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Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe

CHAPTER I.
THE CADMUS OF THE BLIND

"It is to Dr. Howe more than to any other one man that Massachusetts owes what is best in her charitable system. He had shown his great capacity for philanthropic work by his masterly administration of the gifts sent to the Greeks in 1827-28, but his first definite task was the organization of the Asylum (1) for the Blind, between 1832 and 1842. In the first thirty years of his life, Dr. Howe was exhibiting his character rather than performing his true work, or perhaps we might better describe this period as his apprenticeship, and his journey-work -- the Lehrjahre and Wanderjahre of the great German romance. He was now, in the summer of 1832, about to begin on his actual task in life, the uplifting of the race by education and by the creation of an original institution of philanthropy. Such in fact was the Massachusetts School and Asylum for the Blind -- the pioneer of such establishments in America, and the most illustrious of its class in the world. It was in fact a work of constructive genius, and the true place of Dr. Howe is not with men of talent, like Horace Mann and Theodore Parker, but with men of genius like Emerson and Carlyle, who were his contemporaries. He planted for others to reap the harvest, and while men were admiring what he had achieved, he had already quitted that achievement, and was passing on to something newer. When his arrow had once hit the mark, he did not repeat the shot, but aimed higher, until the shaft kindled in the air like that of Virgil's Trojan Archer, and flew onward toward Olympus. He was therefore ever unsatisfied, unresting; the goal receded as he gained it; and a new ambition constantly replaced his earlier ones."

F. B. SANBORN.

IN beginning the story of my father's work among the blind, I am puzzled as to what I should say, and what leave unsaid. This is a story that people never tire of hearing. It has been told over and over, and over again: by Charles Dickens, in the "American Notes;" by Horace Mann, in a eulogy of my father written in 1861; by my mother, in her all-too-brief Memoir; by Mr. Sanborn, his friend and co-labourer in many fields of philanthropy; by Michael Anagnos, his son-in-law and successor in the work; most lately and most fully by my sisters, Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Elliott, in their book entitled "Laura Bridgman, Dr. Howe's Famous Pupil, and What He Taught Her."

There are, however, many other aspects of my father's life far less familiar than this; moreover, the scope and purpose of these volumes is different from that of any that have preceded them. The others tell, more or less fully, of his work; but his work lives after him, and may be seen of men. My object is to bring back, so far as may be, himself; to make my readers see him, in the "brave and noble manhood," the "honour without stain," of which Whittier speaks.

To this end, and because I must keep within reasonable limits of time and space, I shall omit much that is of importance in itself, and shall whenever it is possible use my father's own words.

The first volume of this work ends with my father's deliverance from the Prussian prison, in April, 1832. In the autumn of the same year he returned to America, and instantly set about his new task. Many years later, writing to Horace Mann of this time, he says:

"In 1832 I put the Institution for the Blind into operation, and have administered it ever since. As soon as I had taught two or three children, (2) which I did in my father's house, -- for the Institution was then poor and had no quarters, -- I went about the State and about New England with them, giving exhibitions and raising money."

These two brief sentences stand for a good deal, but to my father the matter was perfectly simple. The thing was to be done; the Institution was to be founded. There was no place and no money? very well! there must be a place, and one that would cost nothing. He took the children home, and the obstacle was overcome.

I have often wondered how this new flight of their Black Swan appealed to the quiet, somewhat conventional family in Pleasant Street. They accepted it, one and all. The sisters, now young women grown, were of great assistance to my father, lending their aid in many ways and during many years; and I have never heard that Grandfather Howe made any objection or protest. Yet it must have been somewhat startling for an elderly gentleman of settled habits, and of no special philanthropic proclivities, to have his house, spacious though it was, suddenly turned into a school for the blind. I have always admired Grandfather Howe for this forbearance.

In his Report for 1874 (which he thought would be his last), my father describes in detail the beginning of his work for the blind.

"In the year 1832, while inquiring for blind children suitable for instruction in our projected school, I heard of a family in Andover in which there were several such, and immediately drove out thither with my friend and co-worker, Dr. John D. Fisher. As we approached the toll-house, and halted to pay the toll, I saw by the roadside two pretty little girls, one about six, the other about eight years old, tidily dressed, and standing hand in hand hard by the toll-house. They had come from their home near by, doubtless to listen, as was their wont, to gossip between the toll-gatherer and the passers-by. On looking more closely, I saw that they were both totally blind. It was a touching and interesting scene -- that of two pretty, graceful, attractive little girls, standing hand in hand, and, though evidently blind, with uplifted faces and listening ears, as if brought providentially to meet messengers sent of God to deliver them out of darkness. If there were depth of soil enough in my mind to nourish superstition, the idea of a providential arrangement of this meeting would have taken deep root. It would indeed be hard to find, among a thousand children, two better adapted, irrespective of their blindness, for the purpose of commencing our experiment. They were shy of us at first, but we gained their confidence with some difficulty; after which they led the way to their home in a neighbouring farmhouse. They were two of a numerous family, the parents of which were substantial, respectable people, and particularly good samples of the farming class of New England. The mother was especially intelligent, and devoted to her children, and much concerned about the barrier which blindness placed in the way of educating the five who were blind. She was much interested in the novel plan for educating the blind, which we explained to her. She had never thought of instructing children through any sense but that of sight; but she soon saw the practicability of the thing, and being satisfied about our honesty, she consented with joy and hope to our proposition of beginning with her two girls, Abby and Sophia Carter. In a few days they were brought to Boston, and received into my father's house, as the first pupils of the first American School for the Blind. (3) The children were naturally so bright and docile, and apt at learning, that they easily comprehended our purpose in making them feel of strange signs or types representing the letters of the alphabet, and tried eagerly to learn. These metal types each bore, upon one end, the raised outlines of a letter, or of an arithmetical or geometrical figure. The children soon learned that by being placed in certain relative positions, these types represented an apple, or a chair, or some other substantive thing. They soon comprehended that these signs were twenty-six in number. They learned to set them upright in a metal frame perforated with square holes, so that the sign upon the end protruded above the surface of the frame, and could be felt above it with the finger.

"They then learned that there were ten other types, with differently shaped tangible lines upon them, and that they represented the ten arithmetical digits, or figures, one, two, three, etc. Also four others, representing the stops, and others for marks of interrogation and exclamation; so that by forty-six different types, placed in horizontal lines upon the plate, and in various juxtapositions, they could spell out the names of things, ask questions, and express their thoughts concerning the qualities and quantities of all things; for they had learned their native language as other children do, by the ear.

"They soon understood that sheets of stiff pasteboard, marked by certain crooked lines, represented the boundaries of countries; rough raised dots represented mountains; pins' heads, sticking out here and there, showed the location of towns; or, on a smaller scale, the boundaries of their own town, the location of the meeting-house, of their own and of the neighbouring houses, and the like; and they were delighted and eager to go on with tireless curiosity. And they did go on until they matured in years, and became themselves teachers, first in our school, afterwards in a private school opened by themselves in their own town. They have continued, up to this day, maintaining excellent characters, supporting themselves comfortably, and helping to support their parents as they declined in strength."

I remember Sophia Carter well, as a comely middle-aged woman, with regular features and side-curls. She was one of the familiar figures of my childhood, the "Institution" being to her, as to many others, a second home.

Miss Elizabeth Peabody, the sister-in-law of Horace Mann and Nathaniel Hawthorne, in an article written after my father's death, describes a visit to the "infant institution" in 1833.

"When we first became acquainted with Mr. Mann, he took Mary (afterwards Mrs. Mann) and me to a small house in Hollis Street" (Miss Peabody's memory fails her here; it was in Pleasant Street), "where, in the simplest surroundings, we found Dr. Howe, with the half-dozen first pupils he had picked up in the highways and byways. He had then been about six months at work, and had invented and laboriously executed some books with raised letters, to teach them to read, some geographical maps, and the geometrical diagrams necessary for instruction in mathematics. He had gummed twine, I think, upon cardboard, an enormous labour, to form the letters of the alphabet. I shall not, in all time, forget the impression made upon me by seeing the hero of the Greek Revolution, who had narrowly missed being that of the Polish Revolution also; to see this hero, I say, wholly absorbed, and applying all the energies of his genius to this apparently humble work, and doing it as Christ did, without money and without price."

We have it also on Miss Peabody's authority that before beginning his work for the blind, my father spent some time with bandaged eyes, that he might acquire the view-point of his future pupils.

My father's forty-third Report, from which I have quoted the account of the birth of the "infant institution," is so filled with his own spirit, that I should like to incorporate it bodily in this work, and then say, "Behold the man!" Since this may not be, I trust I shall be pardoned for quoting somewhat freely from it.

"Nearly half a century ago," (he says,) "circumstances made me feel a special interest in the blind as a class, and called me to work in their behalf. During this time I have striven to call public attention to their condition and wants; to show that the nature and consequences of their infirmity have not been generally understood; that they have been regarded in all ages and countries as hopelessly dependent, and have been ministered to in a spirit of mere pity, and humiliated by being assigned the beggar's post, and by the reception of alms. I have claimed for them a full share of the essential characteristics of humanity, and have maintained that they merely lack certain accidentals, and are therefore fully entitled to receive, with other youth, the advantages of a kind of education by which the consequences of those accidentals should be reduced to their minimum. I have shown that there are certain compensations by which the disadvantages arising from their infirmity may be lessened; that by special culture of the remaining senses they can attain such excellence as almost to compensate for the lack of one. I have pointed out their equality with other men in all moral attributes and capacities; and have acknowledged my indebtedness to some of them who have been to me exemplars of patient resignation under misfortune, of a courageous struggle against difficulties, and of a feeling of tender interest in the welfare of friends, and warm desire for the promotion of human happiness. I hope and trust that I am better for the acquaintance of some such blind persons.

"But while advocating their claim to special advantages in the matter of education, and to certain social privileges, as matters of right and justice, not of pity or indulgence, it has sometimes been my duty to express opinions concerning the blind as a class, which jostle and offend that peculiar sensitiveness and large self-esteem which are unduly developed in many of them by mistaken kindness. I have been constrained to speak of them as they have ever been, and ever must be, as one of the defective classes of society; to show that their lack of one important sense does necessarily, and in spite of compensations, imply bodily inferiority, which is almost necessarily followed by deficiencies in the force and variety of mental faculties and capacities."

In an article in the New England Magazine, published in 1833, my father gives some account of the first months of the school's existence.

"The infant Institution crept on all fours for six months, entirely unknown to the public. In January, 1833, the trustees found that they had expended all their funds, and were several hundred dollars in debt. . . . They then prepared to exhibit the result of the six months' instruction upon the children, -- confident that they would plead for their blind brethren in irresistible language. Accordingly Dr. Howe (4) gave an exhibition of the pupils before the Legislature, which made such a powerful impression as to induce the two houses to vote, almost by acclamation, the sum of six thousand dollars per annum to the Institution, on the condition that it should educate and support twenty poor blind from the State gratuitously.

"This exhibition was followed up by others made before the public in Salem, and in Boston, which excited great interest. . . . The ladies of Salem first suggested the idea of a fair; and assisted by those of Marblehead and Newburyport, they got up a splendid fete, which resulted in a net profit of $2,980.

"Resolving not to be outdone, the ladies of Boston entered the field with great ardour, and opened a bazaar on the first of May in Faneuil Hall. . . . The net profits of this fair amounted to $11,400."

This was the first fancy fair ever held in Boston, and it was long remembered as a most brilliant and delightful occasion. Boston seems to have been fuller even than usual of beautiful women, lovely girls and splendid matrons; and one and all entered heartily into the spirit of the fair, giving their time, work, and influence in the cause of the blind. At one table was the stately Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, then in the prime of her matronly beauty, perhaps as she appears in the portrait now to be seen in the collection of the Bostonian Society at the Old State House; at another Emily Marshall, whose name is like the fragrance of a rose, with her scarcely less beautiful sister Marion; the list is a long one, and includes all the prominent women of the day.

Dr. Edward Everett Hale, speaking at my father's centenary in 1901, thus recalls this fair.

"I suppose that I am perhaps the only person in this hall who was in Faneuil Hall, oh, now a great many years ago when the fair was held, which people spoke of as being the first great charity fair in Boston. I was a little boy, and I was caught by the enthusiasm -- everybody was caught by the enthusiasm of the moment. I wish anybody would look into her mother's storehouse of treasures and see if that mother, perhaps, bought a copal heart which I had cut out of gum copal with my jack knife and which my mother had strung on a gold string that it might be sold at the fair, -- certainly my first contribution, as almost my last, to any great charitable enterprise. And I had the satisfaction of knowing that the whole town of Boston, from the stevedore on the wharf to John P. Cushing, the great Canton merchant, and Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis, and Fanny Inglis, who wrote funny accounts of the fair -- that the whole of Boston was interested, as I was, in this new institution for the blind. That was the magic of this man. He waved his wand and everybody wanted to help forward the work which he undertook."

The Institution was now well established in public favour; the next step was to find it a fitting habitation. Grandfather Howe's house might do for six pupils; it certainly would not do for the coming twenty, much less for the ever-increasing number to which my father looked forward.

At this juncture Colonel Thomas H. Perkins came forward with the offer of his fine house and garden in Pearl Street, to be a permanent home for the Institution, on condition that fifty thousand dollars should be raised toward its support.

Fifty thousand dollars was a large sum in those days, but perhaps money was never more freely and gladly given than for this cause. Jonathan Phillips gave $5,000; others followed suit as they could; Deacon May and other good men giving their time to the collection, while my father took his six blind children and "went about the State and about New England with them, giving exhibitions and raising money" to swell the fund. The sum was soon made up, and the school moved to the big house in Pearl Street, with its pleasant garden where the little blind children romped and played, often with the "Doctor" as their companion and playfellow.

This was a great triumph; but the way was not all strewn with roses and laurel.

"The romance of charity," says my mother, "easily interests the public. Its laborious details and duties repel and weary the many, and find fitting ministers only in a few spirits of rare and untiring benevolence."

So it was now. People threw up their caps and cried "Hurrah!" and gave the money; it remained for my father to carry on the work.

It was pioneer work. First he must make each path himself, hew and cut and clear the way; then he must lead his assistants in it, drilling and instructing, fashioning as it were with his own hands the machinery with which he and they were to work. Again, he must keep the cause always before the eyes and mind of the public, and gain for his school its place among the permanent institutions of the State. Last, (and first, and always,) he must direct every detail, watch over every child, teach, admonish, cheer and comfort.

His rules were simple and strict. Early hours, cold bathing, simple food, fresh air and exercise; these were his materia medica.

In a later chapter I shall try to show him at his work in the Institution; meanwhile, to give an idea of the principles on which that work was founded, I quote from the Report of 1874 his Counsels to Parents of Blind Children, for their guidance in the treatment of a blind child, from birth to the time of his being sent to school.

"The real and practical education of all children begins as soon as they are born. The nursery is a school-room. The cradle is a nest in which to learn to lie and swing. The high chair a desk at which to learn to sit. The toys and playthings are apparatus by which to learn to use the arms and hands. The other rooms are fields of travel to be first explored. Every article of furniture and every ornament is to be examined and studied, and the senses exercised by observing the form, colour, weight, hardness and other qualities of each one. The yard is a field for early journeying; and the premises outside are to be explored by a more venturesome tour.

"The amount of thoughtful care and attention which is bestowed upon teaching the infant and child in these early lessons, will have great influence upon its intelligence and powers of self-direction during all its after-life. Unfortunately, it is only in very rare cases that any care or thought is bestowed upon the matter; the little scholar's schoolroom is without order or discipline, and his spontaneous efforts to get knowledge are as apt to bring upon him cuffs and reproofs as approbation and assistance. All this needs to be changed and improved, and the first schools and first lessons systematized and adapted for all children. How much more is this needed in the case of children whose condition, disposition and requirements are modified by infirmities, such as blindness, deafness, imbecility, and the like!

"The blind child needs especial care and peculiar training. The mother, the sister, the brother, the little companions, can all be very useful to him as teachers, and can give him valuable lessons of various kinds. They can encourage him to leave his couch or rocking-chair, and to have courage and self-reliance. They can encourage him to keep on his feet as soon as he can toddle about; can help him to explore the room, house, and yard; to climb stairs and ladders; to scale fences; to creep through holes; to hunt hens' eggs, and the like. They can give him opportunities to feel of dogs, cats, hens, horses and cattle; and can teach him much of the ways and habits of domestic and other animals.

"Do not be over-anxious about him. Do not watch him too closely. Do not smooth away all difficulties and carpet his walk of life. If he is groping his way across the room, and a stool or other article chance to be in his path, do not scream to warn him, nor hasten to remove it, but let him trip and tumble over it; the pain will be well paid for by the lesson. And so with a hundred little things. He had better pinch his fingers slightly with a pair of nippers, or with the nut-crackers, or in the joints of the tongs; he had better jam them a little with the hammer, or wound them with a screwdriver, than never handle these articles.

