This philosophical study aims at better situating Deligny's place in history, and shedding new light on that history of institutions and children.

While the 19th century ushered children into schools, the first half of the 20th century was concerned with those who did not attend them. Whether deemed backward, delinquent, orphan, mentally or emotionally challenged, as a figure the marginalized child witnessed the development of an institutional structure around them: one that gradually gained material consistency and ideological unification over the course of decades from the early part of the century to the late 1960s. This work sets out to revise this history by examining the work and career of instructor, educator, and writer Fernand Deligny (1913-1996).