Figure 1.--Many of the children in this French-speaking Swiss primary school wore smocks. The photograph was taken about 1943-45. |
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Some information is available on individual Swiss schools, showing both the various styles worn by the boys and available information on the school regulations. The information is abstracted from the available images, but some information is available on the several different schools. These schools are mostly from the French-speaking catons. It is likely that boys in the Italian catons also wore smocks, but HBC at this time does not have any information on these schools.
Here we have wonderful photographs from the primary school of Vingelz. This was a village 30 km north of Bern. Normally these village schools did not have names, but rather just known as village school. This the Vingelz school would have known as the village or Vingelz school. It was a small wood-frame school in a rural area. This was a German speaking area and the school would have been taught in German. The wonderful images available give us wonderful insights into both school life and how the children dressed over several years.
This was the Sihfield School--one of the several schools in the Swiss cantons in the Zurich area. It is in an archive collected by the Lehrmittelverlag. This means the Society for Teaching Aids or Teaching Aids Society. I am not entrirely sure what kind of school it was, but it looks like a secondary school. A reader writes, "Is "secondary school" correct? In America this would be the upper levels of primary school--age 12 (7th grade). Well American schools trat grades 6-8 variously. There were primary (elementary) schools with grades 7 and 8. There were also middle schools and junior high schools that had some comination of grades 6-9. European schools are somewhat different. Primary school children who met the academic standards and whose parents could afford it, often began to attend secondary schools at about 11 or 12 years of age. I suspect this is the case here. Our Swiss reades may know more. Here we have a photograph of a 6th year class/form (6 Klasse) in 1928. The teacher's name was Herr Kern. We think this was a class of the younger children at the school. The children obviously are German speaking. The children look about 11-12 years old. The boys in the front row wear mainly single breasted short-pants suits. One boy has a pullover sweater instead of a suit. Some boys wear formal shirts with ties while others wear their collars open. The class seems to be about evenly divided between boys who wear knee socks and those who wear long stockings.
This was the Villa Saint Jean, a private Catholic school located at Fribourg. It was founded by Les Marianistes--a Catholic order. Apparently the Marianistes were expelled from France by the secular French Republic. The Marianistes as a result established a boardinf school in nearby Switzerland. There was no school uniform, but there was a dress code and the boys wore suits of their own chosing..
At a Swiss nursery school in a French caton about 1943-45, all of the children are wearing smocks. The Swiss refer to it as an "infant school" rather like a nursery school or kindergarten. Classes for these younger students include both boys and girls. The children are about 6 years old. The school clearly required all of the children, boys and girls to wear smocks. The children wear a variety of styles and colors of smocks. Clerarly there was no rule in the style which was up to the individual parents. Boys wear a variety of clothes--although all wear short pants. This photograph appers to have been taken in the spring, I'm not sure what the boys would have worn during the summer.
At a Swiss primary school in a French caton about 1943-45 many, but not all of the children wore smocks. All the children at this school are boys. These boys are about 8-9 years. Boys at the school had to wear smocks to age 10, but some older boys wore them as well. Almost all the boys wear smocks, but there are a wide variety of smock styles, shoes, and socks. Al of the boys wear short pants, although that was not a school rule. Presumably the school requires the boys to wear smocks.
At age 12 in 1948 I began boarding school and went to the same school for 8 years. This was not as common in Switzerland and other European countries as it was in Britain so I thought I write you a few notes about my years at the boardingschool. It was an all boys' school. It was called "Evangelische Lehranstalt, Schiers." There were about 350 boys boarding there from the ages of 11 to about 19 years old. We were housed by age. I was about 11 years old when I got there and I had to share my room with three other boys. Discipline was strict and our daily schedules were coordinated from morning utill bed-time. This was a dramatic change for me. Surrounded by 350 boys from all over Switzerland, far away from home, required considerable adjustment on my part. I was very ill prepared for my step from the elementary school to the secondary boarding school and had to repeat one year. I was not trained well enough to keep up with the fast pace of teaching at the boarding school and was also very shy and had problems interfacing with so many class-mates. After about a year, I had adjusted to the changes. Our school had a well used court yard. Here we would often gather after classes fr a range of of fun activities. I will tell you a bit about clothing. During the summer months all the boys wore in shorts and knee-socks and depending on the weather wore a sweater over their shirts. On Sundays we had to wear something nicer, which consisted mostly of knickers with knee-socks and a jacket. While I was at boarding school I was active in the Scout-troop at the school. We too had many activities and many weekend-camping trips. The one thing we did not do, we did not organize a summer camp, as all the members of the school understandably wanted to remain at home during the summer.
HBC has limited information on this school. Only a photograph taken in the 1960s of two boys. They attend a private French-speaking school in Geneva. They wear different colored and styled smocks. One boy wears a back buttoning blue smock. The other boy a side buttoning pink smock. HBC is unsure if the different style represents different age groups in the school or if their mother has just selected different smocks for the boys.
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Here we have a school portrait from the Niederhelfenswil village school in St. Gallen during 1969. St. Gallen is a German-speaking canton. The girls all wear dresses orr skirts. Bib-front styling seems popular. Most wear knee socks, but some girls wear tights. The boys wear a variety of casual shirts and sweaters. Most seem to be wearing short pants and at least the boys in front were barefoot. This seems to have been common in the warm weathe, at least for the boys.
Uster is district in Zürich canton located in northeastern Switzerland. This is a German-speaking canton. The capital is Uster, a small city. The school here may have been locared in a village within the district rather than the city. The girls wear brightly colored dresses, jumpers, and skirts with coordinated knee socks. The boys wear a variety of shirts and sweaters with both short and long pants. Some of the boys are barefoot.
A HBC reader tells he remembers reading a woman's blog about her school days. She described a Swiss private high school for girls that she attended. There was a rigid dress code (even
including underwear). The writer, I think, was German. Swiss schools are often quite international. My understanding was that generally German schools did not have uniforms or strict dress codes. I am not sure how accurate this report was or how common strict dress codes were in Switzerland and Germany. My understanding is that it was not very common, but my information on Switzerland is very limited.
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