"And so with other common articles. Let him use the corkscrew, and drive the common screw, and bore with gimlet and bit, and cut with the hatchet, and split wood with the axe and cut it with the saw, rather than abstain from knowing and using those articles lest he should wound himself. All your anxieties and precautions will not save him from wound and bruise and hurts of various kinds. He must incur and bear them; all children have to do so; so that your alarms do not save him, but probably have the effect of increasing his danger by preventing him from relying upon himself, and so lessen his presence of mind and activity in self-defence, when a sudden difficulty presents itself.

"Do not prevent your blind child from developing, as he grows up, courage, self-reliance, generosity, and manliness of character, by excessive indulgence, by sparing him thought and anxiety and hard work, and by giving him undeserved preference over others. If he lounges in the rocking-chair, or on the sofa-cushions, don't pat him and say, "the poor dear child is tired;" but rout him out and up just as you would do with any boy who was contracting lazy habits. Much may be done for his advantage by judicious firmness, by resolutely insisting that he shall learn to do everything for himself and for those about him which it is possible to do without actually looking at things. You yourself don't hesitate about going into the cellar, if need be, for an armful of wood, or a basket of potatoes, without a lantern, even though it is dark; why should your blind boy be deterred by obstacles which you and the other children meet and overcome?"

The Counsels follow the blind child step by step up to manhood, and end with these words.

"As he approaches manhood, he should assume and perform all the relations and duties attendant upon that age. He should put himself forward and take on all civil rights, and offer to perform all civil duties which do not absolutely require eyesight. He should attend primary parish meetings; seek to fill places on voluntary committees for benevolent purposes; attend caucuses and political meetings, and discuss political questions and the qualifications of candidates for office, from that of hog-reeve to that of governor. In short, forgetting that he is blind, he should associate with his fellow-citizens, and labour with the most intelligent and virtuous of them for the promotion of the public weal."

Talking once with a woman who has given many years of her life to philanthropic work, she said to me: "I have been reading your father's reports, and find that most of the reforms in these matters (the methods of dealing with defective classes) which we are trying to bring about to-day, were suggested by him fifty years ago. He was half a century ahead of his time."

In studying my father's life, I am constantly reminded of this saying. Many of the measures for which he pleads so earnestly are -- largely in consequence of his efforts -- matters of course to-day. Make the blind self-respecting, self-supporting? lighten the idiot's darkness? of course! how should we not? But it was not so in the days of which I am now writing; and if ever there was a voice crying in the wilderness, "Repent, repent, and from old errors turn!" it was that clear voice of his.

A notable example of this is to be found in his Report for 1874. "I have had satisfactory proof," he says, "of the practicability and usefulness of sending blind children to the common schools. ... I availed myself of an opportunity of sending select pupils to a neighbouring school, and with good results. I trust that others, with more zeal and vigour than I have left, will put this into practice, until it shall be the custom to send to the common school such blind children as do not need the special attention and instruction which can only be had in institutions calculated to meet their wants. The practice of training and teaching a considerable proportion of blind and of mute children in the common schools is to be one of the improvements of the future. It will hardly come in my day; but I see it plainly with the eye of faith, and rejoice in the prospect of its fulfilment."

In this case it has taken forty years for our To-day to overtake his Yesterday.

We are apt to think of a report as something that we ought to read as a matter of duty. It was not so with these reports of my father's. In this country and in Europe, people were on the look-out for them. They were eagerly sought, eagerly read, translated into foreign languages, and no wonder. Here is no mass of dry details, no droning repetition, no general effect of moral sawdust. The clear presentment, the vivid and luminous description, the impassioned plea, seize and hold the attention from first to last; here, as elsewhere, it is the flash of the sword. We must look, whether we will or no. In his generation, these flashes startled, often alarmed, the pedagogues and reformers of the time; in our own, we find them almost without exception the common light of every day.

We have seen my father (through Miss Peabody's eyes) laboriously gumming bits of twine on scraps of cardboard, making the first raised alphabet known in this country; that was the first in a long series of experiments, the final outcome of which we see to-day in the Howe Memorial Press, that most beautiful and fitting monument raised in his honour after his earthly work was done.

The school being now established on a firm footing, and growing steadily in strength and in grace, my father was able to devote more time than ever to the study of means and appliances to help his pupils. They could learn to read; therefore reading must be made easy for them. They must have printed books, a printing press. The lack of it was the next obstacle to overcome.

In his Report for 1839, my father says:

"...It will be recollected by those gentlemen who were trustees in 1833, the first year of the operation of our Institution, that though our pupils succeeded in learning to read, the success seemed little worth, because there were but three books in the school. These were, a book of extracts from English authors, published in Paris; The Gospel of St. John, printed at Edinburgh, and one small volume from the same place. These were all the reading books for the blind then in existence in the English language; there was also a collection of mathematical diagrams, executed at York, England, and these made up the whole library of the blind. It was obvious that more books should be printed, but the first object seemed to be to find a method which would diminish their bulk and expense; for if the French, the Scotch, or the German methods had been followed, a volume like The New Testament would have formed twelve ponderous folios.

"After hesitating a long time whether to use a new phonetic alphabet, or a series of stenographic characters, or the common alphabet, I adopted the latter; not, however, without adhering to the opinion that one of the others must eventually be used in printing for the blind. Having decided to use the common alphabet, slightly varied, I endeavoured to reduce the bulk of each letter to the minimum size which the blind could feel.

"With this view all the unnecessary points, all the mere ornamental flourishes, were cut off; the interlinear space was reduced by making the bottom of the line straight; that is, carrying up such letters as g, p, etc., which run below the bottom of the line.

"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.

It was not till 1879 that Congress appropriated $250,000 for printing books in raised type. The income of this sum is spent in the publication of books which are distributed among the Institutions for the Blind throughout the country.

The following letter outlines the plan for a third visit to Washington.

BOSTON, March 7, 1846.

William Chapin, Esq., Supt. Inst. for the Blind, Columbus, O.

DEAR SIR: -- I have after various inquiries come to the conclusion that it is expedient to make an attempt to obtain from the Congress a grant of land or money for the purpose of obtaining a National Library for the Blind.

I believe there is a reasonable prospect of success in this attempt, if all the Institutions for the blind in the country and all their friends will co-operate.

It is reasonable to hope that Congress will do as much for the whole of the blind of the United States as it did for the deaf-mutes of one State: and we need not ask for more than that.

I propose therefore the following plan. Each of the seven Institutions shall send a select class of five or six pupils to Washington. All the classes to be formed into one: to practise together a few days in order to form a choir and a band, and to have their different parts assigned for an exhibition to be given in the Hall of the House of Representatives. Private exhibitions should also be given; and the feelings of members of Congress should be enlisted by a personal intercourse with the pupils at the boarding houses, and in as many ways as possible.

Each Institution should endeavour to procure the strongest recommendations from home (and from their respective Legislatures if possible) to their Senators and Representatives in favour of the plan. All due preparations having been made, a grant of money should be asked for, say $50,000 or $100,000 which, if obtained, should be appropriated as follows:

The Institutions should furnish a list of books, agreed upon among themselves, to be printed under the direction of the Committee on the Library of the States. An edition of -- copies to be printed; fifty to be sent to the Executive of each State in which there is a school for the blind; and the remainder to be retained at Washington for future disposal.

Such are the outlines of my plan, of which, doubtless, many modifications would be suggested afterwards.

For myself, I make no stipulations whatsoever: I am willing to perform my part, even the humblest. One of the dearest objects that remains to me in life is the final accomplishment of the plan upon which I have so long laboured, -- the creation of a Library for the blind; and I shall hail it with pleasure, by whatever honourable means and through whatsoever agency it may be brought about. I ask one thing, however, most earnestly: that no apprehension of failure may discourage us from the attempt at Washington. I once gave an exhibition there, under favourable circumstances, and such was its effect that I am confident that if I could have followed it up, and especially if I could have had the cooperation of other Institutions, I could have obtained a grant, even then. Some Members of Congress who had frankly told me they could not consistently vote for a grant from the National Treasury, came up after the exhibition, with tears in their eyes, and declared their readiness to vote for anything which would give light and happiness to the blind.

The greatest difficulties are not in Washington, but in the preparation, in the cooperation, in the submission of all individual feeling and all local interest or prejudice to the one grand object, the creation of a National Library for the blind. Let this be overcome and we will carry Congress by such an appeal to the hearts of the members as will cause them to forget that they are politicians.

Will you do me the favour to lay this communication before the proper authorities of your Institution, and to give it all the countenance and support that you can? If the plan finds favour, I should like to know immediately whether your deputation could be in Washington by the first of May, because, although I am fearful that we cannot make the attempt this session, still it is possible that we may; and these are good reasons for immediate action.

I am with great respect Very truly yours, S. G. HOWE.

Another important part of my father's work almost from the first was visiting other States, with the object of rousing interest in the blind and promoting efforts in their behalf. Sometimes alone, sometimes with two or three of his pupils, he went north, south or west, wherever the need might be; appeared before the. Legislature of the State, told his story, showed his proofs, made his plea, and departed.

"The world would thank the service done, He cannot stay for gold or praise."

But in most, if not all cases, the visit was followed by the founding of a State school for the blind.

"I went over the United States," he says briefly, "addressing seventeen Legislatures in order to induce them to provide for the education of the blind."

And Mr. Sanborn, in his "Life," notes that in November, 1841, my father was "cruising in behalf of the education of the blind in South Carolina, where he was in after years to be execrated as an Abolitionist."

Some years later (in 1854) the printer who had worked under my father at this early time claimed the credit of the invention of the "Howe type," and my father was asked for the facts of the case. In his reply he says:

"The degree of credit to be attached to any individual for services rendered in this cause has never seemed to me of much consequence. The great object has been to get at the best system of tangible characters, and to print the most books for the blind. So that they got the books, I cared little about the credit. I have taken little pains to put upon record my own part in the work; for I never thought it would be necessary to bring proof of my having devised, contrived, and brought into use the system generally known as 'Howe's' or the Boston type; but I am a little disturbed by an imputation of having allowed the public and my friends to give me, during twenty years, the credit which belonged to another man.

"I have always innocently supposed that the contrivance was entirely my own; and am greatly surprised to learn from your letter that Mr. -- claims the paternity of this system or method; for it does not deserve the name of invention. It is in reality only an improvement (though certainly a great one) upon the system of the Abbé Haüy of Paris, who is the real inventor of printing in tangible letters. To him belongs the title of 'inventor;' suum cuique."

The Trustees of the Perkins Institution, in their Report for 1836, thus briefly summarize my father's services in this matter of printing for the blind.

"When it is considered that the improved formation and arrangement of the characters by Dr. Howe enable us to give the same quantity of matter in volumes of half the bulk formerly required, and at one fourth the expense, we have reason to believe that these improvements will be of general application and use in sister institutions, both in our own country and Europe."

Those were happy years in the big house in Pearl Street. Here, as in Corinth, my father "laboured day and night, in season and out, and was governor, legislator, clerk, constable, and everything but patriarch." Here, too, he wrote letters, sometimes twenty of them before breakfast; from now to the end of his life the letters flow on in a swift, full stream. Looking them over, one might think it would have been a man's work merely to write these letters, if he had done nothing more; yet I cannot remember that my father ever spoke of his letter-writing, or ever let it interfere with the full work of his arduous day. It was done "between-times."

The letter-books, faithfully treasured in the Institution for which he laboured, are rusty, faded volumes; the ink has faded too, and the hasty writing is crabbed and difficult; but the page blazes as one reads, with fervour of appeal, with intensity of purpose, with the white fire of an unconquerable faith in humanity.

"I cannot but think that there is humanity enough in your Legislature to grant the just claims of the blind for a participation in those benefits of education which they give to all; -- to all but those whom God in his mysterious Providence has made dependent on their more favoured fellow-beings, and the neglect of whom he will reckon an offensive sin."

"Mankind and our age have too many sins of omission to answer for, to allow any more; and surely no sin of omission is greater than the neglect of those whom God has made our dependents, and whose affliction he intended should draw out and develop our kindness and best qualities: for without sorrow, affliction and pain -- where would be pity and benevolence and pleasure?"

"I should no more think of refusing to help one of my fellow-mortals on account of the colour of his skin, than the colour of his hair; and I know too well the liberal and philanthropic spirit which actuates our Trustees not to feel justified in asserting that they will provide every facility for educating all blind children, black, white or red, who may apply to them."

He is constantly urging parents and guardians of blind children to give them every chance for development. Again and again we find such words as these.

"He has learned enough to convince him that he can learn a great deal more; to give him confidence in his own powers, and to make him put out at interest his four talents, and not bury them in despair because others have five."

Again and again writing of dull or deficient children:

"But the one talent must have just as much care as if it were ten."

And again, to an over-anxious and over-tender mother:

"It is often one of the parent's hardest lessons, to learn to yield up timely and gracefully the authority which was once necessarily despotic, but which should soon become responsible, and soon after be abdicated altogether. The inner man will not go long on all fours, any more than will the outer man; it will get up, and insist upon walking about. If it cannot go openly and boldly, it will go slyly, and this of course makes it cowardly. You may as well refuse to let out the growing boy's trousers, as refuse larger and larger liberty to his growing individuality."

In 1841 he writes to Mr. A. Penniman, (5) superintendent of the School for Blind, of Columbus, Ohio:

"I believe it will be found in every case where more than one child in a family is born blind or becomes so by disease, that there has been blindness or strong tendency to it in the immediate or remote predecessors.

"It is amazing however to witness the ignorance of people on this subject, and the obstinate self-delusion of others. Not long ago a blind child was brought to me by his father and mother. I asked the usual question, whether there had been any blindness in the family, and both parents exclaimed lifting up both their hands in marvel, 'Oh, no! never!' 'But,' said I, 'has there been no imperfection of vision, no partial blindness?' -- 'Oh, no! mercy no!' said the mother, who squinted most horribly all the time; and 'Oh, no!' said the father, who opened his single eye in wide amazement at the question.

"My object is to get at the truth, which is always valuable, and I would not spare any pains or expense to come at it. It will not do, however, to conclude because the children or parents say they are ignorant of any cases of blindness in their families, that therefore there are none, because often they will think of cases among their cousins, aunts or uncles, upon their being pushed with questions, which otherwise would not occur to them."

In 1841, writing to the secretary of the American Bible Society, he says:

"I have often applications from this country and from the old world for the Old Testament. Sometimes they are from persons who having had both our books and those of Glasgow, prefer to send here to get ours. I have this moment an earnest request from a lady in Holland for the Old Testament, for she had read the New in our print.

"Many of the applications are attended by circumstances truly touching. One blind old English soldier in Hindustan had learned to read some sheets of ours, on which was the Lord's Prayer in large print, and sent out for the Testament. He found however that the print was too small for his hard fingers to decipher, and that while he had his hands upon the holy word, the light could not reach his mind. But he was not to be daunted. He put blisters upon his fingers, and found the new skin which formed was more sensitive. He renewed the blisters, and soon was enabled to read easily."

In writing to a young man whom he has just engaged as a teacher, he says:

"I need not impress upon you the importance of considering that the labour you would undertake would be one of love: that you could not do the duties unless you so considered it; and that unless your heart were in the work, your head and your hands could do but little. I have tried the head and hand system enough: I must henceforth have more aid from the hearts of my collaborateurs (to use a French word) or must give up myself."

The following letter relates to printing:

BOSTON, APRIL 8, 1845.

Hamilton Murray, New York.

MY DEAR SIR: -- I am indebted to you for your communication of the 6th instant.

Your Board has acted wisely and well by resolving to undertake printing for the blind and I trust they will carry out the resolution with efficient and persevering action. I must confess however that I was a little disappointed by the communication of your Corresponding Secretary dated April 5th. . . . For my own part I should not hesitate to order at least ten copies and probably twenty of any useful book of moderate cost, for aid to the publication of which this Institution might be called upon to subscribe. Such a book certainly is the work on Natural Philosophy which I purpose to publish by subscription. It is a book the like of which your Institution will certainly need; and to print one hundred copies will cost you at least $500. As there can be no sale, except to Institutions (and perhaps a dozen blind persons in the country who are in easy circumstances), I looked round to the friends of the cause to take copies at what would be the actual cost, -- if five hundred copies were sold, but of which not one hundred will be sold, -- and your Institution comes forward and subscribes for one copy at $2.

... As for the Cyclopaedia, I did not expect any Institution would take more than two or three copies. However, I have carried almost the whole weight of the printing for the blind in this country on my own shoulders heretofore, and though I may stagger under the Natural Philosophy and the twenty volumes of the Cyclopaedia, I shall make a desperate effort to carry them through to completion, though I shall have to beg very hard. Moreover I am determined that my own pupils shall have the advantage of access to every book that may be printed in raised characters anywhere; and I hereby authorize you to send me ten copies of any books which you may print, at the ordinary prices, or an equal quantity of printed matter in books from our press to be selected by you; provided always that you do not reprint anything which has already been printed in raised characters. I limit the order to a year solely because I do not wish to tie up my successor if death or other cause should remove me from my post.

