The school and teacher training college Slagsta was established in 1911 near Stockholm, Sweden. Until 1959 it was the only Swedish institution which aimed at educating teachers in schools for the so called “feebleminded” (Swedish: “sinnesslöa”) children. Right from the beginning there has been a close connection with Séguin’s “physiological method” and representatives of international progressive education like Montessori, Dalton, and Decroly. Children’s interests, activity, and freedom were seen as essential points of education. Other priorities were psychological observation and individual treatment of the child. The paper focuses on the relationship between progressive and special education. It will discuss, why this mixed concept remained in the shadow of regular school education. It emphasizes that mainly due to the definition of “feebleminded”, and the social exclusion of persons concerned, the Slagsta-education remained a pedagogical outsider.

see above