Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/477

 REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE. 44 1

Catholic cantons, but is rigidly carried out, in most instances, in those where the Protestants form the majority of inhabitants. In every district there are primary schools, in which the elements of education, with geography and history, are taught ; and secondary schools, for youths of from twelve to fifteen, in which instruction is given in modern languages, geometry, natural history, the fine arts, and music. In both these schools the rich and the poor are edu- cated together, the latter being admitted gratuitously. There are normal schools in most of the cantons for the instruction of school- masters, who are paid by the cantonal governments salaries varying from 101. to 50/. a year. Sunday-schools exist in several cantons, and Lancastrian schools in Geneve and Vaud. There are superior gymnasia in all the chief towns. Basel has a university, founded in 1460, which was formerly much frequented ; and since 1832 universities have been established in Bern and Zurich. The three universities of Basel, Berne, and Zurich had 135 professors, 31 private tutors, and 500 students in 1869. Geneva and Lausanne possessed, at the same date, two academies with theologic, philosophic, and jurisprudence facidties, 45 professors, and 413 students, of whom 70 at Geneva were foreigners, chiefly French Protestants. A new academy was founded at Neuchatel in 1865. The Federal Polytechnic School at Zurich, founded in 1855, pos- sesses a philosophic faculty and 46 teachers, some of them professors of the universities, and was frequented, in 1869, by 589 regular students, and 173 Zuhorer, or ' hearers.' The Polytechnic School at Zurich, and a military academy at Thun (see pp. 445-6), are maintained by the Federal Government, at an average annual ex- pense of 1,000,000 francs, or 40,000/.

Revenue and Expenditure.

The public revenue of the Confederation is derived chiefly from customs. By the constitution of September 12, 1848, customs dues are levied only on the frontiers of the republic, instead of, as before, on the limits of each canton. A considerable income is also de- rived from the postal system, as well as from the telegraph estab- lishment, conducted by the Federal Government on the prin- ciple of uniformity of rates. The sums raised under these heads are not left entirely for Government expenditure, but a great part of the postal revenue, as well as a portion of the customs dues, have to be paid over to the cantonal administrations, in compensation for the loss of such sources of former income. In extraordinary cases, the Federal Government is empowered to levy a rate upon the various cantons after a scale settled for twenty years. A branch