I am decidedly of opinion that you should try Howe's press, for I am not at all pleased with the disposition of Mr. --- to make so much money out of everything connected with the printing for the blind, and his charge for his press seems to me most extravagant. As for the patent upon it, I do not value it a rush, and if I were disposed to build a new one I should do so without any hesitation. I dislike the miserable device of patents; it is only the key by which Mammon locks up light, that he may peddle it out for his own profit: knowledge and truth are profaned by being brought down into the market place and bought and sold like merchandise. However, I should respect the law of the land and never infringe a patent; but, in justice and equity, the whole value of the press in question belongs to this Institution; because all the experience necessary to make it was gained by Mr. --- while in our service; he made experiments and tried different presses and various devices, for all of which he was paid over and above his regular and very high salary.

This Institution therefore has a perfect right in equity and justice to build as many presses upon this plan as it chooses; and if your Institution chooses to build one, I am sure all concerned in ours would wish you success. The idea of paying such a price as he asked is preposterous, and it is far worse than preposterous when one considers that the money would have to be taken from a sacred fund of charity.

I would, with great pleasure, send you a "forma," but you can obtain what is still better for your purpose of an experiment, by getting from the Bible Society one of their stereotype plates of the Bible which was printed here three years ago. You will have no locking up to that. I send you however what is quite as important, a couple of sheets of paper of the proper quality. And let me tell you here, that you have got to fight your way through a hundred obstacles attendant upon a new business, -- the press -- the types -- the paper -- the drying -- the folding -- the binding, all are different from common works, and all have required of us a series of costly experiments. Whatever knowledge I can give you, I will contribute with great pleasure; you can send a man here to see our works in operation or I will lend you a man for a week or two to set you going.

All I have to say now is, that having the right kind of paper you must have it "wetted down" slowly, that is, laid between a pile of wetted paper for twenty-four hours; that you must have an india-rubber, or some very elastic blanketing, and you must put on great pressure perfectly perpendicularly, and force the surface of the paper down flat to the face of the plate. If your platina can be heated so much the better, though there is some craft quackery about this.

Please send me a specimen of the impression that you may obtain.

You must have in mind that "printing for the blind" is a misnomer, -- it should be embossing; if you talk to mechanics about it, you will mislead them by saying you want them to "print." Any press will print; but when it comes to "embossing," look out for your "arch!"

Ever truly yours, S. G. HOWE.

In 1854 he writes to William Langhorne, a benevolent gentleman of Virginia who had consulted him on the practicability of higher education for the negroes of the South:

"The plan seems to me to be fraught with grave if not insurmountable difficulties; (6) nevertheless I would never discourage anyone from entering upon any work of beneficence by dwelling upon the obstacles. My experience leads me to doubt the capacity of the blacks for such attainments as you look to. Like all of God's children, however, they have capacities capable of improvement. He forbade us to bury even the one poor talent in a napkin, and He will reward you for any honest and earnest effort in behalf of the unfortunate even if it should not be crowned with earthly success."

And in 1853 he writes to Miss Abby May.

"It is very desirable for the blind child that his claim upon his parents, friends, neighbours, or bondsmen, should be kept alive. This is done in part by insisting that they provide him with clothing, and take him home at vacations. It is found, especially with the ignorant of our own and foreign population, that if a blind child is taken off their hands, fed and clad, and kept in an Institution, after a few years they come to look upon him as a stranger having no claim upon them; whereas if they had been obliged to provide him with shoes, and to receive him at home during vacations, the relationship would have grown and strengthened. It is for the interest of the children therefore that we act, when we insist that the parents, or lacking parents, the relations, or lacking these, the neighbourhood in which they are born shall be held responsible for them. . . ."

The following letter speaks for itself.

BOSTON, April 8, 1853.

J. L. Caffelain, Esq., Actuary and Sec. Albion Life Insurance Office, London.

SIR: -- Your letter of the 1st ult., was addressed to me, probably because you found my name in a list of the medical men of this city.

I practised army surgery in youth, but never could get faith enough in medicine to practise that, and for many years I have had no other relations than social ones with the faculty here. Perhaps therefore my opinion of medical men may not be worth any thing to you, but as your object, statistical information, interests me, I will send a line, valeat quantum. My researches into the causes of blindness and of idiocy have been pretty extensive. My inference from these and from other observations is that the physical peculiarities of each individual (and duration of life is one) depend upon his original organization, more than upon any other cause. Individuals are wound up, at birth, to run, some a year, some a score, some an hundred years, just as clocks are wound to run, a day, a week, or a month; and under ordinary circumstances they do run their allotted time.

Passing influences have comparatively little effect.

Temperance and intemperance even, make less difference than is usually supposed. There is usually given a wide margin of oscillation, and a man may sadly abuse his constitution without materially shortening his life. But, beside this, the original physical organization of a man goes far to decide whether he shall be a temperate or an intemperate man, and whether he shall be economical or lavish in the expenditure of his vital force, which is his physical capital in life.

In a word, each individual organization is endowed, ab ovo, with a certain amount of vital force which will enable it to resist disorganizing forces, under ordinary circumstances, during a certain number of years.

Having the direction of the State School for idiotic children, I am often applied to for an opinion touching the probabilities of improvement in children of feeble intellect.

I never give one without consulting very carefully the genealogical history. It would be the same with regard to the probabilities of duration of life.

Now I do not know many physicians here who think much about this principle, which it seems to me underlies your subject, but there may be more than I suppose there are. I would name Dr. Edward Jarvis, of Dorchester, author of a valuable work on Physiology; but, what is more to your purpose a very conscientious man. The last sentence of my letter will be found by you, perhaps, to be the only one worth your notice.

Faithfully, S. G. HOWE.

In March, 1830, Dr. John Fisher, the early and faithful friend of the Institution, died, lamented by all who knew him. This good man was of such an inveterately modest and retiring disposition that he is not so widely remembered as he should be. At a memorial meeting held in his honour, my father, after a few words of earnest and affectionate appreciation, offered the following resolutions.

"Resolved, That by the death of Dr. John D. Fisher, this community has lost a benefactor -- the medical profession an ornament -- the wide circle of his patients a skilful physician, a wise counsellor, and a kind friend; -- that we all recognize in him a man, who, by his early and long-continued interest in various institutions of charity, and his gratuitous labours for their improvement, showed himself to be a practical philanthropist; who by tender solicitude for the health of his numerous patients in the humblest walks of life, and by unwearied efforts to promote their welfare in every way, proved himself to be a real friend of the poor; who, by his modest and quiet way of doing good, studiously shunned notoriety; who was ever sowing good deeds, like seeds in his pathway of life, but quickly covering them up from the public eye; and, therefore, it becomes us, who knew his virtues, to commemorate them, not so much to do him honour, as to lead others to imitate his blameless life and his good deeds; for which end --

"Resolved, That a committee of six persons be appointed by the Chair to take such measures as shall seem to them most suitable for paying a proper and lasting tribute to his memory.

"Resolved, That a committee of twenty-five be appointed by the Chair to raise the necessary funds for carrying into execution the purpose of the foregoing resolve."

The following letter gives added testimony to my father's high opinion of Dr. Fisher.

To Hon. T. C. Gary.

BOSTON, May 12th, 1850.

DEAR SIR: -- I like the inscription which you propose for the Fisher Monument; and if I suggest any change, it is with great hesitation and deference. In such matters things of equally good taste seem very unequal to their respective authors.

For the front I should prefer the last of your suggestions; "To the memory of J. D. Fisher, M. D. The contribution of those who loved him for his virtues."

How would this read for the front? "Built in memory of the virtues of J. D. F. by many of those who knew and loved him."

The inscription for the rear I like the least, -- "The Philanthropist!" The word is not of English origin; it is hackneyed and perverted from its true meaning. A man may be a philanthropist in the ordinary sense of the meaning without being kindly to those around him. Your qualification of cheerful would indeed keep our gentle friend out of the category of philanthropists turned sour or gone mad. How would it do to say on the rear, "He went about doing good?"

On the side, "The Physician and friend of the Poor." I shall not try to gild that gold.

On the Reverse side, "The Advocate of the Education of the Blind." That will not satisfy those of his friends and relatives who will not see the truth of what you say, that to call him the founder of this Institution would be attributing to him too much. Suum cuique! Fisher was the first proposer, earliest advocate, and ceaseless labourer in this cause, He laboured with Brooks, Prescott and others, himself holding the "bow oar," but alone he could have done little.

I do not see that any one can be fairly considered as the founder of this Institution; though Fisher more than any one.

In 1832, a few days after my return from Europe, while riding with him, (7) the subject of the education of the blind came up incidentally and he told me of the difficulties in the way of getting up and organizing an institution. Though they had been incorporated nearly four years, no direct attempt had yet been made to instruct a blind child. I proposed to undertake the work, and in ten minutes we agreed upon measures subsequently approved by Brooks, Prescott and others, and in less than a week I was on my way to Europe to procure teachers, books, etc. From this time Fisher did not hold the "bow oar." But this is hardly to the purpose. I would propose this:

The early and ever earnest Advocate Promoter or Friend of the Institution of the Blind.

Such are my thoughts. I am content to leave this matter to your good taste and do not see the necessity of a formal meeting of the Committee.

Faithfully yours, S. G. HOWE.

Dr. Fisher's portrait still hangs in a place of honour in the Perkins Institution.

My one personal association with his name, beside this portrait, is his learned work on smallpox, of which Dr. Channing speaks with admiration. Illustrated with portraits from life of every stage of the hideous disease, this book was at once a terror and a fascination to my childhood. The "confluent stage" never failed to send me away shuddering, yet the next time I passed the dreaded gray folio I could not resist peeping again.

The Institution throve and grew; in a few years it had outgrown the Pearl Street house, and my father looked about for larger quarters. The Mount Washington House at South Boston was in the market, and offered many of the necessary requirements: space, fresh air, a commanding situation; briefly, in 1839 the Institution was transplanted thither, and found a permanent home.

The history of the Perkins Institution might fill many volumes. Its record has been one of steady growth and development. My father soon felt the necessity of making provision for the graduates of the school, and for other adult blind workers, while at the same time he felt that they should be separated from the pupils. Accordingly in 1840 a department was added "for the purpose of providing employment for those pupils who have acquired their education and learned to work, but who could not find employment, or carry on business alone." This grew into the Workshop for the Blind, which to-day gives employment to some twenty persons in making mattresses and pillows, mats, brooms, re-seating chairs, etc., etc.

The musical training which he always considered an important factor in the education of the blind led easily and naturally to the establishment of the department of piano tuning which has given support to so many blind persons; and many other developments have followed. In one of his latest reports my father was able to say that "at least seventy-five per cent. of all the pupils of the Institution had become independent men and women, taking part with their fellows in the busy world."

My father felt from the first the disadvantages of large institutional buildings; and it will be seen that he never ceased to fight against the "Asylum" idea in theory and practice. In 1857 he writes thus to Mr. Chapin, of the Philadelphia Institution for the Blind.

"The more I reflect upon the subject the more I see objections in principle and practice to asylums. What right have we to pack off the poor, the old, the blind into asylums? They are of us, our brothers, our sisters -- they belong in families; they are deprived of the dearest relations of life in being put away in masses in asylums. Asylums generally are the offspring of a low order of feeling; their chief recommendation often is that they do cheaply what we ought to think only of doing well."

But it was not until 1870 that he was able to carry out his long-cherished idea of introducing the family or cottage system, into the Institution. From the first he had made a point of keeping the male and female pupils apart; now he built four cottages, in which the girls were installed, the boys remaining in the large building, which has always been called the "Institution" proper.

The Perkins Institution has always been a favourite child of the Commonwealth, and has received many benefactions, public and private; yet there were times when my father had to put forth all his powers to obtain the money needed to carry on the work in its fulness: as when in 1858 he writes to Mr. Charles Hale, evidently in answer to a question:

"I am sorry for what you say. I can only answer now, -- that the annual expenses of this Institution have been for many years greater than the income; and that it strikes me that the State should act as a Christian gentleman does when forced to control his expenses: try first to get along by curtailing his other expenditures, and leave his charity list to the very last."

There are many hundred institutions in this great country; but to many people in New England, the word means this one place; this lofty, rather bare building, with its superb outlook over the harbour, its countless windows, its playgrounds and attendant cottages. It has been all my life a familiar place, full of kindliest associations; to hundreds of blind persons it has been a second home, hardly less beloved, perhaps, than their own. I remember once saying something in jest about the bareness of its marble-paved corridors, in the presence of some ex-pupils, and being instantly taken up. "Ah! Mrs. Richards, you must not say any thing against this Institution!" and indeed I never meant to do so, for I have never visited that temple of cheerful labour without bringing away some good and happy thought.

The early years at the Perkins Institution were years of romance as well as of toil. The whole place was fired with my father's spirit; teachers and pupils worked in a flame of enthusiasm, feeling his eye upon them, his step always in advance, his hand always outstretched to lead and guide them onward. Moreover the interest inspired by the new undertaking was intense, and wise and great, simple and curious, flocked to see. In the spacious rooms of the "Doctor's Wing," many notable gatherings were held. Every distinguished stranger must see Dr. Howe and his blind pupils, and having seen, must spread the tale abroad so that others might come to look on the sight, so strange then, so familiar now, of blind children at school, learning "just like other children."

Here came also the good and great of my father's own city and State, who were his friends; Sumner, Mann, Parker and the rest, whose names are a jewelled rosary round the neck of the Commonwealth. Here he and they devised plans for the betterment of that humanity whose servants they were. Small wonder that the pupils of those days imbibed a portion of the spirit that breathed around them, and -- in many cases -- bound themselves in their turn to the same service.

NOTE: -- The following extract from an address delivered by my father at a convention held at the New York Institution for the Blind in August, 1853, fitly supplements the note on page 14.

"It seems but yesterday (though it is really more than twenty years) that I undertook to organize and put in operation an institution which had been incorporated four years before in Massachusetts, and I then looked around the country in vain for some one practically acquainted with the subject. There was not then upon this continent a school for the blind, a teacher of the blind, or even a blind person who had been taught by one. I had but an imperfect knowledge of the European schools, and supposed, therefore, that I should gain time, and start with greater chance of success, in what was regarded by many as a visionary enterprise, by going to Europe for teachers and for actual knowledge of all that bad been done there.

"I went, therefore, saw what little there was to be seen of schools for the blind, and soon returned, bringing a teacher of the intellectual branches from France, and of the mechanical branches from Scotland. Meantime my old friend and companion, Dr. Russ, had been laying the foundations of the noble Institution in which we are now assembled, and Mr. Friedlander had come from Europe and been urging the inhabitants of Philadelphia to give him an opportunity of showing his skill in the art of teaching the blind, which he had so successfully practised in Germany."

CHAPTER II.
LAURA BRIDGMAN

"Ye who have eyes and see not, and have ears and hear not; ye who are as the hypocrites of sad countenances, and disfigure your faces that ye may seem unto men to fast; learn healthy cheerfulness, and mild contentment, from the deaf, and dumb, and blind! Self-elected saints with gloomy brows, this sightless, earless, voiceless child may teach you lessons you will do well to follow. Let that poor hand of hers lie gently on your hearts!"
CHARLES DICKENS.

"There floats not upon the stream of life any wreck of humanity so utterly shattered and crippled that its signals of distress should not challenge attention and command assistance."
S. G. HOWE.

THE teaching of Laura Bridgman, the blind deaf-mute, has always and rightly been considered my father's greatest achievement. Manifestly, no record of his life would be complete which should omit mention of this; yet my mention will be brief, because I hope that my sisters' work (8) will be considered complementary to mine, and will be read in connection with it. I shall, therefore, simply give my father's own account of the matter from the Reports of the Perkins Institution.

In the ninth Report, for the year 1840, he says:

"Laura Bridgman has become extensively known. Human sympathies are always ready to be poured out in proportion to the amount of human suffering. The privation of any one sense is supposed to be a dreadful calamity, and calls at once for our sympathy with the sufferer; but when a human being is known to be deaf, dumb, blind, without smell, and with imperfect taste, that being excites the tender compassion of all who feel, and becomes an object of great curiosity to those who reflect as well as feel. When the supposed sufferer is a child -- a girl -- and of pleasing appearance, the sympathy and the interest are naturally increased.

"Such is the case with our beloved pupil, Laura Bridgman; and so general is the interest which she has excited, and so numerous are the inquiries concerning her, that I have thought it would be showing proper respect to the public of this section of the country, to publish, in the next Annual Report, a short history of her case. . . .

"She was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the twenty-first of December, 1829. She is described as having been a very sprightly and pretty infant, with bright blue eyes. She was, however, so puny and feeble, until she was a year and a half old, that her parents hardly hoped to rear her. She was subject to severe fits, which seemed to rack her frame almost beyond its power of endurance, and life was held by the feeblest tenure; but when a year and a half old, she seemed to rally; the dangerous symptoms subsided; and at twenty months old, she was perfectly well.

