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

2 Gardner, James F. “The Era of Optimism, 1850–1870: A Preliminary Reappraisal,“ Mental Retardation 31 (April 1993): 89–95.Google Scholar

3 Day, Kenneth and Jancar, Joze “Mental Handicap and the Royal Medico-Psychological Association: A Historical Association 1841–1991,“ in 150 Years of British Psychiatry 1841–1991, eds. Berrios, German E. and Freeman, Hugh (London: Gaskell, 1991), 268–278. See also Wright, and Digby, (eds.), From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency, and the special issue of Oxford Review of Education, 9:3 (1983).Google Scholar

4 See Trent, Inventing the Feeble Mind, and Ferguson, Philip M. Abandoned to Their Fate: Social Policy and Practice Toward Severely Retarded People in America 1820–1920 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991).Google Scholar

5 Séguin refers to the work of a Dr. Crommelinck, director of a maison de santé in the region of Brussels in a footnote in his Traitement moral, hygiene et éducation des idiots et des autres enfants arrières (Paris: Bailliere, 1846), 13. See Wallegem, Marcel van “Het ontstaan van de zorg voor zwakzinnigen in België,” in Geen rede mee te rijmen. Geschiedenis van de psychiatric (Gent: Guislain, Museum Dr. 1996), 206. When the Dutch pastor Van Koetsveld visited the institution in the beginning of the fifties he noted that it had already closed because of lack of success. Koetsveld, C.E. van Het idiotisme en de idiotenschool (Schoonhoven: Jan Nooten, 1856), 229.Google Scholar

6 See Wallegem, Marcel van “Het ontstaan van de zorg voor zwakzinnigen in België,“ 205–215. Kanner mentions Belgium in his well-known History as a relative latecomer, stating erroneously that the first asylum was only opened in 1892. See Kanner, Leo A History of the Care and Study of the Mentally Retarded (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1964), 67.Google Scholar

7 For older German initiatives see: Sengstock, Wayne L. Hannelore Magerhans-Hurley and Angela Sprotte, “Germany, Cradle of American Special Education for Persons who are Mentally Retarded,” Education and Training in Mental Retardation 25 (March 1990): 4–14.Google Scholar

8 Synwoldt, Joachim Von der Hilfsschule zur Schule für Lernbehinderte (Berlin: Marhold, 1979). See also Lesemann, G. Beiträge zur Geschichte und Entwicklung des deutschen Sonderschulwesens (Berlin: n.p., 1966) and Myschker, N. “Der Verband der Hilfsschulen Deutschlands und seine Bedeutung für das Deutsche Sonderschulwesen,” Beiheft der Zeitschrift für HeilpädagogikI, Suppl. 8, (Nienburg: n.p., 1969).Google Scholar

9 The auxiliary class had an old tradition. As early as the 1820s some remedial classes and a special school had been operating in Germany, acknowledging Pestalozzi as their mentor. The approach of Weise, Johann Traugott an avowed admirer of Pestalozzi, is well known. Weise started a remedial class in Zeitz and he wrote a pamphlet on teaching students with mental retardation which was the first ever published. Weise, J.T. Betrachtung über geistesschwache Kinder in Hinsicht der Verschiedenheit, Grundursachen, Kennzeichen und der Mittel, ihnen auf leichte Art durch Interricht beizukommen. Mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Pestalozzische Rechenmethode (Zeitz, 1820). Reprinted in Klink, J.G. Zur Geschichte der Sonderschule (Bad Heilbrun: Julius klinkhardt, 1966).Google Scholar

10 In 1885, France still had no other public facilities for mentally retarded children than Bicětre and the Salpétriere, and even these were extremely limited, and private places did not fare any better. Roca, Jacqueline De la segregation a l'intégration. L'éducation des enfants inadaptés de 1909 a 1975 (Eury: PUF, 1992), 23. See also Kanner, A History of the Care, 48.Google Scholar

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12 The Enlightenment pedagogy had paradoxical consequences for backward children. On the one hand, class teaching and the need for intellectual understanding meant that they soon failed. On the other hand, the child-centred method offered new opportunities for children with learning difficulties. See Weijers, Ido “De klas, de klankmethode en het ontstaan van de achterblijver,“ Comenius 15 (Winter 1995): 390–404.Google Scholar

