The Stapfer-Enquête

The Stapfer-Enquête is a survey of the school situation in the Helvetic Republic. It is named after its initiator, education minister Philipp Albert Stapfer.

The revolutionary government installed in 1798 launched 15 surveys during its first year in office, with the aim of gathering knowledge about the situation in the Helvetic Republic (1798–1803).

The Stapfer-Enquête of 1799 is a survey of the school situation initiated by education minister Philipp Albert Stapfer (1766–1840). Keen to base schools policy on facts, he drew up a standardised questionnaire containing some 60 questions. Teachers – including a small number of women – provided information on the local situation, teaching, and the personal and economic circumstances of their work.

The handwritten answers provided by around 2,500 schools and teachers are held in the Swiss Federal Archives (fonds of the Central Archive of the Helvetic Republic, series B0#C.02.3.1 Erziehung; Kantone).

A team from the University of Bern transcribed the handwritten responses to the Stapfer-Enquête and compiled them into a database. They have now been complemented by information about the historical context and made available to the public on a website. Once the publishing project was complete, the Federal Archives secured the data, database and website.

How to use the app

The website app can be used to search the transcripts for school locations. The results are complemented by information on the church commune and canton in 1799, the place and/or ruler in 1750, and the commune and canton in 2000.

The transcripts and original sources are also available as PDFs, along with an instruction video.

Website: Stapfer-Enquête

Data source

All the data from the Stapfer Enquête are on opendata.swiss. You can download the data as a MySQL dump or access them with a SPARQL endpoint. The data can also be researched using the Stapfer-Enquête web app.