"Then her mental powers, hitherto stunted in their growth, rapidly developed themselves; and during the four months of health which she enjoyed, she appears (making due allowance for a fond mother's account) to have displayed a considerable degree of intelligence.

"But suddenly she sickened again; her disease raged with great violence during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were inflamed, suppurated, and their contents were discharged. But though sight and hearing were gone for ever, the poor child's sufferings were not ended. The fever continued seven weeks longer; 'for five months she was kept in bed in a darkened room; it was a year before she could walk unsupported, and two years before she could sit up all day.' It was now observed that her sense of smell was almost entirely destroyed; and consequently that her taste was much blunted.

"It was not until she was four years of age that the poor child's bodily health seemed restored, and she was able to enter upon her apprenticeship to life and the world.

"But what a situation was hers! The darkness and the silence of the tomb were around her: no mother's smile called forth her answering smile, -- no father's voice taught her to imitate its sounds: to her, brothers and sisters were but forms of matter which resisted her touch, but which differed not from the furniture of the house, save in warmth and in the power of locomotion; and not even in these respects from the dog and the cat.

"But the immortal spirit which had been implanted within her could not die, nor be maimed or mutilated; and though most of its avenues of communication with the world were cut off, it began to manifest itself through the others. As soon as she could walk she began to explore the room, and then the house. She became familiar with the form, density, weight, and heat of every article she could lay her hands upon. She followed her mother, and felt of her hands and arms, as she was occupied about the house; and her disposition to imitate led her to repeat everything herself. She even learned to sew a little, and to knit.

"Her affections, too, began to expand, and seemed to be lavished upon the members of her family with peculiar force.

"But the means of communication with her were very limited; she could only be told to go to a place by being pushed; or to come to one by a sign of drawing her. Patting her gently on the head signified approbation; on the back, disapprobation.

"She showed every disposition to learn, and manifestly began to use a natural language of her own. She had a sign to express her knowledge of each member of the family; as drawing her fingers down each side of her face, to allude to the whiskers of one; twirling her hand around, in imitation of a spinning wheel, for another; and so on. But although she received all the aid that a kind mother could bestow, she soon began to give proof of the importance of language to the development of human character. Caressing and chiding will do for infants and dogs, but not for children; and by the time Laura was seven years old, the moral effects of her privation began to appear. There was nothing to control her will but the absolute power of another, and humanity revolts at this; she had already begun to disregard all but the sterner nature of her father; and it was evident that as the propensities should increase with her physical growth, so would the difficulty of restraining them increase.

"At this time I was so fortunate as to hear of the child, and immediately hastened to Hanover, to see her. I found her with a well-formed figure; a strongly-marked, nervous-sanguine temperament; a large and beautifully-shaped head, and the whole system in healthy action.

"Here seemed a rare opportunity of benefiting an individual, and of trying a plan for the education of a deaf and blind person, which I had formed on seeing Julia Brace, at Hartford. (9)

"The parents were easily induced to consent to her coming to Boston; and on the fourth of October, 1837, they brought her to the Institution. For a while, she was much bewildered. After waiting about two weeks, until she became acquainted with her new locality, and somewhat familiar with the inmates, the attempt was made to give her a knowledge of arbitrary signs, by which she could interchange thoughts with others."

As further illustrative of this stage of Laura's development, I here interpolate from a later report of my father's

Some Thoughts on Language

"I hold that all human beings have the innate disposition, capacity, and desire to attach a sign to everything cognizable by their senses; to every thought which occurs to their minds; to every emotion which moves their spirit; and this sign must be by some outward form of expression cognizable by other persons.

"Tribes emerging from a condition like that of the brutes, use perhaps only audible cries, and visible signs; but all people, as they rise out of savagedom and pass through barbarism, follow the instinct or disposition to express themselves by audible sounds, and begin to use arbitrary and more or less perfectly organized language, in some of its thousand forms. All come to speak, as a matter of course; and the acquisition of speech is the crowning acquisition in human development. Vocal speech, be it remarked, is not the result of any conscious purpose and effort. Men, moved by the disposition and desire to have a system for mutual expression of desire and thought, do not select audible speech as one of many conceivable modes of carrying out this intercourse of minds; but all adopt speech because it is the one contemplated by nature, and for which they have organs specially fitted.

"I knew that Laura must have this innate desire and disposition; and that, although by reason of lack of sight and hearing she could not follow it in the usual way, and imitate the sounds made by others, and so speak, she would readily adopt any substitute which should be made comprehensible to her in her dark and still abode.

"In this faith I acted; and by holding to it firmly, succeeded. Without the belief, and indeed the certainty, that the mind of Laura was endowed with some attributes which the most highly gifted brutes utterly lack, I should not have attempted to bring her out of her mental darkness into light, any more than I should have attempted to bring out the mind of my dog Bruno, which seemed to know as much as Laura then did; and which I loved and prized, almost as much as if he had been human."

I return to the ninth Report.

"There was one of two ways to be adopted: either to go on and build up a language of signs on the basis of the natural language which she had already herself commenced; or to teach her the purely arbitrary language in common use: that is, to give her a sign for every individual thing, or to give her a knowledge of letters, by the combination of which she might express her idea of the existence, and the mode and condition of existence, of anything. The former would have been easy, but very ineffectual; the latter seemed very difficult, but, if accomplished, very effectual. I determined, therefore, to try the latter.

"The first experiments were made by taking articles in common use, such as knives, forks, spoons, keys, etc., and pasting upon them labels with their names in raised letters. These she felt of very carefully, and soon, of course, distinguished that the crooked lines spoon differed as much from the crooked lines key, as the spoon differed from the key in form.

"Then small detached labels, with the same words printed upon them, were put into her hands; and she soon observed that they were similar to the ones pasted on the articles. She showed her perception of this similarity by laying the label key upon the key, and the label spoon upon the spoon. She was here encouraged by the natural sign of approbation, patting on the head.

"The same process was then repeated with all the articles which she could handle; and she very easily learned to place the proper labels upon them. It was evident, however, that the only intellectual exercise was that of imitation and memory. She recollected that the label book was placed upon a book, and she repeated the process, first from imitation, next from memory, with no other motive than the love of approbation, and apparently without the intellectual perception of any relation between the things.

"After a while, instead of labels, the individual letters were given to her on detached pieces of paper: they were arranged side by side, so as to spell book, key, etc.; then they were mixed up in a heap, and a sign was made for her to arrange them so as to express the words book, key, etc., and she did so.

"Hitherto the process had been mechanical, and the success about as great as teaching a very knowing dog a variety of tricks. The poor child had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated everything her teacher did; but now the truth began to flash upon her -- her intellect began to work -- she perceived that here was a way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was in her own mind, and show it to another mind; and at once her countenance lighted up with a human expression: it was no longer a dog, or parrot, -- it was an immortal spirit, eagerly seizing upon a new link of union with other spirits! I could almost fix upon the moment when this truth dawned upon her mind, and spread its light to her countenance. I saw that the great obstacle was overcome, and that henceforward nothing but patient and persevering, though plain and straightforward efforts were to be used.

"The result, thus far, is quickly related, and easily conceived; but not so was the process; for many weeks of apparently unprofitable labour were passed before it was effected.

"When it was said above, that a sign was made, it was intended to say, that the action was performed by her teacher, she feeling of his hands, and then imitating the motion."

My father used to say that one of the happiest moments of his life was that so simply described above; the moment when he saw the light flash into the face of the blind child, and knew that spirit had touched spirit. In another report, written many years after, he says, recalling this time:

"It sometimes occurred to me that she was like a person alone and helpless in a deep, dark, still pit, and that I was letting down a cord and dangling it about, in hopes she might find it; and that finally she would seize it by chance, and, clinging to it, be drawn up by it into the light of day and into human society. And it did so happen; and thus she, instinctively and unconsciously, aided in her happy deliverance."

The same thought came to Charles Dickens, when, in 1842, he visited the Perkins Institution and saw Laura:

"A fair young creature with every human faculty, and hope, and powers of goodness and affection, inclosed within her delicate frame, and but one outward sense -- the sense of touch. There she was, before me; built up, as it were, in a marble cell impervious to any ray of light, or particle of sound: with her poor white hand peeping through a chink in the wall, beckoning to some good man for help, that an immortal soul might be awakened."

He adds, after an account of Laura's teaching:

"Well may this gentleman call that a delightful moment, in which some distant promise of her present state first gleamed upon the darkened mind of Laura Bridgman. Throughout his life, the recollection of that moment will be to him a source of pure, unfading happiness; nor will it shine least brightly on the evening of his days of noble usefulness."

I return to the ninth Report.

"The next step was to procure a set of metal types, with the different letters of the alphabet cast upon their ends; also a board, in which were square holes, into which holes she could set the types; so that the letters on their ends could alone be felt above the surface.

"Then, on any article being handed to her, -- for instance, a pencil, or a watch, -- she would select the component letters, and arrange them on her board, and read them with apparent pleasure.

"She was exercised for several weeks in this way, until her vocabulary became extensive; and then the important step was taken of teaching her how to represent the different letters by the position of her fingers, instead of the cumbrous apparatus of the board and types. She accomplished this speedily and easily, for her intellect had begun to work in aid of her teacher, and her progress was rapid.

"This was the period, about three months after she had commenced, that the first report of her case was made, in which it is stated that 'she has just learned the manual alphabet, as used by the deaf-mutes, and it is a subject of delight and wonder to see how rapidly, correctly and eagerly she goes on with her labours. Her teacher gives her a new object, -- for instance a pencil, -- first lets her examine it, and get an idea of its use, then teaches her how to spell it by making the signs for the letters with her own fingers: the child grasps her hand, and feels her fingers, as the different letters are formed; she turns her head a little on one side, like a person listening closely; her lips are apart; she seems scarcely to breathe; and her countenance, at first anxious, gradually changes to a smile, as she comprehends the lesson. She then holds up her tiny fingers, and spells the word in the manual alphabet; next, she takes her types and arranges her letters; and last, to make sure that she is right, she takes the whole of the types composing the word, and places them upon or in contact with the pencil, or whatever the object may be.'

"The whole of the succeeding year was passed in gratifying her eager inquiries for the name of every object which she could possibly handle; in exercising her in the use of the manual alphabet; in extending in every possible way her knowledge of the physical relations of things; and in proper care of her health.

"At the end of the year a report of her case was made, from which the following is an extract: 'It has been ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt that she cannot see a ray of light, cannot hear the least sound, and never exercises her (10) sense of smell, if she have any. Thus her mind dwells in darkness and stillness as profound as that of a closed tomb at midnight. Of beautiful sights, and sweet sounds, and pleasant odours, she has no conception; nevertheless, she seems as happy and playful as a bird or a lamb; and the employment of her intellectual faculties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her a vivid pleasure, which is plainly marked in her expressive features. She never seems to repine, but has all the buoyancy and gaiety of childhood. She is fond of fun and frolic, and when playing with the rest of the children, her shrill laugh sounds loudest of the group.

"'When left alone, she seems very happy if she have her knitting or sewing, and will busy herself for hours: if she have no occupation, she evidently amuses herself by imaginary dialogues, or by recalling past impressions; she counts with her fingers, or spells out names of things which she has recently learned, in the manual alphabet of the deaf-mutes. In this lonely self-communion she seems to reason, reflect, and argue; if she spells a word wrong with the fingers of her right hand, she instantly strikes it with her left, as her teacher does, in sign of disapprobation; if right, she pats herself upon the head and looks pleased. She sometimes purposely spells a word wrong with the left hand, looks roguish for a moment and laughs, and then with the right hand strikes the left, as if to correct it.

"'During the year she has attained great dexterity in the use of the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes; and she spells out the words and sentences which she knows, so fast and so deftly, that only those accustomed to this language can follow with the eye the rapid motions of her fingers.

"'But wonderful as is the rapidity with which she writes her thoughts upon the air, still more so is the ease and accuracy with which she reads the words thus written by another; grasping their hands in hers, and following every movement of their fingers, as letter after letter conveys their meaning to her mind. It is in this way that she converses with her blind playmates, and nothing can more forcibly show the power of mind in forcing matter to its purpose than a meeting between them. For as great talent and skill are necessary for two pantomimes to paint their thoughts and feelings by the movements of the body and the expression of the countenance, how much greater the difficulty when darkness shrouds them both, and the one can hear no sound!

"'When Laura is walking through a passage-way, with her hands spread before her, she knows instantly every one she meets, and passes them with a sign of recognition; but if it be a girl of her own age, and especially if it be one of her favourites, there is instantly a bright smile of recognition, and a twining of arms, a grasping of hands, and a swift telegraphing upon the tiny fingers, whose rapid evolutions convey the thoughts and feelings from the outposts of one mind to those of the other. There are questions and answers, exchanges of joy or sorrow, there are kissings and partings, just as between little children with all their senses!' . . .

"During this year, and six months after she had left home, her mother came to visit her; and the scene of their meeting was an interesting one.

"The mother stood some time, gazing with overflowing eyes upon her unfortunate child, who, all unconscious of her presence, was playing about the room. Presently Laura ran against her, and at once began feeling of her hands, examining her dress, and trying to find out if she knew her; but not succeeding in this, she turned away as from a stranger and the poor woman could not conceal the pang she felt, at finding that her beloved child did not know her.

"She then gave Laura a string of beads which she used to wear at home, which were recognized by the child at once, who, with much joy, put them around her neck, and sought me eagerly, to say, she understood the string was from her home.

"The mother now tried to caress her child, but poor Laura repelled her, preferring to be with her acquaintances.

"Another article from home was now given her, and she began to look much interested; she examined the stranger more closely, and gave me to understand that she knew she came from Hanover; she even endured her caresses, but would leave her with indifference at the slightest signal. The distress of the mother was now painful to behold; for, although she had feared that she should not be recognized, the painful reality of being treated with cold indifference by a darling child, was too much for woman's nature to bear.

"After a while, on the mother taking hold of her again, a vague idea seemed to flit across Laura's mind, that this could not be a stranger: she therefore very eagerly felt of her hands, while her countenance assumed an expression of intense interest; she became very pale, and then suddenly red; hope seemed struggling with doubt and anxiety, and never were contending emotions more strongly depicted upon the human face. At this moment of painful uncertainty, the mother drew her close to her side, and kissed her fondly, when at once the truth flashed upon the child, and all mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her face, as with an expression of exceeding joy she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her parent, and yielded herself to her fond embraces.

"After this the beads were all unheeded; the playthings which were offered to her were utterly disregarded; her playmates, for whom but a moment before she gladly left the stranger, now vainly strove to pull her from her mother; and though she yielded her usual instantaneous obedience to my signal to follow me, it was evidently with painful reluctance. She clung close to me, as if bewildered and fearful; and when, after a moment, I took her to her mother, she sprang to her arms, and clung to her with eager joy.

"I had watched the whole scene with intense interest, being desirous of learning from it all I could of the workings of her mind; but I now left them to indulge, unobserved, those delicious feelings, which those who have known a mother's love may conceive, but which cannot be expressed.

"The subsequent parting between Laura and her mother, showed alike the affection, the intelligence, and the resolution of the child, and was thus noticed at the time: 'Laura accompanied her mother to the door, clinging close to her all the way, until they arrived at the threshold, where she paused and felt around, to ascertain who was near her. Perceiving the matron, of whom she is very fond, she grasped her with one hand, holding on convulsively to her mother with the other, and thus she stood for a moment; then she dropped her mother's hand -- put her handkerchief to her eyes, and turning round, clung sobbing to the matron, while her mother departed, with emotions as deep as those of her child.' "...

"It has been remarked in former reports, that she can distinguish different degrees of intellect in others, and that she soon regarded almost with contempt a new comer, when, after a few days, she discovered her weakness of mind. This unamiable part of her character has been more strongly developed during the past year. She chooses for her friends and companions those children who are intelligent, and can talk best with her; and she evidently dislikes to be with those who are deficient in intellect, unless, indeed, she can make them serve her purposes, which she is evidently inclined to do. She takes advantage of them, and makes them wait upon her, in a manner that she knows she could not exact of others; and in various ways she shows her Saxon blood.

"She is fond of having other children noticed and caressed by the teachers and those whom she respects; but this must not be carried too far or she becomes jealous. She wants to have her share, which, if not the lion's, is the greater part; and if she does not get it, she says, 'My mother will love me.'

"Her tendency to imitation is so strong that it leads her to actions which must be entirely incomprehensible to her, and which can give her no other pleasure than the gratification of an internal faculty. She has been known to sit for half an hour, holding a book before her sightless eyes and moving her lips, as she had observed seeing people do when reading.

"She one day pretended that her doll was sick, and went through all the motions of tending it and giving it medicine; she then put it carefully to bed, and placed a bottle of hot water to its feet, laughing all the time most heartily. When I came home, she insisted upon my going to see it and feeling its pulse; and when I told her to put a blister on its back, she seemed to enjoy it amazingly, and almost screamed with delight.