13 Kingma, Fokke Y. Proeve van leerwijze om kinderen het lezen en schrijven gelijktijdig te leeren ('sGravenhage: n.p., 1858).Google Scholar

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15 Kingma, Een belangrijk onderzoek, 4–7. Comparable criticism of the dominant teaching methods in Dutch schools was expressed by the teacher at the institute for deaf-mutes in Groningen, Teun Hofkamp: ‘For children with weak mental faculties all leaps are extremely hard tricks. Too much is taken for granted; there is too much hurry.’ Teun Hofkamp, “Aanvankelijke oefeningen voor doofstommen en kinderen met zwakke zielsvermogens,” Nieuw Nederlands Tijdschrift vooronderwijs en opvoeding (1855), 83.Google Scholar

16 Ten years later 132 pupils were at the school, 34 had been sent home in the meantime as cured. In January 1868 there were 42 pupils. Verslag van het staatstoezicht (1864–1868) (‘s Gravenhage, 1871), 117. In December 1884 there were 56 pupils at the institute: 38 boys and 18 girls. In that year 13 pupils were sent home because they were sufficiently cured. Verslag van het staatstoezicht (1882–1884) ('sGravenhage: Van Weelden and Mingelen, 1891), 227.Google Scholar

17 Cornelis, E van Koetsveld, Het idiotisme en de idiotenschool. Eene eerste proeve op een nieuw veld van geneeskundige opvoeding en christelijke philantropie (Schoonhoven: Van Nooten, 1856). Cornelis van Koetsveld became well known as an author from his publication of The Manse of Mastland. Sketches, Serious and Humorous, from the Life of a Village Pastor in The Netherlands. (1843) This book was highly acclaimed by the Dutch literary press. An English translation by Thomas Keightley was published in 1860 by Bell and Daldy (London) and a German translation appeared in 1868.Google Scholar

18 Koetsveld, Van Het idiotisme en de idiotenschool, 85.Google Scholar

19 See Jak, Theo Armen van geest. Hoofdstukken uit de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse zwakzinnigenzorg (Amsterdam: VU, 1988), 121.Google Scholar

20 Cornelis, E van Koetsveld, Godsdienstige en zedelijke novellen (Schoonhoven: Van Hooten, 1874), (part III) 195. However, he had high respect for the work done in the special school at Meerenberg.Google Scholar

21 Koetsveld, Van Het idiotisme en de idiotenschool, 108. It was not medicine that invented the school for idiots, Van Koetsveld states. Idiots need good educators and physicians can become excellent educators, but they are not so per se. (109)Google Scholar

22 He gave an account of this treatment in his school in 25-Jarig bestaan van het Idiotengesticht 15-5-1880 (unpublished), edited in Tijdschrift voor Buitengewoon Onderwijs (25) 1944, 50–52. See also Onstenk, A.J. ‘Ik behoor bij mezelf'. Cornelis Elisa van Koetsveld 1807–1893 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1973), 100.Google Scholar

23 Even the introduction of compulsory education in 1901 did not accelerate the building of special schools. Between 1900 and 1920 the number of special schools increased by one a year only. The expansion started with the Law on primary education of 1920. From then on the number of schools increased by six a year. See Graas, Dorien Zorgenkinderen op school. Geschiedenis van het speciaal onderwijs in Nederland 1900–1950 (Leuven: Savant, 1996).Google Scholar

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28 Verslag van het staatstoezicht (1864–1868) ('s Gravenhage: n.p., 1871), 120. Various recommendations of visitors from abroad are properly mentioned.Google Scholar

29 In 1886 the inspectors forced Van Koetsveld's institution to stop being a school for idiots, because the new law of 1884 again stressed that idiots had to be considered as a category of the insane, whereas the staff of the school rejected this medical definition for their pupils. From then on it was a school for backward children, who were not insane. On the bitter fight between the inspectors and the governors of the school, see Deventer, J. van “Bijdrage tot de ontwikkeling der idioten- en zwakzinnigenverzorging in Nederland,“ Psychiatrische en neurologische bladen 21 (1916): 121–126.Google Scholar

