THE DEAF AND THE WORLD: Between Exclusion andInclusion

^*The research was created as part of the project J6-50189 Systems of Care and Education for Children with Sensory Disabilities in the First and Second Yugoslav State, funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS).

The Ljubljana Institute for the Deaf-Mute was built with the resources from various benefactors’ bequests. Dean Ignacij Holzapfel was the most generous of them. In his will, he dedicated his fortune to the construction of an institute for the deaf youth from Carniola, who were educated in German institutions and thus alienated from their homeland. This was another display of his patriotism, as were his previous unsuccessful attempts to publish the Slovenian weekly newspaper Slavinja. With the construction of the Institute in Ljubljana in 1900, the Slovenian deaf youth from Carniola were given the opportunity to receive education in the Slovenian language and live independently after the completion of their schooling.