"Her social feelings and her affections, are very strong; and when she is sitting at work, or at her studies, by the side of one of her little friends, she will break off from her task every few moments, to hug and kiss them with an earnestness and warmth that is touching to behold.

"When left alone, she occupies and apparently amuses herself, and seems quite contented; and so strong seems to be the natural tendency of thought to put on the garb of language, that she often soliloquizes in the finger language, slow and tedious as it is. But it is only when alone that she is quiet; for if she becomes sensible of the presence of any one near her, she is restless until she can sit close beside them, hold their hand, and converse with them by signs.

"In her intellectual character it is pleasing to observe an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and a quick perception of the relations of things. In her moral character, it is beautiful to behold her continual gladness, her keen enjoyment of existence, her expansive love, her unhesitating confidence, her sympathy with suffering, her conscientiousness, truthfulness, and hopefulness.

"No religious feeling, properly so called, has developed itself; nor is it yet time, perhaps, to look for it; but she has shown a disposition to respect those who have power and knowledge; and to love those who have goodness; and when her perceptive faculties shall have taken cognizance of the operations of nature, and she shall be accustomed to trace effects to their causes, then may her veneration be turned to Him who is almighty, her respect to Him who is omniscient, and her love to Him who is all goodness and love!

"Until then, I shall not deem it wise, by premature effort, to incur the risk of giving her ideas of God which would be alike unworthy of His character and fatal to her peace. I should fear that she might personify Him in a way too common with children, who clothe Him with unworthy, and sometimes grotesque attributes, which their subsequently developed reason condemns but strives in vain to correct.

"I have thus far confined myself to relating the various phenomena which this remarkable case presents. I have related the facts, and each one will make his own deductions. But as I am almost invariably questioned by intelligent visitors of the Institution about my opinion of her moral nature, and by what theory I can account for such and such phenomena; and as many pious people have questioned me respecting her religious nature, I will here state my views.

"There seem to have been in this child no innate ideas, or innate moral principles; that is in the sense in which Locke, Condillac, and others, use those terms. But there are innate intellectual dispositions; and moreover, innate moral dispositions, not derived, as many metaphysicians suppose, from the exercise of intellectual faculties, but as independent in their existence as the intellectual dispositions themselves.

"I shall be easily understood, when I speak of innate dispositions, in contradistinction to innate ideas, by those who are at all conversant with metaphysics; but as this case excites peculiar interest, even among children, I may be excused for explaining. We have no innate ideas of colour, of distance, etc. Were we blind, we never could conceive the idea of colour, nor understand how light and shade could give knowledge of distance. But we might have the innate disposition, or internal adaptation, which enables us to perceive colour, and to judge of distance; and were the organ of sight suddenly to be restored to healthy action, we should gradually understand the natural language, so to call it, of light; and soon be able to judge of distance by reason of our innate disposition or capacity.

"So much for an intellectual perception. As an example of a moral perception, it may be supposed, for instance, that we have no innate idea of God, but that we have an innate disposition, or adaptation, not only to recognize, but to adore Him: and when the idea of a God is presented, we embrace it, because we have that internal adaptation which enables us to do so.

"If the idea of a God were innate, it would be universal and identical, and not the consequential effect of the exercise of causality; it would be impossible to present Him under different aspects. He would not be regarded as Jupiter, Jehovah, Brahma; we could not make different people clothe Him with different attributes, any more than we can make them consider two and two to make three, or five, or anything but four.

"But, on the other hand, if we had no innate disposition, to receive the idea of a God, then could we never have conceived one, any more than we can conceive of time without a beginning -- then would the most incontrovertible evidence to man, of God's existence have been wanting, viz. the internal evidence of his own nature.

"Now it does appear to me very evident, from the phenomena manifested in Laura's case, that she has innate moral dispositions and tendencies, which, though developed subsequently (in the order of time) to her intellectual faculties, are not dependent upon them, nor are they manifested with a force proportionate to that of her intellect.

"According to Locke's theory, the moral qualities and faculties of this child should be limited in proportion to the limitation of her senses; for he derives moral principles from intellectual dispositions, which alone he considers to be innate. He thinks moral principles must be proved, and can be so only by an exercised intellect.

"Now the sensations of Laura are very limited; acute as is her touch, and constant as is her exercise of it, how vastly does she fall behind others of her age in the amount of sensations which she experiences! how limited is the range of her thought! how infantile is she in the exercise of her intellect! But her moral qualities -- her moral sense, are remarkably acute; few children are so affectionate, or so scrupulously conscientious; few are so sensible of their own rights, or regardful of the rights of others.

"Can anyone suppose, then, that without innate moral dispositions, such effects could have been produced solely by moral lessons? For even if such lessons could have been given to her, would they not have been seed sown upon barren ground? Her moral sense, and her conscientiousness, seem not at all dependent upon any intellectual perception. They are not perceived, indeed, nor understood -- they are felt; and she may feel them even more strongly than most adults.

"These observations will furnish an answer to another question which is frequently put concerning Laura: can she be taught the existence of God, her dependence upon, and her obligations to Him?

"The answer may be inferred from what has gone before; that if there exists in her mind (and who can doubt that there does?) the innate capacity for the perception of this great truth, it can probably be developed, and become an object of intellectual perception, and of firm belief. I trust, too, that she can be made to conceive of future existence and to lean upon the hope of it, as an anchor to her soul in those hours when sickness and approaching death shall arouse to fearful activity the instinctive love of life, which is possessed by her in common with all.

"But to effect this -- to furnish her with a guide through life and a support in death, much is to be done, and much is to be avoided. None but those who have seen her engaged in the task, and have witnessed the difficulty of teaching her the meaning of such words as remember, hope, forget, expect, will conceive the difficulties in her way; but they, too, have seen her unconquerable resolution and her unquenchable thirst for knowledge; and they will not condemn as visionary such pleasing anticipations. . . .

"By her teachers, then, and by all concerned, the attempt to develop the whole nature of this interesting being will be continued with all the zeal which affection can inspire; it will be continued, too, with a full reliance upon the innate powers of the human soul; and with an humble confidence that it will have the blessing of Him who hears even the young ravens when they cry."

My father's Report for 1841 shows great progress made by Laura in every way. She could now use the manual alphabet readily; could read simple texts and delighted in doing so; was continually questioning about everything. She was taken to a barn, and asked, "Do horses sit up late? "On being told that horses do not sit up she laughed, and corrected herself. "Do horses stand up late? "

She asks why cows have horns.

"To keep bad cows off when they trouble them."

"Do bad cows know to go away when good cow pushes them? "then after some moments of silent thought: "Why do cows have two horns? to push two cows? "

My father concludes the Report thus:

"During the past year she has shown very great inquisitiveness in relation to the origin of things. She knows that men made houses, furniture, etc., but of her own accord seems to infer that they did not make themselves, or natural objects. She therefore asks, 'Who made dogs, horses and sheep? 'She has got from books, and perhaps from other children, the word God, but has formed no definite idea on the subject. Not long since, when her teacher was explaining the structure of a house, she was puzzled to know 'how masons piled up bricks before floor was made to stand on? 'When this was explained she asked, 'When did masons make Jennette's parlour; before all Gods make all folks? '

"I am now occupied in devising various ways of giving her an idea of immaterial power by means of the attraction of magnets, the pushing of vegetation, etc., and intend attempting to convey to her some adequate idea of the great Creator and Ruler of all things.

"I am fully aware of the immeasurable importance of the subject, and of my own inadequacy; I am aware too that pursue what course I may, I shall incur more of human censure than of approbation; but incited by the warmest affection for the child, and guided by the best exercise of the humble abilities which God has given me, I shall go on in the attempt to give her a faint idea of the power and love of that Being, whose praise she is every day so clearly proclaiming by her glad enjoyment of the existence which he has given her."

In the eleventh Report, for 1842, in his account of Laura's progress in physical and mental development, he says:

"It is often asked, how can a knowledge of qualities which have no positive existence be communicated? Just as easily as the names of objects, and just as they are taught to common children; when a child bites a sweet apple, or a sour one, he perceives the difference of taste; he hears you use one sound, sweet, when you taste the one, another sound, sour, when you taste the other. These sounds are associated in his mind with those qualities; the deaf child sees the pucker of your lips, or some grimace when you taste the sour one, and that grimace perhaps is seized upon by him for a sign or a name for sour; and so with other physical qualities. The deaf, dumb, and blind child cannot hear your sound, cannot see your grimace, yet he perceives the quality of sweetness, and if you take pains to make some peculiar sign two or three times when the quality is perceived, he will associate that sign with the quality, and have a name for it.

"It will be said that qualities have no existence, being mere abstractions, and that when we say sweet apple, the child will think it is a compound name for the individual apple, or if he does not do this, that he cannot know whether by the word sweet we mean the quality of sweetness or the quality of soundness. This is true; at first the child does not know to what the sound sweet refers; he may misuse it often, but by imitation, by observation, he at last gets it right, and applies the word sweet to every thing whose qualities revive the same sensation as the sweet apple did; he then uses the word sweet in the abstract, not as a parrot, but understandingly, simply because the parrot has not the mental organization which fits it to understand qualities, and the child has. Now the transition from physical to mental qualities is very easy; the child has dormant within his bosom every mental quality that the man has; every emotion and every passion has its natural language; and it is a law of nature that the exhibition of this natural language calls into activity the like mental quality in the beholder. The difference between joy and sorrow, between a smile and a frown, is just as cognizable by a child as the difference between a sweet apple and a sour one; and through the same mental process by which a mute attaches signs to the physical quality, he may (with a little more pains), be made to attach them to the moral qualities. . . .

"She seems to be one of those who have the law graven upon their hearts; who do not see the right intellectually, but perceive it intuitively; who do good not so much from principle as from instinct; and who, if made to swerve a moment from the right by any temptation, soon recover themselves by their native elasticity. For the preservation of the purity of her soul, in her dark and silent pilgrimage through time, God has implanted within her that native love of modesty, thoughtfulness, and conscientiousness, which precept may strengthen but could never have bestowed; and, as at midnight and in the storm the faithful needle points unerring to the Pole, and guides the mariner over the trackless ocean, so will this principle guide her to happiness and to Heaven. May no tempter shake her native faith in this, her guide; may no disturbing force cause it to swerve from its true direction!

"As yet, it has not done so, and I can recollect no instance of moral obliquity except under strong temptation. I recall now one instance of deliberate deception, and that, I am bound to confess with sorrow, was perhaps attributable to indiscretion on my part. She came to me one day dressed for a walk, and had on a new pair of gloves which were stout and rather coarse. I began to banter and tease her, (in that spirit of fun of which she is very fond, and which she usually returns with interest,) upon the clumsy appearance of her hands, at which she first laughed, but soon began to look so serious and even grieved that I tried to direct her attention to something else, and soon forgot the subject. But not so poor Laura; her personal vanity, or her love of approbation, had been wounded; she thought the gloves were the cause of it and resolved to be rid of them. Accordingly they disappeared and were supposed to be lost; but her guileless nature betrayed itself, for without being questioned she frequently talked about the gloves, not saying directly that they were lost, but asking if they might not be in such or such a place. She was uneasy under the new garb of deceit, and soon excited suspicion. When it reached my ears I was exceedingly pained, and moreover doubtful what course to pursue. At last, taking her in the most affectionate way, I began to tell her a story of a little girl who was much beloved by her parents and brothers and sisters, and for whose happiness everything was done; and asked her whether the little girl should not love them in return, and try to make them happy; to which she eagerly assented. 'But,' said I, 'she did not, she was careless, and caused them much pain.' At this Laura was excited, and said the girl was in the wrong, and asked what she did to displease her relations; I replied,' she deceived them; they never told her anything but the truth, but one day she acted so as to make them think she had not done a thing, when she had done it.' Laura then eagerly asked if the girl told a fib, and I explained to her how one might tell a falsehood without saying a word; which she readily understood, becoming all the time more interested, and evidently touched. I then tried to explain to her the different degrees of culpability resulting from carelessness, from disobedience, and from intentional deceit. She soon grew pale, and evidently began to apply the remarks to her own case, but still was very eager to know about the 'wrong little girl,' and how her parents treated her. I told her her parents were grieved and cried, at which she could hardly restrain her own tears. After a while she confessed to me that she had deceived about the gloves, that they were not lost, but hidden away. I then tried to show her that I cared nothing about the gloves, that the loss of a hundred pairs would be nothing if unaccompanied by any deceit. She perceived that I was grieved, and going to leave her to her own thoughts, and clung to me as if in terror of being alone. I was forced however to inflict pain upon her.

"Her teachers and the persons most immediately about her were requested to manifest no other feeling than that of sorrow on her account; and the poor creature going about from one to another for comfort and for joy, but finding only sadness, soon became agonized with grief. When left alone she sat pale and motionless, with a countenance the very image of sorrow; and so severe seemed the discipline, that I feared lest the memory of it should be terrible enough to tempt her to have recourse to the common artifice of concealing one prevarication by another, and thus insensibly get her into the habit of falsehood. I therefore comforted her by assurances of the continued affection of her friends, tried to make her understand that their grief and her suffering were the simple and necessary consequences of her careless or wilful misstatement, and made her reflect upon the nature of the emotion she experienced after having uttered the untruth; how unpleasant it was, how it made her feel afraid, and how widely different it was from the fearless and placid emotion which followed truth.

"It was easy enough to make her see the consequences which must result from habitual falsehood, but difficult to give her an idea of all the moral obligations to be truthful; perhaps however the intellectual perception of these obligations is not necessary to the perfect truthfulness of a child, for such is his natural tendency to tell the truth at all times, that if his education can keep him from the disturbing force of any strong temptation, we may count upon his speaking straightforward, as surely as we may calculate upon a projectile moved by one force going in a straight line.

"Words are the natural and spontaneous representations of the thoughts; the truth is ever uppermost in the mind; it is on the surface, it is the single object, and cannot be mistaken; but for a lie, we must dive below the surface and hesitatingly fetch up one of the many that may be found at the bottom. There is little fear of Laura's losing that character for ingenuousness and truthfulness which she has always deservedly possessed." . . .

"The various attempts which I have made during the year to lead her thoughts to God, and spiritual affairs, have been for the most part forced upon me by her questions, which I am sure were prompted by expressions dropped carelessly by others, as God, Heaven, Soul, etc., and about which she would afterwards ask me. Whenever I have deliberately entered upon them I have done so with caution, and always felt obliged by a sense of duty to the child to make the conversations as short as possible. The most painful part of one's duty is often where an honest conviction forces one to pursue a line of conduct diametrically opposite to that recommended by those for whose superior talents and wisdom one has the greatest respect. It is said continually that this child should be instructed in the doctrines of revealed religion, and some even seem to imagine her eternal welfare will be imperilled by her remaining in ignorance of religious truths. I am aware of the high responsibility to God, and that love which I bear to the child forces me, after seeking for all light from others, finally to rely upon my own judgment. It is not to be doubted that she could be taught any dogma or creed, and made to give as edifying answers as are recorded of many other wonderful children, to questions on spiritual subjects. But as I can see no necessary connection between moral and religious life and the intellectual perception of a particular truth, or belief in a particular creed, I see not why I should anticipate what seems to me the course of nature in developing the mental powers. Unaided by any precedent for this case, one can look only to the book of nature; and that seems to teach that we should prepare the soul for loving and worshipping God, by developing its powers, and making it acquainted with his wonderful and benevolent works, before we lay down rules of blind obedience.

"Should Laura's life be spared, it is certain that she can be made to understand every religious truth that it may be desirable to teach her. Should she die young, there can be no doubt that she will be taken to the bosom of that Father in Heaven to whom she is every day paying acceptable tribute of thanksgiving and praise by her glad enjoyment of the gift of existence. With these views, while I am ready to improve every opportunity of giving what she seems to need, I cannot consent to attempt to impart a knowledge of any truth for which her mind is not prepared; and I would take this opportunity to beseech those friends of hers who differ from me, and who may occasionally converse with her, to reflect that while the whole responsibility of the case rests upon me, it is unjust in them to do, -- what they may easily do, -- instil into her mind notions which might derange the whole plan of her instruction.

"The following conversation, taken from my minutes made at the time, will give an idea of the course of her thoughts on spiritual subjects. During the past year one of our pupils died, after a severe illness, which caused much anxiety in our household. Laura, of course, knew of it, and her inquiries after him were as frequent and as correct as those of any one. After his death, I proceeded to break it to her. I asked her if she knew that little Orin was very sick. She said 'yes.' 'He was very ill yesterday forenoon,' said I, 'and I knew he could not live long.' At this she looked much distressed, and seemed to ponder upon it deeply. I paused awhile, and then told her that 'Orin died last night.' At the word died, she seemed to shrink within herself, -- there was a contraction of the hands, -- a half spasm, and her countenance indicated not exactly grief, but rather pain and amazement; her lips quivered, and then she seemed about to cry, but restrained her tears. She had known something of death before; she had lost friends, and she knew about dead animals, but this was the only case which had occurred in the house. She asked about death, and I said, 'When you are asleep does your body feel?' 'No if I am very asleep.' 'Why?' 'I do not know.' I tried to explain, and used the word soul. She said 'What is soul? ' 'That which thinks, and feels, and hopes, and loves,' said I, to which she added interrogatively, 'and aches?' Here I was perplexed at the threshold, by her inquiring spirit seizing upon and confounding material and immaterial processes. I tried to explain to her that an injury of the body was perceived by the soul; but I was clearly beyond her depth, although she was all eagerness to go on. I think I made her comprehend the difference between material and spiritual operations. After a while she asked, 'Where is Orin's think?' 'It has left his body and gone away.' 'Where? ''To God in Heaven.' She replied, 'Where? up?' (pointing up.) 'Yes!' 'Will it come back?' 'No!' 'Why? 'said she.