30 See Tuke, Daniel H. “The Asylums of Holland: Their past and present condition,“ The Journal of Psychological Medicine and Mental Pathology 7 (1854): 464–465.Google Scholar

31 Binneveld, Hans Filantropie, repressie en medische zorg. Geschiedenis van de inrichtingspsychiatrie (Deventer: Van Hoghum Slaterns, 1985), 59.Google Scholar

32 See for instance Verslag betreffende het qesticht Meerenberg over het jaar 1850, (Santpoort: n.p. [1850?]), 54–55.Google Scholar

33 John Conolly in The Treatment of the Insane without Mechanical Restraints. Quoted in Kraus, G. Honderd jaar verpleging te Santpoort, in Een eeuw krankzinnigenverpleging (Santpoort: n.p., 1949) 106.Google Scholar

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

35 Everts, Verslag 1850, 51.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., 13.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., 68. See also the reports of the director, Persijn, C.J. van in the seventies and eighties.Google Scholar

38 Thus Persijn quoted the report of the master of the school in Verslag betreffende het gesticht Meerenberg over het jaar 1876, 71. However, no indications in these reports could be found that these classes were for idiots in particular, nor that any special reading methods or teaching methods were developed here for idiot children, as was the case in the school in The Hague and in Kingma's schools.Google Scholar

39 See Persijn, C.J. van Verslag hetreffende het gesticht Meerenberg over het jaat 1890, (Haarlem: Joh. Enschedé, 1890), 100. Here the new director since 1874, Persijn, C.J. quoted the schoolmaster, who said that a division between idiots and fools ('idioten en onnoozelen') would not be advisable, because there was still no consensus on how to differentiate these categories.Google Scholar

40 Jak, Armen van geest, 132.Google Scholar

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42 At the end of 1909 4 asylums for idiots existed in the Netherlands with more than 500 inmates in all. In that same year there were 25 insane asylums accommodating well over 2,000 idiots. So the idiot asylums accommodated less than a quarter of the total population of institutionalized idiots. See 21e Verslag van het staatstoezicht op krankzinnigen en krankzinnigengestichten en over de staat dier gestichten 1909, 1910 en 1911, ('s Gravenhage: Algemeene Handsdrukerei, 1913), 92. The following decades showed a slow increase in the percentage of idiots living in separate asylums. While the insane asylum kept on growing at a steady rate, the idiot asylum expanded more quickly, both in size and in numbers. In 1909 the idiot asylums were only caring for 4.5 percent of the total number of people living in asylums; this percentage had risen to 8.3 by 1936. Verslag van het Staatstoezicht ('sGravenhage: Algemeene Handsdrukerei, 1938), 126.Google Scholar

43 Everts, Dr. the director of Meerenberg, which opened in 1849, was already complaining about overcrowding in his report for 1856. The problem is the number of chronic patients, who never leave the institution. See Michels, A.W. De geschiedenis van ‘Meerenberg', in: Een eeuw krankzinnigenv-erpleging. Gedenkboek ter gelegenheid van het honderdjarig bestaan van het Provinciaal Ziekenhuis nabij Santpoort (voorheen Meerenberg) (Santpoort: n.p., 1949), 47.Google Scholar

44 See the Verslagen van het staatstoezicht op krankzinnigen en krankzinnigengestichten, for instance the report of 1893, which states that while on the one hand idiots need special treatment, that is education, on the other hand, they can hinder the treatment of the insane residents of the asylum. (278)Google Scholar

45 ‘We have already drawn attention several times to the foundation of special institutions for the treatment of idiots. We consider this to be the modern standard.’ Verslag van het staatstoezicht 1888–1890 (1893), 278.Google Scholar

46 In the eighties the inspectors pleaded for education for idiot children and in 1912 they wrote ‘Even the low idiot is open to development and guidance and the absence of education can have extremely harmful consequences both for the patient and for his environment’ 22e Verslag van het staatstoezicht (1912), 16.Google Scholar

47 See Righart, Hans ‘Moraliseringsoffensief in Nederland in de periode 1850–1880', in: Peeters, Harry et al. (eds.), Vijf eeuwen gezinsleven. Liefde, huwelijk en opvoeding in Nederland, (Nijmegen: SUN, 1988), 202–204.Google Scholar

