Reverend Cornelis van Koetsveld, founder of the first special education school in the Netherlands, left behind a gold mine. After his ‘Haagse Idiotenschool’, founded in 1855, was closed in 1920, the entire archive went to the municipality of The Hague, where historical pedagogue Annemieke van Drenth found ‘meters of useful archive’. “Very special,” says Van Drenth. “Usually school records ended up in basements or were simply thrown away.”
Van Drenth came across 356 files of children who were interns at the Idioten School in the second half of the nineteenth century. It describes what happened to them. “An eye opener. You can read it as the earliest form of diagnosis of special children in the Netherlands.”
In her book The discovery of the special childwhich appeared last month, Van Drenth interweaves the history of the first special education school with the attention that is being paid around the same time to children who were ‘different’, who could not keep up with other children in primary education and ‘idiot’. were mentioned.
Pastor and writer Van Koetsveld actively looked for these children for his school. He gathered around him a fairly varied group: from children with serious and visible abnormalities to children who were ‘only’ severely neglected and who learned to speak, read and write with a little loving help and attention from the school staff.
The children in the files fell under the Insane Act, you write.
Van Drenth: “Yes, they could only be admitted with the permission of the judge, who was advised by doctors. The children ate and slept at the school. In addition, there were children who only went to school during the day, the form that you still see most in special education. Parents generally want that too – then and now.
“The better-off parents had staff in-house to deal with these children, but they usually made insufficient progress, especially with really difficult children. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that more knowledge was gained about the development of special children. Van Koetsveld can start his school in this breeding ground. By the way, he also had problems finding the right teachers at the time.”
Was there already a teacher shortage?
“Absolute. The selection criterion of the Idiot School was of a pedagogical-didactic nature. The employees were not allowed to hit or neglect the children. Van Koetsveld mainly wanted to find out what a child could do, how it could develop further. He believed, which was very modern for the time, that ‘idiotic children’ could really learn something by ‘stimulating the senses’. He needed good teachers for that, who were not readily available then either.”
Van Drenth said goodbye to Leiden University last month, where she worked at the Institute of Pedagogical Sciences. She has published on the history of children with physical and mental disabilities. Such as about Siem, ‘the first boy with autism’ who was ‘discovered’ in the 1930s by the nun Ida Frye at the Pedological Institute in Nijmegen. It is the first described scientific diagnosis of autism. “There have always been special children,” says Van Drenth. “But they only become visible when serious scientific research is done from the middle of the nineteenth century.”
Where were these kids before?
“At home or in asylums. Sometimes just accepted, but sometimes tucked away, neglected. There was little knowledge about children who did not develop in a normal way. From the middle of the nineteenth century, children with visible abnormalities were increasingly seen as a separate category. But there was still little insight into children with less obvious developmental problems.
“It is only after the introduction of compulsory education in 1901 that it becomes increasingly apparent that there is a group of children who are left out. Special education has developed rapidly thereafter. Many of these schools were added between 1901 and 1930.”
Do you link the ‘discovery’ of the special child to the rise of regular education?
“It turns out that special children cannot participate in regular education. Van Koetsveld is ahead of his time and sees what others do not see earlier: these children also have a right to a place, a right to development. They need to ‘wake up from childish ignorance’ and they need help. That idea emerged strongly in the middle of the nineteenth century: children are then increasingly seen as individuals in development stimulated by external stimuli.”
Van Koetsveld wanted to give the ‘idiotic children’ a voice, you write. Under the motto ‘We plead for those who cannot plead for themselves’. That sounds pretty progressive for the time.
“He thought: All children are given by God. He was genuinely concerned about the children with disabilities. He took them into his school and really tried to see them in their individuality and get the best out of them.”
His ‘firstfruits’, a girl named Alida, is Van Koetsveld’s great pride, Van Drenth writes. Alida is thirteen when Van Koetsveld finds her ‘in a wretched hut on the floor, her unkempt hair hanging on the fire pot’. Alida can barely speak, but once she is in idiot school, she develops very quickly. Van Drenth: „With today’s knowledge you see a severely neglected child that was at the mercy of itself. It was only when she was admitted, received attention and pedagogical care, that she was able to really develop.
“Van Koetsveld showed off her in his annual reports. Scientists and dignitaries came by to see her and other children. The success provided money for his school. Even then, money was a constant problem for special education.”
Because it doesn’t immediately yield anything?
“Precisely. You can still see that reflex today. There must be clear and visible results. The idea behind this is that you are only really worth something if you can achieve a certain kind of social success. We mainly invest in everything that shimmers and shines and much less in things and people in the shadows, even if they are just part of life.”
Annemieke van Drenth: The discovery of the special child About the nineteenth-century Idiot School of Reverend Van Koetsveld Amsterdam University Press, 240 pages, €31.99
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of 11 July 2022