A society is to some extent the sum of its people; no healthy society exists without healthy people. When a nation, that “imagined community of people” (Anderson, 1991), is called into being individual people embody it. Children in particular act as symbols of the nation. A healthy child is emblematic of a “healthy nation”; likewise an unhealthy child is a symptom of a “sick nation” (cf. Nys, de Smaele, Tollebeek & Wils, 2002). Historically, precisely in this binary code of “sick” and “healthy” the school has come into play. It had to be a sanitary milieu par excellence, capable of transforming children’s bodies, minds and souls. Any “infected limb” in the system was indicative of a “diseased body” in need of transformation. This not only applied to bodies of pupils or the school body, but also to political, legislative, religious and professional bodies involved, as well as to the “social body” as a whole.

Historically, the latter has been thought to be in need of transformation in the whole of Western Europe from the nineteenth century onwards. In some countries sanitary reformers even emerged as early as the 1820s and ’30s (Nys, 2002; and Osterhammel, 2009). A whole medical-institutional architecture began to emerge. The sanitary movement accompanying this process early on proved to be more than a medical endeavour, as hygiene was associated with a range of civil values such as self-control, order, but also patriotism; thus it was also a project striving for a pure and homogeneous community (see, e.g.: Labrie, 2001).

It would be wrong, however, to assume that this led to a similar school health system in each nation. Even though in many countries, for instance, the introduction of the medical school service may have been made possible by the introduction of compulsory education, research on the German, British and Dutch medical school service suggests that this institution developed differently from nation to nation and that its reception and impact also varied considerably (see, e.g.: Harris, 1995, and Bakker & de Beer, 2009). It seems not unlikely that other aspects of the school health apparatus show not only common but also idiosyncratic features across nations.

This paper will investigate (preliminarily) how concerns about the health of the nation and of the child emerged in Luxembourg’s society and school system as compared to – and in relation to – neighbouring countries, and led to the emergence of the open-air schools of Dudelange and Esch-sur-Alzette, in 1913 and 1928 respectively. Like other expressions of Luxembourg’s “school health apparatus”, they held a key position in the ‘qualitative population policy’ that was then pursued; the physical education they prioritized, for instance, was seen as a ‘first-rate political-economical factor’ (Heirens, 1930, p. 7). The schools, moreover, were located but a few kilometres away from the city: symbolically at its margin, but not entirely outside the urban sphere. City school doctors proposed those deemed “needy” of an open-air cure (Ewert & Urbany, p. 10). In their capacity of ‘perischolastic works’, then, both schools not only seem to have remained peripheral with regard to the city, but also to the regular school system.

Primary sources: - Ewert, J and Urbany, A., Die Waldschule der Stadt Düdelingen, gegründet 1913 durch die vereinigten Hüttenwerke Arbed, Abteilung Düdelingen. Einrichtung und Organisation im ersten Jahre ihres Bestehens. Luxemburg: Soupert, s.a. [1914]. - Heirens, N., Die Escher Waldschule als Kindertagesheim. Separatabdruck aus der “Luxemburger Zeitung”, Luxemburg: Schwell, 1930. Secondary sources: - Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London/New York: Verso. - Bakker, N. and de Beer, F. (2009). “The Dangers of Schooling: the Introduction of School Medical Inspection in the Netherlands (c.1900)”. History of Education, 38 (4), pp. 505-524. - Harris, B. (1995). The Health of the Schoolchild. A History of the School Medical Service in England and Wales. Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press. - Labrie, A. (2001). Zuiverheid en Decadentie. Over de Grenzen van de Burgerlijke Cultuur in West-Europa 1870-1914. Amsterdam: Bakker. - Nys, L. (2002). “Nationale Plagen. Hygiënisten over het Maatschappelijk Lichaam”. In: L. Nys, H. de Smaele, J. Tollebeek and K. Wils (Eds). De Zieke Natie. Over de Medicalisering van de Samenleving, 1860-1914. Groningen: Historische Uitgeverij. - Osterhammel, J. (2009). Die Verwandlung der Welt: eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. München: Beck.