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51 See Kluit, M.E. Het Protestantse Réveil in Nederland en daarbuiten 1815–1865, (Amsterdam: Paris, 1970). In German-speaking regions this movement is known as ‘Erweckung,’ in English-speaking regions as ‘Revival’ or ‘Awakening'.Google Scholar

52 See Rasker, A.J. De Nederlandse Hervormde kerk vanaf 1795, Kampen: KOK, 1986).Google Scholar

53 See Bornewasser, J.A. “The Authority of the Dutch State over the Churches,“ in Kerkelijk verleden in een wereldlijke context, (Amsterdam: Van Soeren, 1989), 98–112.Google Scholar

54 Simon Schama uses the expression ‘evangelical mission’ in his Patriots and Liberators, 541. See also Hake, B.J. “The making of Batavian citizens: social organization of constitutional enlightenment in The Netherlands, 1795–98,“ History of Education 23, (1994): 335–353, and Mijnhardt, W.W. “The Dutch Enlightenment: Humanism, Nationalism, and Decline,” in: Jacob, M.C. & Mijnhardt, W.W. (eds.), The Dutch Republic in the Eighteenth Century. Decline, Enlightenment and Revolution, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 197–223.Google Scholar

55 The most well-known leaders of the movement were the politician Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer (1801–1876) and the minister Otto Gerhard Heldring (1804–1876).Google Scholar

56 See Kruithof, Bernard Zonde en deugd in domineesland. Nederlandse Protestanten en problemen van opvoeding, zeventiende tot twintigste eeuw, (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1990),Google Scholar

57 Reitsma, J. and Lindenboom, J. Geschiedenis van de Hervorming en de Hervormde kerk der Nederlanden, ('sGravenhage: Nijhoff, 1949), 461. These authors stress the English Methodist roots of Dutch Réveil. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 See Het honderjarig jubilem van de Vereniging Johannes Stichting, (1986), Woerden, 8. The Johannes Stichting in Nieuwveen was founded in 1897. See also Hakker, A.A. “De Vereniging Johannes Stichting. Van zorg voor zwakken naar zwakzinnigenzorg,” in: Vijselaar, J. (ed.), Over onnozelen en idioten, (Utrecht: NCGV, 1993), 73–86; and Kruithof, Zonde en deugd in domineesland, hoofdstuk 6: “Een tempel in de zondewereld. De Martha-Stichting,” 165–180.Google Scholar

59 Schmidt, J.D. Weezenverpleging bij de gereformeerden in Nederland tot 1795, (Utrecht: Ruys, 1915), 127. The author points at the strong predilection for couples without children, which was even alive at the beginning of the twentieth century.Google Scholar

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64 Another, later but equally well-known example of this new Protestant, ‘medical-pedagogical’ approach was the Willem van den Bergh Stichting at Noordwijkerhout (1924). On the one hand, the regime at this institution was definitely medical. Residents were called patients and their health was regularly checked by a doctor. Personnel wore white uniforms and newly accepted children were first of all sent to Zonneoord, the foundation's own hospital, where they were put to bed. On the other hand, a lot of attention was paid to education. The central role of education was clearly expressed, for instance, in the fact that the teacher was at the same time head of the ward where she and her class lived. Under the regime of the director Juch, a schoolteacher, active physical therapy was strongly favoured. Juch favoured movement and play and above all awakening the interest of the child. Typical of Juch's approach was the ‘Wintertuin’ (winter garden): a huge glass house in which forty barefoot children played in the sand and, in particular, practised walking with a walking bar or a treadmill. The borders were full of flowers and voluptuous plants, unusual birds were kept and there was an aquarium. Juch considered this to be the best environment for the retarded child, because here he would be given optimum stimulation. See Steketee, G. De dr.mr. Willem van den Bergh Stichting te Noordzvijk-Binnen, 1924–1949, (Noordwijk: n.p., 1949), 11–13. 65 See Belzen, J.A. van Psychopathologie en religie. Ideeën, behandeling en verzorging in de gereformeerde psychiatrie 1880–1940, (Kampen: KOK, 1989).Google Scholar

66 See Binneveld, Filantropie, repressie en medische zorg, 168.Google Scholar