'Because his body was very sick and died, and soul cannot stay in dead body.' After a minute she said, 'is breath dead? is blood dead? your horse died, where is his soul? 'I was obliged to give a very unsatisfactory answer that animals have no souls. She said, 'cat does kill a mouse, why? has she got soul? 'Ans. 'Animals do not know about souls, they do not think like us.' At this moment a fly alighted upon her hand, and she said, 'have flies souls?' I said no. 'Why did not God give them souls?' Alas for the poverty of her language, I could hardly make her understand how much of life and happiness God bestows even upon a little fly!

"Soon she said, 'can God see, has He eyes?' I replied by asking her, 'can you see your mother in Hanover?' 'No!' 'but,' said I,' you can see her with your mind, you can think about her and love her.' 'Yes,' said she; 'so,' replied I, 'God can see you and all people and know all they do; and He thinks about them and loves them, and He will love you and all people if they are gentle and kind and good, and love one another.' 'Can He be angry? 'said she; 'No! He can be sorry, because He loves all folks, and grieves when they do wrong.' 'Can He cry? 'said she. 'No! the body cries because the soul is sad, but God has no body.' I then tried to make her think of her spiritual existence as separate from her bodily one; but she seemed to dislike to do so, and said eagerly, 'I shall not die;' some would have said she referred to her soul, but she did not, she was shrinking at the thought of physical death, and I turned the conversation. I could not have the heart to give the poor child the baneful knowledge before I prepared the antidote. It seems to me that she needs not the fear of death to keep her in the path of goodness.

"It would have been exceedingly gratifying to be able to announce a more perfect development of those moral qualities on which true religion is founded; but it was hardly to have been expected; those qualities are among the last to develop themselves, and are of tardy growth; we could have forced them out perhaps by artificial culture, but that would have been to obtain a hothouse plant instead of the simple and natural one that is every day putting forth new beauties to our sight. It is but thirteen years since Laura was born; she has hardly lived half that number, yet in that time what an important mission has she fulfilled! how much has she done for herself, how much has she taught others! deprived of most of the varied stimuli furnished by the senses, and fed by the scantiest crumbs of knowledge, her soul has nevertheless put forth buds of the brightest virtues, and given indication of its pure origin, and its high destination."

In March, 1844, Laura wrote my father, who was then abroad, asking him to tell her "about God and heaven and souls and many questions."

He replied as follows:

"My DEAR LITTLE LAURA: -- Mrs. Howe has a sweet little baby; it is a little girl. We shall call her Julia. She is very smooth and soft and nice; she does not cry much, and we love her very, very much. You love her too, I think, do you not? But you never felt of her and she never kissed you; how can you love her? It is not your hands, nor your body, nor your head, which loves her and loves me, but your soul. If your hand were to be cut off, you would love me the same; so it is not the body which loves. Nobody knows what the soul is, but we know that it is not the body, and cannot be hurt like the body; and when the body dies the soul cannot die. You ask me in your letter a great many things about the soul, and about God; but, my dear little girl, it would take very much time and very many sheets of paper to tell you all I think about it, and I am very busy with taking care of my dear wife; but I shall try to tell you a little, and you must wait until I come home in June, and we will talk very much about all these things. You have been angry a few times and you have known others to be angry, and you know what I mean by anger; you love me and many friends, and you know what I mean by love. When I say there is a spirit of love in the world, I mean that good people love each other; but you cannot feel the spirit of love with your fingers; it has no shape nor body; it is not in one place more than another; yet wherever there are good people there is a spirit of love. God is a spirit; the spirit of love. If you go into a house and the children tell you that their father whips them; if the house is cold and dirty, and everybody is sad and frightened because the father is bad and angry and cruel, you will know the father has no spirit of love. You never felt of him, you never had him strike you, you do not know what man he is, and yet you know that he has not the spirit of love, -- that is, he is not a good kind father. If you go into another house, and the children are all warm and well fed and well taught, and are very happy, and everybody tells you that the father did all this and made them happy, then you know he has the spirit of love. You never saw him, and yet you know certainly that he is good; and you may say that the spirit of love reigns in the house. Now my dear child, I go all about in this great world, and I see it filled with beautiful things; and there are a great many millions of people; and there is food for them, and fire for them, and clothes for them; and they can be happy if they have a mind to be and if they love each other. All this world, and all these people, and all the animals, and all things were made by God. He is not a man nor like a man; I cannot see Him or feel Him, any more than you saw and felt the good father of that family; but I know that He has the spirit of love, because He too provided everything to make all the people happy. God wants everybody to be happy all the time, -- every day, Sundays and all, and to love one another; and if they love one another they will be happy; and when their bodies die, their souls will live on and be happy, and then they will know more about God.

"The good father of the family I spoke to you about let his children do as they wished to do, because he loved to have them free; but he let them know that he wished them to love each other and to do good; and if they obeyed his will they were happy; but if they did not love each other, or if they did any wrong, they were unhappy; and if one child did wrong it made the others unhappy too. So in the great world; God left men and women and children to do as they wish, and let them know that if they love one another and do good, they will be happy; but if they do wrong they will be unhappy, and make others unhappy likewise.

"I will try to tell you why people have pain sometimes, and are sick and die; but I cannot take so much time and paper now. But you must be sure that God loves you, and loves everybody, and wants you and everybody to be happy; and if you love everybody, and do them all the good you can, and try to make them happy, you will be very happy yourself, and will be much happier after your body dies than you are now.

"Dear little Laura, I love you very much. I want you to be happy and good. I want you to know many things; but you must be patient, and learn easy things first and hard ones afterwards. When you were a little baby you could not walk, and you learned first to creep on your hands and knees, and then to walk a little, and by and by you grew strong. Your mind is young and weak and cannot understand hard things; but by and by it will be stronger, and you will be able to understand hard things; and I and my wife will help Miss Swift to show you all about things that now you do not know. Be patient then, dear Laura; be obedient to your teacher, and to those older than you; love everybody, and do not be afraid.

"Good-bye. I shall come soon, and we will talk and be happy.

"Your true friend,
"DOCTOR."

My father's hopes in this matter were not to be realized. During his absence in Europe some of those immediately associated with Laura felt it their duty to instruct her in "revealed religion," and when my father returned he found her mind filled with Calvinistic doctrines. This was one of the great disappointments of his life.

In his Report for 1844, my father says:

"Great interest has been manifested on all sides to know the effect of religious instruction upon her mind, and not without good cause. I have always thought it desirable on many accounts to give her such ideas, and such only, on this and other important topics as she shall always be able to retain. It is painful to be forced to relinquish ideas which by long possession have become regarded as one's own -- as much a part of one's self as one's property or one's limbs. We defend our religious, political, and other opinions with a zeal not proportionate to their truth, but to the length of time and the closeness of intimacy with which we have associated them with ourselves: when we have never contemplated the possibility of their falsity, the refusal of others to admit them as true, and still more the attempt to destroy them, often excites a passion as would the protest of a draft, or an assault upon the person. Some men may preserve their elasticity of mind, and retain unimpaired their confidence in their last belief, after the abandonment of several creeds, especially if blessed with self-complacency; but all cannot do so; for if the soul have drifted from several anchors in the storm of infidelity, it will hardly rely even upon the best bower of faith, as perfectly sure and steadfast.

"It seems especially desirable that Laura should never be obliged to remodel her faith. There is a moral in the story of the boy who, when the microscope first revealed to him the minute and wondrous structure of one of his hairs, was surprised and pained at not finding the number upon it; he had believed literally that the hairs of his head were all 'numbered;' and being of a shy nature he would not ask any explanation, but allowed his faith in the Bible to be seriously impaired. Laura can never use a microscope, but she will by and by bring the magnifying power of mature judgment to bear upon all that she now takes unhesitatingly from others as literal truth; and I would that she might always find the number written upon everything on which she had been led to look for it.

"But I have given in former Reports some of my reasons for deferring this most important part of her education, and I need not now repeat them; suffice it to say that I wished to give her only such instruction about religion and God, as she was prepared to receive and understand, so that her moral and religious nature should be developed pari passu with her intellect. It was delightful for me to find that without any particular direction being given to it from without, her mind naturally tended towards the causes of things, and that after an acquaintance with the extent of human creative power, she preceived the necessity of superhuman power for the explanation of a thousand daily recurring phenomena. She could not indeed like the poor Indian, 'see God in clouds and hear Him in the wind,' but then He was manifest in the springing grass, the bursting flower, and the ripening fruit; the genial sun, the falling rain, the driving snow -- these, and countless other things which became known to her by her single sense, made her aware of a power transcending the power of man. It would have been more delightful still to lead her wondering mind to the perception of the higher attributes of God, as her capacity for such perception was unfolded, until, her moral nature being fully developed, she might have been as much impressed with love for His Almighty Power.

"I am aware that many will say it is impossible that Laura, ignorant as she is, should have by herself conceived the existence of God, because it is said that of the thousands of deaf-mutes who have been received into the institutions of this country, no one ever arrived at the truth unaided.

"Now there is very great vagueness in such general negations; the words can be taken in various senses, and are difficult to be proved in any. It may be said that no man ever arrived at the knowledge of the fact that ten and ten make twenty by the unassisted efforts of his own mind; for if he had never associated with other human beings he would probably never have perceived that relation between numbers.

"The words 'knowledge of God 'may also be understood in different ways; if a child ascertains that tables and chairs and carpets; houses, ships and machinery; carriages, tools, watches, and a thousand other things, are made by men, and then infers that the sun, moon, and stars, the hills, rivers, and rocks, must have been created, but could not have been made by man, -- that child has an idea of the existence of God; and when you teach him the three letters G-O-D, -- you do not make to him a revelation of God's existence; you only give to him a name for a power the existence of which he had already conceived in his own mind. We teachers are apt to overrate our own efforts: let us attempt to convey a knowledge of abstract truths to parrots and monkeys, and then we shall know how much is done by children, and how little by ourselves.

"It is in this sense that I mean to be understood when I say that Laura Bridgman of herself arrived at the conception of the existence of God.

"Unless there has been some intellectual process in a child's mind, the words God, Deity, etc., must be utterly insignificant to it. We pronounce certain words with great solemnity and reverence, and the child perceives and understands our manner, for that is the natural language of our feelings; he imitates us, and the repetition of the words will ever after, by association of ideas, call up in his mind the same vague feelings of solemnity and reverence; but all this may be unaccompanied by anything like an intellectual perception of God's existence and creative power.

"It will be said that children three years old will repeat devoutly the Lord's Prayer, and tell correctly what God did on each of the six days of creation; but in so doing they too often take the name of the Lord in vain, and sometimes, alas! worse than in vain. ...

"It may be said that no human being can have any adequate idea of God's attributes, and that therefore all we have to do is to give Laura such ideas of Him as pious Christians form from the study of natural and revealed religion; but I know not what others may do, I cannot do this. . .

"I might long ago have taught the Scriptures to Laura; she might have learned, as other children do, to repeat line upon line, and precept upon precept; she might have been taught to imitate others in prayer; but her God must have been her own God, and formed out of the materials with which her mind had been stored. It was my wish to give her gradually such ideas of His power and love as would have enabled her to form the highest possible conception of His divine attributes. In doing this, it was necessary to guard as much as I could against conveying impressions which it would be hard to remove afterwards, and to prevent her forming such notions as would seem unworthy to her more developed reason, lest the renouncement of them might impair her confidence in her own belief.

"But various causes have combined to prevent what seemed to me the natural and harmonious development of her religious nature; and now, like other children, she must take the consequences of the wise or unwise instruction given by others. I did not long hold the only key to her mind; it would have been unkind and unjust to prevent her using her power of language as fast as she acquired it, in conversation with others, merely to carry out a theory of my own, and she was left to free communication with many persons even before my necessary separation from her of more than a year.

"During my absence, and perhaps before, some persons more zealous than discreet, and more desirous to make a proselyte than to keep conscientiously their implied promise of not touching upon religious topics, -- some such persons talked to her of the Atonement, of the Redeemer, the Lamb of God, and of some very mystical points of mere speculative doctrine. These things were perhaps not farther beyond her comprehension than they were beyond the comprehension of those persons who assumed to talk to her about them; but they perplexed and troubled her, because, unlike such persons, she wished that every word should be the symbol of some clear and definite idea.

"She could not understand metaphorical language; hence the Lamb of God was to her a bona fide animal, and she could not conceive why it should continue so long a lamb, and not grow old like others and be called a sheep.

"I must be supposed to mention this only as her faithful chronicler, and to do it also in sorrow. If the poor child spoke inadvertently on such topics, it was without consciousness of it, and she was made to do so by indiscreet persons, not by any communications of mine or of her teacher; we shall never speak to her of Jesus Christ but in such a way as to impart a portion at least of our own reverence, gratitude and love. . . .

"There is this constant difficulty with her (and is it not one too much overlooked in the religious instruction of other children?) that being unable to form any idea of virtue and goodness in the abstract, she must seek it in the concrete; and her teachers and friends, frail and imperfect beings like herself, furnish the poor impersonations of the peerless attributes of God.

"This difficulty might have been avoided, I think, by the plan which I had marked out for her intellectual faculties and moral sentiments, and which was simply to follow the natural order; but since that plan has been marred by the well-meant officiousness of others, there remains only to remedy, as far as we can, what we cannot cure entirely -- the bad effects of ill-timed direction of her thoughts to subjects too far above her comprehension."

I must refrain from quoting other passages in which my father sets forth more at length his principle of following nature as his guide, in the education of the deaf-blind. Briefly, he was the pioneer in this field; he invented a new science. No blind deaf-mute had ever before been taught the use of language; indeed, it was considered an impossibility to impart such knowledge to a human being in this condition. Blackstone declares that a person deprived of so many senses would be an idiot in the eye of the law, because his mind could not be reached. This dictum had been reaffirmed by a body of learned men a short time before my father undertook the task of Laura's education. With the true scientific spirit that distinguished him, he carefully reasoned out every step of the way, and made a full and clear record of the methods which he invented, not for his pupils alone, but for the whole afflicted class for which he opened the way to human fellowship. As will be seen in a later chapter, while on his wedding tour in Europe he had this matter constantly in mind; sought out a number of blind deaf-mutes, took the first steps to reach their minds, explained his methods to benevolent persons in the neighbourhood, and urged them to continue the work.

It should be noted that in cases subsequent to Laura's he omitted the earlier steps of the process, beginning at once with the finger alphabet instead of the printed words.

Thus he cleared the path which has since led many persons into the open way. His methods have been employed in all subsequent cases, and after seventy years of trial remain the standard.

The affection between Laura and my father was, as Dickens says, "as far removed from all ordinary care and regard as the circumstances in which it had its growth are apart from the common occurrences of life."

To my father, Laura was the child of his spirit, only less beloved than his own children; next to them she received the fullest measure of that almost passionate tenderness which was so integral a part of his nature.

To Laura, I may with reverence say that "Doctor "came next to God in her deeply religious mind.

This being so, his marriage naturally was something of a shock to her. She had felt herself first in her benefactor's thoughts; she realized that now she must take the second place.

"Does Doctor love me like Julia? "she asked her teacher anxiously.

"No! "said Miss Swift.

"Does he love God like Julia? "

"Yes!"

She repeated the question later, adding, "God was kind to give him his wife."

Nevertheless, she became much attached to my mother, and later formed a tender and intimate friendship with my sister Julia.

This seems a fitting place in which to speak briefly of this my father's oldest and darling child.

In a later chapter it will be seen that he speaks of the youngest, my brother Samuel, as his best loved child. Indeed, I fancy that whatever one had been taken from him would have seemed the dearest for the time, for the depth and tenderness of his love for us all may not be expressed in words. But the two eldest children, Julia and Florence, were naturally more companions to him than the younger ones, and to them especially he was not only father, counsellor, and teacher, but brother, friend and playmate.

As Julia grew older she took an ardent interest in his work among the blind, and in her early as in her later womanhood she became their friend and helper in her degree, as he in his. She taught them, read to them, wrote to them, worked and played with them. Her blind friends could not see her almost seraphic beauty, but I fancy that to many of them her voice was like no other voice.

