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"The bulk was further reduced by using a thin paper expressly prepared, and by reducing the height of the face of the type.

"Having ascertained beyond the possibility of a doubt that any blind child of common capacity could easily read this print, I commenced printing; and as the funds of the Institution were small, I resolved not to ask any aid from the treasury, but appeal to the benevolent here and abroad. This appeal was not in vain; generous aid flowed in, and the press was put into active operation. All the money raised was put at once into the treasury, and only drawn out upon exhibition of proper vouchers for expenses.

"The cost of apparatus, paper, etc., has been, up to this date, about $8,000. One of the first objects was to print The New Testament, which had never been done in any language. This was soon effected; then followed The Book of Psalms, and successively twenty-one editions of books."

"This appeal was not in vain." My father's appeals never were in vain. I have often been told by his contemporaries of his extraordinary power in this respect. No one could say him nay. He did not deprecate or deplore; he did not cajole or threaten; he simply stated his case, and then said, "Mr. So-and-So, I want you to give me a thousand dollars;" and Mr. So-and-So gave it.

As with individuals, so with masses of men. Conquering the reluctance to public speaking which never left him, he spoke in churches, in halls, in the State House. He wrote to the Bible Societies -- for his great desire was to see the Bible in the hands of the blind -- and to benevolent individuals past counting. And as he says, help flowed in. Two hundred dollars from Park Street Church, when he had spoken there; a thousand dollars from the Massachusetts Bible Society; eight hundred from the New York Female Bible Society; while the stream of private beneficence ran like a brook in spring.

The work was actively carried on. A few years later, through the generosity of the American Bible Society, the entire Bible was placed in the hands of the blind. The plates for the whole work cost some $13,000, and it forms a noble monument to that benevolent and far-seeing association.

Mr. John A. Simpson, of the North Carolina Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, says of this work:

"I find the old double-leaf Bible, prepared by Dr. Howe, more agreeable to the touch than any embossed book since published."

Book followed book. Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained; Hamlet and Julius Caesar, Pilgrim's Progress, histories of England and the United States; selections from Pope, from Byron, from Baxter and Swedenborg. With his own hands my father compiled, for the use of his beloved pupils, an encyclopaedia, an atlas, a dictionary of astronomical terms, and several other educational works.

The library of the Perkins Institution now contains nearly two thousand books in raised print.

The printing-office of the Institution has changed greatly since the days when my brother and I used to seek it as one of our happy hunting grounds, but I love to think of it as it was in the early sixties. The large, light room, full of cheerful busy-ness and admired disorder; the great wheel whirling steadily, the snowy sheets flowing out in swift, mysterious silence; the skilful hands of the blind workers, tending the machine, gathering the sheets, folding, sewing, binding; it was all delightful to watch. Then there was the untiring interest of trying to read the raised print, with shut eyes and investigating finger. We never could; and we felt very humble when in the class-room next door we saw the little blind boys reading as swiftly and as correctly with their fingers as we could with our eyes.

My father's efforts to bring reading within the reach of the blind were by no means limited to his own institution. It was his dream to see a national printing-press for the blind established on a solid and permanent basis, and for this he laboured in season and out of season, all his life long.

As early as the winter of 1836-7, he went to Washington in the hope of interesting Congress in the cause he had so deeply at heart. On Jan. 30th, 1837, he writes to Dr. Sewall of Washington, concerning this visit:

"I have but small hope that Congress will do anything for the unfortunate blind. I ought to have remained, and been a thorn in the side and a bore in the ears of members until I had importuned them into action; but I could not. The object, however, is too good, the stake too important, and my feelings too deeply engaged in it to let me abandon it without another effort; and you will probably see me in Washington another winter."

Though my father never did abandon the plan, he was forced to postpone further action for some time; and his second visit to Washington was not made until April, 1845, when he went thither in company with Mr. William Chapin of the New York, and Mr. William Boggs of the Philadelphia, institution. Each of the three principals took some of his most talented pupils with him, and they gave several exhibitions before Congress and the public, in the hope of procuring the foundation of a national press and library for the blind. The exhibitions made a deep impression; Congress and the public were amazed and delighted; but the time was not yet ripe, and my father was not to see the fruit of this sowing.