Within this paper the focus is on the education of mentally disabled children in Belgian asylums in the late 19^th and early 20^th century from an acoustic point of view. Asylums, as is commonly known, were one of the first places where education was provided for children with mental disabilities. The existing literature on this asylum-based education for mentally disabled children is manifold, but seems to be centred around concepts such as institutionalization, stigmatization and disciplinarization (e.g. Taylor, 2017; Trent, 1994; Wright, 2001) In line with ‘the “tradition” of Network 17 of openness to “risk”-taking in terms of exploring under-researched sources, trying novel, “daring” methods of analysis, and developing new theories’, this proposal will add to the existing literature by making use of an acoustic perspective using a sound studies approach (Bijsterveld & Pinch, 2012; Bull & Back, 2006; Smith, 2004). Sound studies scholars are interested in the complex meanings and power-effects related to the production and reception of sounds – and how these change over time. This interdisciplinary sound studies approach will enable us to better understand how children with mental disabilities were educated. In doing so, we follow a recent trend in history of education research in which several historians of education have pointed towards the importance of the senses (Burke & Grosvenor, 2011; Grosvenor, 2012). Following this sensorial approach of our educational past, scholars have started to work on what has been called the history of so-called educational soundscapes (Verstraete & Hoegaerts, 2017). Inspired by the pioneering work of the Canadian composer Raymond Murray Schafer in the 60’s and 70’s it is said that educational spaces, like for instance the asylum where children with mental disabilities were educated, can be described acoustically, and that these acoustic environments change throughout time in meaningful ways (Schafer, 1977). This paper zooms in on the first educational initiatives for children with mental disabilities in Belgium, namely the asylums established by the Brothers and Sisters of Charity during the period 1887-1920. In line with the sound studies approach, the main research question is: ‘How did sound and silence play a role in the collocation and education of children with mental disabilities in the Belgian asylums 1887-1920?’. Our study reveals that sound plays a role in the asylums and this in two main ways. First, since observation was one of the methods – in the early period, even the only method – to diagnose mental retardation, a patchwork of selection criteria was listed to facilitate the observer in this job. As it turns out, many of these criteria have to do with sound, focusing a great deal on the voice of the child. This seems to be an international feature since scholars also mentioned how within the selection criteria problems with the child’s voice are emphasized, such as distorted speech, murmuring, shouting (Melling e.a., 1997; Trent, 1994; Wright, 2001). Some scholars even claim that these ‘speech problems’ were cited as the determining factor to define them as children with mental disabilities (Taylor, 2017). The second way in which sound played a role was in the asylum-based education itself. Within the educational theories and methods used in the asylums, a clear influence of Séguin’s sensorial education can be distinguished. Here too, sound is required, for example to develop the sense ‘hearing’. Also music seems to play an integral part in the education of children with mental disabilities. It is seen as having a stimulating role in courses such as gymnastics.

Two Belgian asylums, in particular, stand out: the Saint-Benedictus institute of the Sisters of Charity (1887) and the Saint-Joseph institute of the Brothers of Charity (1901). Both were the first of their kind, focusing only on the education of children with mental disabilities, respectively for girls and boys (e.g. Descheerder, 1998; Scheire, 1982; Stockman, 2006). Their archives are therefore an integral part of the source material used in this study. They contain all sorts of registers with the patient files including medical records as the best known. Within these registers answers are to be found on the question ‘why’ children were diagnosed as mentally disabled and needed to be educated in these asylums by means of questionnaires and the above-mentioned selection criteria. Within the congregations of Brothers and Sisters of Charity in Belgium, some of the members have participated actively in the ‘invention’ of educational methods to teach children with mental disabilities, for example Brother Ebergist De Deyne (Stockman, 2006) and Sister Gerarda Beun (De Waepenaere, 1985). So their personal archives and publications are also important source material, containing educational theories and methods to educate children with mental disabilities. Fully aware of the fact that no acoustic source material as such (sound recordings) is available, we will focus on written representations of sound and silences, such as references to voices, music in the archives. The starting point of our study is 1887, since the Saint-Benedictus institute was established then. We decided to end our study period in 1920 because at that time the asylum was transformed into a medical-pedagogical institute and a law was enacted which distinguished “feeble-minded children” from “lunatics”, what strongly influenced the whole mental disability landscape.

By focusing on sound and silence we shed some light on education for children with mental disabilities. Sound was on the one hand a decisive factor to problematize a child’s behaviour and to determine whether or not the child needed to be collocated to get proper education. On the other hand, sound was also part of the ‘solutions’ for children with mental disabilities and played a vital role in their education. It is therefore clear that sound and silence played a role not only in the education of children with mental disabilities, but even in their 'diagnosis'.

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