This article explores the mind-set of the actors and contemporaries of WWI in Switzerland through an examination of the values transmitted to them in their childhood. The inquiry focuses on school texts from Radical-Liberal milieus dealing with both politics and religion (Protestant and Old Catholic, in particular). Catechisms and civics teaching manuals present very similar moral injunctions, based on respect for parents and obedience to hierarchical superiors, which are extended beyond this circle to include a call for love of one's nation. The author thus shows to what extent respect for authority remained an essential value of the liberal system that was taking shape in the last third of the nineteenth century, as well as how religious and state authorities worked hand in glove to fashion a new political culture, which, though secular, continued to be firmly grounded in Christian beliefs.