As the wife of Michael Anagnos she was able to continue her beneficent activities at the Institution, till her death in 1886. Childless herself, she, like my father, found a child of the spirit in every young creature deprived of the blessing of sight, and her last words on earth were, "Take care of the little blind children! "

To return to Laura Bridgman, whose namesake by the way I am:

Another important friendship of her childhood was that which she formed with Oliver Caswell, a blind deaf-mute boy whom my father discovered and brought to the Institution in 1841. He was then eight years old, a comely and healthy child, blind and deaf from early infancy, and had received no special instruction. My father proceeded at once to teach him, following in the main the same methods he had employed in Laura's case, but with one important modification already noticed.

"Profiting," he says, "by the experience I had gained in other cases, I omitted several steps of the process before employed, and commenced at once with the finger language. Taking, therefore, several articles having short names, such as key, cup, mug, etc., and with Laura for an auxiliary, I sat down, and taking his hand placed it upon one of them, and then with my own made the letters k-e-y. He soon learned to make the letters for key, pen, pin."

In the forty-third Report, my father says:

"After long, oft-repeated, and patient efforts, he got hold of the thread by which he was led out of his dark and isolated labyrinth into light. . . .

"Laura herself took great interest and pleasure in assisting those who undertook the tedious task of instructing him. She loved to take his brawny hand with her slender fingers, and show him how to shape the mysterious signs which were to become to him keys of knowledge and methods of expressing his wants, his feelings, and his thoughts. . . . Patiently, trustingly, without knowing why or wherefore, he willingly submitted to the strange process. Curiosity, sometimes amounting to wonder, was depicted on his countenance, over which smiles would spread ever and anon; and he would laugh heartily as he comprehended some new fact, or got hold of a new idea.

"No scene in a long life has left more vivid and pleasant impressions upon my mind than did that of these two young children of nature, helping each other to work their way through the thick wall which cut them off from intelligible and sympathetic relations with all their fellow-creatures. They must have felt as if immured in a dark and silent cell, through chinks in the wall of which they got a few vague and incomprehensible signs of the existence of persons like themselves in form and nature. Would that the picture could be drawn vividly enough to impress the minds of others as strongly and pleasantly as it did my own! I seem now to see the two, sitting side by side at a school desk, with a piece of pasteboard, embossed with tangible signs representing letters, before them and under their hands. I see Laura, grasping one of Oliver's stout hands with her long graceful ringers, and guiding his forefinger along the outline; while, with her other hand, she feels the changes in the features of his face, to find whether, by any motion of the lips or expanding smile, he shows any sign of understanding the lesson: while her own handsome and expressive face is turned eagerly toward his; every feature of her countenance absolutely radiant with intense emotions, among which curiosity and hope shine most brightly. Oliver, with his head thrown a little back, shows curiosity amounting to wonder; and his parted lips and relaxing facial muscles express keen pleasure, until they beam with that fun and drollery which always characterize him. . . .

"Three years wrought a strange change and wonderful improvement. They would stand face to face, as if expecting some burst of light to dispel the utter darkness, and enable them to see each other's countenance. They seemed listening attentively for some strange sound to break and dispel the perpetual and deathlike silence in which they had ever lived, and permit them to hear each other's voice. The expression of Laura's face was much more vivid than that of Oliver's; indeed, it was sometimes painful rather than pleasant, owing to the anxiety expressed by her singularly marked and symmetrical features, which was sometimes so intense as to beget the thought that she might be a wild young witch, or be going mad.

"Oliver, on the other hand, was ever placid, smiling, and frequently overflowing with jollity and fun.

"How changed the scene of their intercourse after four or five years' use of tangible speech had given them a greater range of language, and enabled them to interchange thought and emotions easily and rapidly! Laura, quick as lightning in her perceptions of meaning and in her apt replies, would still almost quiver in her eagerness for greater speed in the flow of her companion's signs. Oliver, patient, passive, reflective, and even smiling, was closely attentive. As the interest increased, Laura would gesticulate with arms and hands, as well as fingers, and dance up and down on the floor excitedly; while Oliver's face, as he grew a little moved, would become flushed, and the perpetual smile on his lips would spread into a broad laugh, which made his pallid face the very image of fun and frolic. No scene on the boards of a pantomimic theatre could exceed this real, living, but silent intercourse between two sorely bereaved but happy youth, who never thought of the impression which they made upon beholders.

"Oliver's case was in some respects more interesting than Laura's, because, although far inferior in mental capacities, and slower in perceptions, he had an uncommonly sweet temper, an affectionate disposition, and a love of sympathy and of fun, the gratification of which made him happy at heart, and clad his handsome, honest face in perpetual smiles. But Laura, although comely and refined in form and attitude, graceful in motion, and positively handsome in features, and although eager for social intercourse and communion of thought and sentiment with her fellows, had not that truly sympathetic nature which distinguished Oliver. He might, and possibly did, unconsciously love her a little; but she never loved him, nor (as I believe) any man; and never seemed to pine for that closer relation and sympathy with one of the other sex, which ripens so naturally into real and sympathetic love between normal youth, placed in normal circumstances."

The story of Laura's life is a happy one. Womanhood found her a well-educated person, of astonishing activity. Reading, studying, writing letters, keeping a diary, sewing, knitting, making delicate lace, -- keeping all her own belongings in exquisite order, with the instinct of a born housewife; above all, talking. She was an inveterate talker, and her thirst for information was unquenchable.

It is a strong temptation to quote from my father's and her teachers' diaries.

"Is God ever surprised? "

"How did God tell the first man about himself?"

"Why can we not think how very long God has lived? "

"Why do I have two thoughts? Why do I not do what my conscience tells me is right? "

Briefly, as my father says, she was "happily brought at last into easy and free relation with her fellow creatures, and made one of the human family."

I remember my father's once testing the nameless sense which never failed to tell Laura of his presence.

She was alone in the big schoolroom of the Institution. Taking off his shoes, he crept softly and noiselessly into the room. Instantly she cried out "Doc! Doc! "the noise she always made when he appeared. She had different "noises "for her different friends, and could doubtless have been taught to articulate. My father regretted in later years that he had not made the attempt.

It was in October, 1837, that Laura Bridgman came to the Institution for the Blind, a child of seven years; there she spent the greater and the happier part of her life; and there, in 1889, she died.

I cannot better close this chapter than with one of her "poems."

LIGHT AND DARKNESS

"Light represents day.
Light is more brilliant than a ruby, even diamond.
Light is whiter than snow.
Darkness is night-like.
It looks as black as iron.
Darkness is sorrow.
Joy is a thrilling rapture.
Light yields a shooting joy through the human heart.
Light is sweet as honey, but
Darkness is bitter as salt and even vinegar.
Light is finer than gold and even finest gold.
Joy is a real light.
Joy is a blazing flame.
Darkness is frosty.
A good sleep is a white curtain.
A bad sleep is a black curtain."

NOTE. In all, my father received and instructed five blind deaf-mute children at the Perkins Institution; among them was Lucy Read, whose pathetic case is described by him in his reports for 1842. Lucy was happy at the Institution, and was making excellent progress in every way; but her mother, whose mental blindness equalled her child's physical infirmity, refused to allow her to remain.

The following letter relates to poor Lucy:

To Horace Mann
BOSTON (where else?) July 16, 1841.

MY DEAR MANN: -- . . . I have lost my Vermont girl, just as she was beginning to promise finely. Her parents have taken her home; her mother, a very ignorant and very nervous body, conceived a notion that the child would certainly die within a year, and that she should come back and die comfortably at home. She professed, indeed, some dissatisfaction at the child not being treated as Laura is (who is my child and lives with me), but the secret of the whole is she loves her daughter more warmly and blindly than does a cow her calf. She felt, as Scott says of Elspeth, "that to be separated from her offspring was to die."

She teased the father day and night, until the poor man, to make peace, came down for the child. He was very reluctant to take her with him, when he saw how she had improved, and once gave it up; but at last concluded that he "dared not face the old woman, without the child," and he has gone with her. Lucy evidently did not wish to go, for finding all was ready she wished her teachers and me to go also.

Poor thing! I fear they will not bring her back! But it is a great satisfaction to think we broke through the crust, and got at the living spring within: and it is clear we did so.

Ever truly yours,
S. G. HOWE.

In his Report for 1844, my father says that he has met in all ten blind deaf-mutes. Several of these were in England and on the Continent, and in every case he did all that he could to awaken interest in them and to insure their instruction. Whenever it was possible he began the instruction himself, giving several lessons in the presence of some person who, he hoped, would be moved to continue the work; as in the case of Margaret Sullivan, a girl of some twenty-three years of age, whom he found in the almshouse of Rotherhithe in England. He gave her some half-dozen lessons, beginning with the manual alphabet, and says that "she made more progress in two hours than Laura Bridgman did in two weeks." This was of course partly owing to the improved method he had devised, but he felt also that Margaret's natural intelligence and aptitude to learn were greater than Laura's.

CHAPTER VI
THE SCHOOL FOR FEEBLE-MINDED

"The love and wisdom of our Heavenly Father are manifest not only in those gifted ones who seem fashioned most nearly in his likeness, but even in these broken fragments of humanity, which should therefore be carefully gathered up, that nothing be lost which His sanctifying fingers have touched."

S. G. Howe.

"It is hard to realize that but two generations have passed since Dr. Howe first raised the cry 'A man overboard!' nor do we realize how far that voice has reached, or that its echoes will go on for ever.

"The school is indebted for its existence to Dr. Howe. Looking back through the annual reports and the unlimited appendixes printed with them, we find that before his decease he had considered most of the contingencies which might happen, and which have happened, in the life of our institution. . . . The school has been conducted as nearly as possible upon the lines laid down by him."

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE SCHOOL FOR FEEBLE-MINDED, 1903.

"I consider that his work with the imbecile is truly the chief jewel in his crown. The other things he did other men might have done, but he alone among the philanthropists of that time was able to see the need of this work, and to realize its possibilities."

WALTER E. FERNALD, 1908.

IN the year 1846 my father undertook a new work, one of the most important of his life. In the course of his labours and research in behalf of the blind and the insane, more especially of the latter, he had been deeply impressed with the sufferings and needs of a kindred class, the idiotic and feeble-minded. Up to that time nothing whatever of a public nature had been done in this country for these unfortunates. Seldom to be classed with the insane, there was no refuge for them save the poorhouse, where they were often fed and lodged, but where no attempt was made to elevate their condition, or to develop such powers as might be latent in them. It was my father's principle, many times enunciated in his reports, that the child with but one talent required and deserved no less care and attention than the one with five. Not only did his heart go out to these sufferers in an anguish of pity, a flame of resolve, but his wide gaze saw in their present condition a fearful menace to the well-being of the community.

My father knew that in France the education of the idiot had begun; (11) indeed it is probable that he may have visited the asylum at Bicêtre. When, therefore, in 1839, a blind child was brought to the Perkins Institution who was also idiotic and unable to walk, my father gladly undertook his treatment, and was able to improve his condition greatly in all respects. Somewhat later two other blind idiots were received into the Institution and were treated with "considerable success."

This success led my father to infer "that if so much could be done for idiots who were blind, still more could be done for those who were not blind."

Having assured himself not only that the thing could be done but that he himself could do it, the next step was to convince others first of the need, then of the expediency of action by the State.

"It was considered a duty," he says, "to endeavour to do something for idiots as a class, and various plans were proposed. Such, however, was the public incredulity as to the capacity of ordinary idiots for improvement, that it was thought best to proceed very carefully, and in the first place to obtain accurate official information as to the number and condition of these unfortunate persons in the Commonwealth. In the winter of 1845 it was resolved to make a movement."

Probably my father felt that he should not appear directly as the prime mover in this matter, lest it be instantly set down as the vision of an enthusiast; but as usual he makes no mention of himself. On January 22, 1846, Judge Byington, then a member of the House of Representatives, moved an order for the appointment of a committee, "to consider the expediency of appointing commissioners to inquire into the condition of the idiots of the Commonwealth; to ascertain their number and whether anything can be done for their relief, and to report to the next General Court."

This order was passed and printed the same day, Judge Byington being made chairman of the committee. In its report, presented March 25, 1846, the committee urged strongly the appointment of such commissioners, and subjoined the following letter from my father.

To Judge Byington

March 12, 1846.

DEAR SIR: -- You ask whether I think it expedient to have commissioners appointed by the State to ascertain the condition and capacities of the idiots who are supported at the public charge, and I answer that I think it not only a matter of expediency but of duty.

Every child in the State has a right to be taught at the public expense; and shall we overlook or neglect those who are helpless children all their lives long?

There are about six hundred idiotic children in Massachusetts, most of whom are born of poor and ignorant persons who can do nothing for them, and they soon become the children and the charge of the public. And what do we, whom God so freely blesses with mental capacities and means of happiness, -- what do we do with those helpless fellow creatures whom He throws upon our hands? We thrust them out of sight into the almshouses; we bury their one poor single talent, which He will require at our hands, we feed them indeed and care for them, as we do for our cattle, but like cattle we let them go down to the grave without trying to kindle within them the light of reason which may guide them on their way to eternity.

Whoever has been in the habit of visiting our almshouses must have been struck with the pleasing looks of those poor harmless beings, in whom a human soul seems struggling with the animal nature which overpowers it. They are almost always gentle and timid creatures capable of affection, and possessed of enough intellect to encourage any one who has the time and means for attempting their instruction to do so; but the task is so difficult that few ever assume it; and the almost universal lot of the idiot is to be left to bask in the sun in summer, and hang over the fire in winter, to indulge whatever natural or unnatural appetites he may have, and to pass through life without the consciousness that he has a human soul.

This neglect of idiots is not only a wrong to them and a betrayal of our trust, but it is sometimes the cause of their suffering grievous ill-treatment. This is not the place to relate the sad story of some of them; nor should I be disposed to harrow up your feelings by doing so if it were. I know very well that in most of our towns the overseers of the poor and the keepers of the almshouses are humane people, and disposed to be kind to their helpless charge. But I know too that their good intentions are sometimes defaulted, and that some idiots have been cruelly misused. Not only are they often made the sport of neighbouring children and the mockery of the thoughtless inmates of the almshouses, but sometimes the victims of evil-disposed persons.

Being helpless and unable to bear testimony against others, they have occasionally been treated with great inhumanity; idiotic males have suffered cruel oppression, and females have been shamefully outraged.

Nor is injury done to them alone; the community suffers on account of it, because the spectacle of degraded and despised humanity cannot be familiarly contemplated without harm; and every village which has an idiot or "silly person" who is made a butt of by the young and thoughtless, suffers therefor in its moral character. Man is made in God's image, and those who have not learned to respect humanity in every form will be wanting in due respect towards its great Prototype. Besides, the recoil of a wrong is more powerful than its stroke.

If it were not certain that the intellectual condition of idiots could be improved, still for humanity's sake it would be right to appoint commissioners to inquire into their physical condition and their actual treatment in order to ascertain whether their unhappy lot could not be lightened.

The State appoints commissioners to be the guardians of the sad and scanty relics of the Indian tribes, and to look after their rights and interests, and shall the six hundred children of our faith and race, who are far more helpless than the Indians, be left uncared for? The Mohammedans cherish the half-witted and regard their incoherent words as a sort of inspiration; and shall the benighted infidels be more charitable than the Christians of Massachusetts?

But it is not only possible that many persons who are now left to vegetate as hopeless idiots are capable of much intellectual improvement, it has now become a matter of certainty. Schools have been established for them in France and in Prussia, and in those schools the most degraded and apparently helpless idiots have been much improved.

I have myself known several cases in our neighbourhood of persons who had long been considered as hopeless idiots, but who, to an experienced eye, showed the marks of capacity for great improvement. Several children have been brought to me who not only were insane, and consequently fair subjects for treatment, but who had been considered as idiots and treated as such; they had been in fact educated to be idiots, for all treatment of children is education, be it for good, or be it for evil.

I have in mind one case where the child of a rich and wise man showed such signs of idiocy as would, if he had -been- the son of poor and ignorant parents, have certainly condemned him to the almshouse, to neglect, to idleness, and probably to dumbness, -for he could hardly speak;- but by a resolute and judicious course of instruction he has been taught to read, has been improved in speech, and will, I doubt not, become a rational man, and be able to take care of himself.

Now may it not be that there are scores and hundreds of such cases among the poor and friendless? And is it not an awful thought that our wealthy community is yearly losing human souls that are entrusted to its care, whom the mere overflowing of our garners might have gathered into the bosom of society? Will not God in his righteous judgments demand them at our hands?

But even if we descend to lower considerations and regard the economy of the thing, we shall find that worldly wisdom would teach us to train our idiots to habits of industry. Of the many who are now supported at the public charge only a few do any work, and that is of the most unprofitable kind; to say nothing of the destructive tendencies of some who are left unemployed. Now it is certain that the great majority of them might be taught to do some simple handicraft work; that they might be trained to love labour, and thus support themselves in whole or in part.

It appears that the considerations of duty, humanity, and economy all demand that the condition of the idiot at public charge should be inquired into, with a view to its speedy improvement.

With great respect I am, Dear Sir, Very respectfully yours, S. G. HOWE.

