Paikallisesta hyväntekeväisyydestä valtion asiaksi : aistiviallis- ja raajarikkoiskoulutus Suomessa 1846-1892

The subject of this study are persons suffering from the so called classic types of disability, i.e. the visually, aurally, mentally, and physically handicapped, who in the l.9th-century terminology were known as the deaf and dumb, the blind, the idiots, and the crippled. The division, established in the 1.9th century, between persons with sensory defects (the deaf, the blind, and the educable idiots) on the one hand and the crippled on the other, served above all education. Although the focus of the study is the organization of educational issues, its actual chronology follows the founding of individual schools. Primary sources for this study have been the correspondence of individual schools, which have made it possible to view education of the disabled in the light of the general educational and social policy of the time. Parliamentary records, on the other hand, give detailed information about the position of the disabled (in this case, mainly the sensory disabled) in l9th-century Finnish society. The creation of the Finnish welfare state after the famine in the 1860s coincides with the turning point of the ideology governing the education for the disabled. Like the social development in general, it branched into two main directions: firstly, towards more clearly defined guidance for the disabled to give them an occupation; and secondly, towards the emergence of private charities and actions in the early 1870s as complements to governmental educational initiatives.