Laudator Temporis Acti

G.G. Coulton (1858-1947), Fourscore Years: An Autobiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943), p. 269:

[T]here was practically no dispute in Switzerland concerning either the necessity of compulsory service in the Citizen Militia, or the general efficiency of that body. There was no serious complaint that this compulsion 'militarized' the nation. The only nucleus of any party which would welcome its abolition was among the thorough-going pacifists, resting upon the immorality of war in any form. These were, at most, not more than 1 per cent of the whole population. The Labour Party thoroughly accepted universal compulsion as the only logical principle for true democracy. Employers, on the other hand, welcomed it as rendering workmen more intelligent and efficient in team work. The physical benefit was so great that, if for any conceivable reason the Militia should be abolished, it would be necessary to invent some substitute in the interests of national health. The great majority of parents had no anxieties about the few weeks of barrack life, beyond those inseparable from the recruit's age and his first entry into the world. It engendered a healthy camaraderie and mingling of classes. Monsieur Ami Simond, who had been French Master at King's College School and St Paul's School in London, put this to me most plainly. He said, 'Here at Yverdon there is a railway porter whom I always look out for at the station, and he for me. We shared a tent together in our recruit course. This system does, for our whole population, what your Public Schools do for only a small fraction of yours.' The short period of disciplinary co-operation, so far from weakening independence of character, tends in Switzerland rather to make the individual more resourceful and self-reliant. So far from wearying the citizen, this Militia commands a general popularity which few other national institutions can boast.