 impracticable, he authorized the use of the 

 church for the purpose. In Belgium the ec- 

 clesiastical authorities have held an attitude of 

 discouragement to the secular public schools, 

 even withholding the sacraments from those 

 taking part in their management and instruc- 

 tion, or resorting to them for education. The 

 different action shown by the Church in France 

 is due to the obligatory features of the law, 

 from which there is no escape without con- 

 flict with the state, and the lack of school 

 facilities other than those provided by the 

 state in most of the poorer and more sparsely 

 peopled communes. 



QUESTION IN SWITZERLAND. An interesting 

 and important question has been brought up 

 in Switzerland by an effort to transfer the 

 charge of public education from the local au- 

 thorities to the Federal Government. By the 

 elections of October, 1881, a considerable radi- 

 cal majority was returned to the Federal As- 

 sembly, and on June 14, 1882, the following 

 decree was adopted by the two Houses, the 

 National Council and the Council of the States : 

 The Federal Council is charged to proceed im- 

 mediately, through the Department of the Inte- 

 rior, to such investigation and study in regard 

 to the situation of the schools in the cantons, 

 as is necessary to assure the complete execution 

 of Article XXVII of the Federal Constitution, 

 and to authorize legislation on the subject. To 

 place the department in a satisfactory position 

 for this task, it is allowed a special secretary 

 (Secretary of Public Instruction), with an an- 

 nual compensation limited to 6,000 francs. His 

 functions shall be determined by a special regu- 

 lation of the Federal Council. This proposi- 

 tion occasioned a good deal of discussion, and 

 met with warm opposition. As one result of 

 school management in the cantons through the 

 local authorities, the sentiment of the people 

 in regard to religious instruction had been very 

 generally satisfied. The provisions of Article 

 XXVII of the Federal Constitution are the fol- 

 lowing : u The cantons provide for primary 

 education, which shall be sufficient, and placed 

 exclusively under the direction of the civil au- 

 thority. It is obligatory, and in public schools 

 gratuitous. The public schools may be attend- 

 ed by adherents of all confessions, without suf- 

 fering in any way in their liberty of conscience 

 or belief. The Confederation will take the 

 necessary measures against the cantons which 

 do ^ not fulfill these obligations." This was 

 claimed as a guarantee of religious freedom in 

 the management of schools, and, as in most of 

 the cantons there was a large preponderance 

 of Catholics, the schools under local manage- 



ment partook largely of a religious character. 

 This fact has been regarded as the motive for 

 the attempt to transfer the control to Federal 

 authority under a Secretary of Public Instruc- 

 tion in the Department of the Interior. The 

 decree for an investigation, etc., was justified by 

 its advocates under the last clause of the article 

 quoted above, on the ground that the cantons 

 failed to fulfill their obligation to place the direc- 

 tion of primary instruction under the civil au- 

 thority exclusively. It was, in fact, or at least 

 was claimed to be, largely in the hands of the 

 Church. The proposition of the Federal Coun- 

 cil met with strong opposition, and it was 

 urged that the public education was made by 

 the Constitution a local affair of the cantons, and 

 the Federal authority had no right or power to 

 intervene, to deprive them of its control. The 

 actual programme of the administration was 

 indicated in a document issued by Councilor 

 Schenk, of the Interior Department. His views 

 were presented under six heads : 1. Interdic- 

 tion of public schools based on religious con- 

 fession. 2. Interdiction of public instruction 

 by the religious communities. 3. A prohibi- 

 tion of confiding the inspection of schools to 

 ecclesiastics. 4. A project for placing private 

 schools under the regulation of the state. 5. 

 Giving the state full authority in the control 

 of education, but not clearly defining the line 

 between Federal and cantonal authority as 

 representing the state. 6. Establishing re- 

 ligious instruction, rather historical than dog- 

 matic, at the option of the cantons, but apart 

 from the regular hours and exercises of the 

 schools. This programme excited the strenu- 

 ous opposition of the Church, and of those jeal- 

 ous of a centralization of the powers of state 

 in the Federal Council. 



Under the Swiss Constitution a law proposed 

 by the Federal Assembly must be submitted 

 to a vote of the people provided 30,000 citi- 

 zens, or eight cantons, make the demand. This 

 process is known as the Referendum, and more 

 than 200,000 signatures were affixed to the de- 

 mand for a vote on the decree of June 14th. 

 This number was unparalleled in the annals of 

 the Constitution. Several of the cantonal gov- 

 ernments also joined in the demand, and a warm 

 canvass was conducted on this question. The 

 vote was takenjj on the 26th of November, and 

 resulted in the rejection of the decree of the 

 Assembly by 307,352 to 167,221. 



EGYPT, a principality, tributary to the 

 Sublime Porte, which attained a semi-inde- 

 pendence under Meheraet Ali, appointed Turk- 

 ish Governor in 1806, who made himself mas- 

 ter of the country by force of arms. His 

 grandson Ismail, who succeeded as Vali, or 

 Viceroy, in 1863, obtained further concessions 

 from the Porte, including the right to bear the 

 title of Khidiv-el-Misr, Persian-Arabic for 

 King of Egypt, and the adoption of tho Salic 

 law of succession. Ismail involved the coun- 

 try in financial embarrassments in his desire 

 to introduce European civilization and develop 



