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Educational Initiatives in Mental Retardation in Nineteenth-Century Holland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Ido Weijers
Ido Weijers*
Affiliation:
Department of Education, University of Utrecht
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Extract

In the 1840s the perception of mental retardation began to change in the Western World. Until then the feebleminded were a natural part of the community. Since the 1840s they began to be seen step-by-step as a social problem. “Experts” started to develop ideas and interventions towards the feebleminded, in particular towards the “idiot” child. Mental retardation became a special field of educational interest and in several countries special care for “idiots” and “imbecile” children emerged. Distinct national traditions emerged in France, England, America, and Germany between the 1850s and the beginning of the twentieth century; in the Netherlands, however, there was little specialist care and few special initiatives were taken before the end of the century. The dominant expert opinion was that these people needed the standard care offered by the asylum. Two mid-nineteenth-century initiatives, however, are worth analyzing, since they signal the cautious start of special institutional education in the Netherlands: the Idiotenschool (School for Idiots) in The Hague and the class for idiots at the new asylum, Meerenberg. However, the only influential Dutch alternative to care in the asylum was offered by the end of the century by institutions with explicit religious motives, evolving from Catholic charity and Protestant philanthropy for all kinds of socially weak and dependent people. In most other Western countries by then the initial educational and therapeutic optimism was in decline; older educational ideas and optimism about the possibility of treating learning disabilities revived in these religious circles by the end of the century.

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Articles
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History of Education Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , Winter 2000 , pp. 460 - 476
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Copyright © 2000 by the History of Education Society 

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References

1 The dominant terminology of the period described will be used in this article for two reasons. First, there simply is no good alternative; today's terminology is useless for writing accurate history in this field—what is a historically adequate translation of ‘idiot'? (See Dorien Graas, Zorgenkinderen op school. Geschiedenis van het speciaal onderwijs in Nederland, 1900–1950, (Leuven: Garant, 1996) 117–156. Second, while these words have become offensive, they have historical importance, because they remind us of our distance to the period described and of the problem of changing sensibilities (see James Trent, Inventing the Feeble Mind: A History of Mental Retardation in the United States, [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994], 5). See also Digby, Anne ‘Contexts and Perspectives', in Wright, David and Digby, Anne (eds.), From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency: Historical Perspectives on People with Learning Disabilities (London: Routledge, 1996), 3.Google Scholar

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34 The French superintendant Jules Falret wrote: ‘Cet asile répond parfaitement a sa réputation; c'est le plus bel asile que j'aie encore visité.’ All quoted in Annemarie Kerkhoven, Beeld van de psychiatrie 1800–1970. Historisch bezit van de psychiatrische ziekenhuizen in Nederland (Zwolle: Waanders, 1996), 62.Google Scholar

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