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70 learned, so that sympathetic relationships may be established between them and young Switzerland.

The Zofingia Society is the leading society of Swiss students, and the oldest. It was founded in 1818, and will therefore celebrate its centenary next year. It comprises twelve sections: nine of these are "academic," viz. Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchâtel, Berne, Basle, and Zurich; three are "gymnasial," viz. St. Gall, Lucerne, and Bellinzona. The membership of the society is steadily increasing. In July, 1916, it was 575; but now, nearly a year later, it is 700. The organisation has a monthly review, "Centralblatt des Zofingervereins," issued in French, German, and  Italian. This periodical is now in its fifty-seventh year. It publishes lectures, reports of discussions, and other matters of interest to the association.

The essential distinction between this body and the other societies of Swiss students is that the Zofingia, as explained in the first article of its constitution, "places  itself above and outside all political parties, but takes its  stand on democratic principles.… It abstains entirely  from party politics." Thus, as its president writes, it affords to the students of Switzerland a permanent  possibility of creating anew and ever anew their conception of  "the true national spirit of Switzerland.… In it, each  generation can freely think out for itself fresh ideals, can  construct new forms of life. Thus the history of the  Zofingerverein is something more than a history of a Swiss  students' club; it is a miniature history of the moral and  political evolution of Switzerland since 1815."—But it  has always been in the vanguard.