On April 11th, 1846, the three commissioners were appointed, my father, Horatio Byington and Gilman Kimball. For nearly two years they laboured in this cause, first by means of circular letters to town clerks and other responsible persons in every town of the Commonwealth, and secondly by personal observation and inquiries. They visited sixty-three towns and personally examined the condition of "five hundred and seventy-four human beings who are condemned to hopeless idiocy, who are considered and treated as idiots by their neighbours, and left to their own brutishness."

On February 26th, 1848, the commissioners presented their first Report, written and signed by my father as chairman.

A few extracts will give its character.

"When we accepted the task assigned to us, it was not without a sense of its importance. We did not look upon idiocy as a thing which concerned only the hundred or thousand unfortunate creatures in this generation who are stunted or blighted by it; for even if means could be found of raising all the idiots now within our borders from their brutishness, and alleviating their suffering, the work would have to be done over again, because the next generation would be burdened with an equal number of them. Such means would only cut off the outward cancer, and leave the vicious sources of it in the system. We regarded idiocy as a disease of society; as an outward sign of an inward malady. . . . We resolved, therefore, to seek for the sources of the evil, as well as to gauge the depth and extent of the misery. It was to be expected that the search would oblige us to witness painful scenes, not only of misfortune and suffering, but of deformity and infirmity, the consequences of ignorance, vice, and depravity. The subjects of them, however, were brethren of the human family; the end proposed was not only to relieve their sufferings and improve their condition, but if possible to lessen such evils in coming generations; the task, therefore, was not to be shrunk from, however repulsive and painful was its contemplation.

"It is to be confessed, however, that we have been painfully disappointed by the sad reality, for the numbers of beings originally made in God's image, but now sunk in utter brutishness, is fearfully great, even beyond anything that had been anticipated.

"The examination of their physical condition forces one into scenes from the contemplation of which the mind and the senses instinctively revolt.

"In searching for the causes of this wretchedness in the condition and habits of the progenitors of the sufferers, there is found a degree of physical deterioration, and of mental and moral darkness, which will hardly be credited.

"We would fain be spared any relation of what has been witnessed as well for our own sake as for the tastes and feelings of others, which must be shocked by the recital of it. It would be pleasanter simply to recommend such measures as would tend to remove the present evils and prevent their recurrence. But this may not be. Evils cannot be grappled with and overcome unless their nature and extent are fully known. Besides, our duty was not only to examine into, but to report upon the condition of the idiots in our Commonwealth; and that duty must be done."

The story that follows is a terrible one, and may not be repeated here. At the close of the Report, my father says:

"No systematic efforts have yet been made in this country to teach a class of these sorely bereaved creatures, but individual efforts have not been wanting in Massachusetts. The success here obtained, for the first time, in the education of persons who by the English law are considered to be necessarily idiots, as 'wanting all those senses which furnish the human mind with ideas,' has encouraged attempts to educate idiots. (12) The results thus far are most satisfactory. In view of all these circumstances, therefore, we most earnestly recommend that measures be at once taken to rescue this most unfortunate class from the dreadful degradation in which they now grovel. . . .

"Massachusetts admits the right of all her citizens to a share in the blessings of education; she provides it liberally for all her more favoured children; if some be blind or deaf, she still continues to furnish them with special instruction at great cost; and will she longer neglect the poor idiots, -- the most wretched of all who are born to her, -- those who are usually abandoned by their fellows, -- who can never, of themselves, step upon the platform of humanity, -- will she leave them to their dreadful fate, to a life of brutishness, without an effort in their behalf?

"It is true that the plea of ignorance can be made in excuse for the neglect and ill-treatment which they have hitherto received; but this plea can avail us no longer. Other countries have shown us that idiots may be trained to habits of industry, cleanliness, and self-respect; that the highest of them may be measurably restored to self-control, and that the very lowest of them may be raised up from the slough of animal pollution in which they wallow; and can the men of other countries do more than we? Shall we, who can transmute granite and ice into gold and silver, and think it pleasant work, -- shall we shrink from the higher task of transforming brutish men back into human shape? Other countries are beginning to rescue their idiots from further deterioration, and even to elevate them; and shall our Commonwealth continue to bury the humble talent of lowly children committed to her motherly care and let it rot in the earth, or shall she do all that can be done to render it back with usury to Him who lent it? There should be no doubt about the answer to these questions. The humanity and justice of the Legislature will prompt them to take immediate measures for the formation of a school or schools for the instruction and training of idiots.

"The benefits to be derived from the establishment of a school for this class of persons, upon humane and scientific principles, would be very great. Not only would all the idiots who should be received into it be improved in their bodily and mental condition, but all the others in the State and the country would be indirectly benefited. The school, if conducted by persons of skill and ability, would be a model for others. Valuable information would be disseminated through the country; it would be demonstrated that no idiot need be confined or restrained by force; that the young can be trained to industry, order, and self-respect; that they can be redeemed from odious and filthy habits, and that there is not one of any age who may not be made more of a man and less of a brute by patience and kindness directed by energy and skill. ..."

Not content with thus showing the necessity of immediate action in behalf of the idiots of the Commonwealth, my father added to the report a supplement, containing information which, he says, "may perhaps be useful for those who shall have the direction of that action; and likewise some facts and considerations the knowledge of which may tend to lessen the number of idiots in the next generation, and possibly to hasten the period at which this grievous calamity shall be removed."

The following passage is from this supplement,

"All those who have a living and abiding faith and trust in the goodness and wisdom of the Creator will readily believe that the terrible evils which now infest society are not necessarily perpetual; that they are not inherent in the very constitution of man, but are the chastisements sent by a loving Father to bring back his children to obedience to his beneficent laws. These laws have been as much shrouded in darkness, in times past, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt; and though they were written upon every man's body, no Champollion was found to decipher them. But a better day has dawned, and men are beginning to read the handwriting upon the wall, which tells them that every sin against a natural law must be atoned for by suffering here, as well as hereafter.

"It is beginning to be seen, also, that man has a double nature and double interests; that he is a social being, as well as an individual; and that he cannot sin with impunity against the one nature any more than he can against the other. God has joined men together, and they cannot put themselves asunder. The ignorance, the depravity, the sufferings of one man, or of one class of men, must affect other men and other classes of men, in spite of all the barriers of pride and selfishness which they may erect around themselves. The doctrine of impenetrability does not obtain in morals, whatever it may do in physics; but on the contrary, as gases afford mutually a vacuum to each other, into which they rush, so the nature of every individual is a vacuum to the nature of society; and its influences, be they for good or be they for evil, penetrate him in spite of himself. It is clear, therefore, that in this as in everything else the interest and the duty of society are common and inseparable.

"Idiocy is a fact in our history of momentous import. It is one of the many proofs of the immense space through which society has yet to advance before it even approaches to the perfection of civilization which is attainable. Idiots form one rank of that fearful host which is ever pressing upon society with its suffering, its miseries, and its crimes, and which society is ever trying to hold off at arms' length, to keep in quarantine, to shut up in jails and almshouses, or, at least, to treat as a pariah caste; but all in vain. ..."

But even these words did not satisfy my father. He wished to speak to a wider audience than the readers of reports; and therefore in this same year of 1848 he wrote a paper on the Causes and Prevention of Idiocy, which was printed anonymously in the third number of the Massachusetts Quarterly Review, and many years after, in 1874, reprinted in pamphlet form over his own signature. In this paper are these memorable words:

"No man ever yet cheated any of the organs of his body of the amount of nervous energy fairly due to them, without being punished for it; because God never forgives a sin; that is, He never lets a man escape without paying the penalty which He ordained should be paid for every violated law when He made the law and created man subject to it.

"The doctrine that God ever forgives a sin, that is, in the ordinary sense of forgiveness, is one that has done incalculable mischief to mankind. Even if God could have any change of purpose, his love for his children would not let him weaken our trust in the certitude of his laws by a single instance of 'variableness or shadow of turning' in the whole history of our race.

"Let moralists convince men, if they can, that no sin of omission or commission was ever forgiven without payment of the uttermost farthing of the penalty, and there will be more hesitation about present gratification and less reliance upon future repentance; and let physiologists teach people that every debauch or excess or neglect is surely followed by evil consequences, and men will be more cautious about present indulgence and less reliant upon future temperance and physic. ..."

The Report made a profound sensation in the community. There were, indeed, some people who laughed, and said to one another, "What do you think Howe is going to do next? he is going to teach idiots! ha! ha!" And they printed a caricature representing my father and Charles Sumner as twin Don Quixotes, riding a tilt against various windmills, and made very merry over this last quixotism of the Chevalier. It seems charitable to suppose that these persons had not read the Report: yet my mother says that one good friend told her that "the Doctor's report was in his opinion a report for idiots as well as concerning them."

But the thoughtful people of Massachusetts were deeply stirred at this revelation of a hitherto unsuspected plague-spot in the community: and the Legislature, shocked but cautious, consented to allow my father to try an experiment, and appropriated $2,500 per annum for three years for the teaching and training of ten idiotic children.

That was all my father asked for the moment. Given the lever, he could always find the pou sto for himself. As in 1830 he had taken the three blind children into his own home, so now, without a moment's hesitation, he took the idiots. His day-time home, the home of his work and his thoughts, was still the Institution for the Blind; and it was in his own wing of the Institution that the new-comers were placed. A competent teacher, Mr. James B. Richards, was found for them; and the experiment began under my father's personal direction.

It succeeded even beyond his hopes. After a year's patient toil he was able to report that:

"The result thus far seems to be most gratifying and encouraging. Of the whole number received, there was not one who was in a situation where any great improvement in his condition was probable, I might almost say possible; they were growing worse in habits, and more confirmed in their idiocy. The process of deterioration in the pupils has been entirely stopped; that of improvement has commenced; and though a year is a very short time in the instruction of such persons, yet its effects are manifest in all of them.

"They have all improved in personal appearance and habits, in general health, in vigour, and in activity of body. Almost all of them have improved in the understanding and the use of speech. But what is most important, they have made a start forward. They have begun to give their attention to things; to observe qualities, and to exercise thought. The mental machinery has been put in operation, and it will go on more easily and more rapidly in future, because the greatest difficulty, that of getting into motion from a state of rest, was overcome when it began to move. . . .

"It has been demonstrated that idiots are capable of improvement, and that they can be raised from a state of low degradation to a higher condition. How far they can be elevated, and to what extent they may be educated, can only be shown by the experience of the future. The result of the past year's trial, however, gives confidence that each succeeding year will show even more progress than any preceding one."

A year later, he was able to report as follows.

"... Most of these youth were, three years ago, in an utterly helpless and hopeless condition of idiocy. Some of them sat or lay in drivelling impotency, unable to do anything but swallow the food that was given them. They were void of speech and understanding. They were filthy in their persons and habits, and given to debasing practices. They were unable to dress themselves, or sit at table and feed themselves. They passed their time in idleness, without a thought or an effort for bettering their deplorable condition. Some of them were noisy and destructive in their habits.

"A great change has come over them. They have improved in health, strength, and activity of body. They are cleanly and decent in their habits. They dress themselves, and for the most part sit at table and feed themselves. They are gentle, docile, and obedient. They can be governed without a blow or an unkind word. They begin to use speech, and take great delight in repeating the words of simple sentences which they have mastered. They have learned their letters, and some of them, who were speechless as brutes, can read easy sentences and short stories! They are gentle and affectionate with each other; and the school and the household are orderly, quiet, and well regulated in all respects."

After some words of hearty commendation of Mr. Richards and his assistants, my father goes on to describe in detail the progress made during the year by each pupil. The story is one of intense interest, and I cannot forbear to quote from the account of George Rowell.

"George Rowell is a congenital idiot. He entered our school in December, 1848, being then seven years and six months old. ... In his gait and some of his habits, he reminded one of a monkey. In point of intelligence he was very low. Speech, that peculiarly human attribute, and the surest test in such cases of the degree of intellect, was wanting; he could pronounce only three words, and those only indistinctly. He was to all intents and purposes as dumb as a brute. . . . He had no sense of decency or duty, and no regard for the rights or feelings of others.

"There was, however, much vitality and energy about him, which, being expended through his animal nature, kept him active, restless, and mischievous. He was passionate and destructive, and given to picking things to pieces and destroying them. . . . His habits were those of an infant.

"Such was this boy, two years and a half ago; nor was there any reasonable hope of his improvement. . . .

"But now a great and happy change has come over him. He is decent in all his habits, and cleanliness has not only become a custom but a want. He is neat in his dress; he sits at table, using a knife and fork, and eating as other children do. He makes his bed, sweeps the floor, assists in scouring knives, and does various little chores about the house, with great good humour and sufficient skill. But the most gratifying result is that he begins to speak! ... He has learned to read simple sentences, and does read understandingly, and with pleasure and pride, such books as Bumstead's Primer. ..."

Whittier, writing to a friend after a visit to the school, says of George Rowell, "The change is almost like a resurrection of a mind from death -- or rather a new creation; "and George B. Emerson, in the Christian Examiner, tells of the poor lad's forming with his letters the sentence "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;" and adds, "divine words, which are now familiar to the eyes, and which will soon, we may hope, reach the soul of the poor rescued child."

After two years of tuition, George made a short visit to his parents. When his teacher came to take him back to the school, the father tried to thank him for what had been done. "George," he said, "now plays with the other boys; he plays like the other boys -- " he would have said more, but could only turn aside to weep.

I remember George Rowell well: "Littlehead," his playmates called him. In the early sixties he was a tall youth, busy, happy, and useful; his life a round of simple duties and pleasures, thoroughly performed, thoroughly enjoyed. When I think what his life would have been but for my father, I find no words, but am silent, as was the child's own father.

The happy story moves on to a happier climax. In 1851, the Joint Committee on Public Charitable Institutions visited the school and reported that:

"The experiment seems to have succeeded entirely. The capacity of this unfortunate class for improvement seems to be proved beyond question. The school, however, must be abandoned unless adopted by the Legislature and put upon a permanent footing. Meantime, an institution has been regularly incorporated under the name of the 'Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-minded Youth,' and the corporation is composed chiefly of persons who have been connected with the Institution for the Blind while the experiment for training idiots was going on in that establishment."

The Committee went on to recommend that five thousand dollars be paid regularly to the treasurer of this school, under certain provisions.

So the School for Feeble-minded was established, and continues to this day; as noble, helpful, and beautiful an institution as even Massachusetts owns.

In 1852 appeared the fourth Report; "being the third and final Report on the Experimental School For Teaching And Training Idiotic Children; also the first report of the trustees of the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-minded Youth."

In this Report my father says:

"When the first steps were taken in this matter by the Legislature of Massachusetts, in 1846, it was the common belief -- indeed, one might say that with very rare exceptions it was the universal belief -- in this country, that idiots were beyond the reach of the most zealous educator's skill, and almost beyond the reach of human sympathy. . . .

"Our law considered them as paupers, but classed them with rogues and vagabonds; for it provided that they should be kept within the precincts of the House of Correction.

"The most melancholy feature of the whole was that they were condemned as worthless and incapable of improvement; and the law required their removal from the only place where they were comfortable, the State Lunatic Asylum, whenever it was necessary to make room for the less unfortunate insane, and it sent them, not to another asylum, but to the houses of correction. There was not, throughout this whole continent, any systematic attempt to lift them out of their brutishness. Even in Massachusetts, where the maniac is made to go clad and kept in mental quiet, -- where the blind are taught to read, the mute to speak, yea, and even the blind mute to do both, -- even here the poor idiot was left to that deterioration which certainly follows neglect. He had but little talent given him, and by neglect or abuse that little was lost, until, growing more and more brutish, he sank unregretting and unregretted into an early grave, without ever having been counted as a man.

"Now, besides this institution, there has sprung up a large and respectable private school in this Commonwealth (at Barre, organized by Dr. Wilbur); and the Legislature of the State of New York has organized one there upon a liberal footing. It has been shown here and elsewhere that even idiots are not beyond the educator's skill; and consequently, from every part of the country come up eager inquiries from anxious parents, in whose breasts the hope has dawned that something may yet be done for children whom they had considered as beyond hope.

"Even this measure of success, though it is only a part of what has been obtained, should give confidence and courage to those who enter new fields of practical religion. It should show that as no depth of sin places men beyond the redeeming love of the All-Beneficent, so no depth of ignorance ought to place their neighbour beyond their earnest efforts for his relief. . . .

"The results are abundantly satisfactory. . . .

"Eighteen were dumb, or used only a few detached words in an interjectional sense, -- as 'Mamma!' Of these, only ten remained. Four now talk, that is, use more or less words with meaning; two begin to do so; and four are still mute. Of the whole number, only four knew their letters. Of the remaining twenty-four, only twelve remained over a year. Of these twelve, eight now know their letters and can make out single sentences, and some can read simple stories.

"It is true that these children and youth speak and read but little, and that little very imperfectly compared with others of their age; but if one brings the case home, and supposes these to be his own children, it will not seem a small matter that a daughter who it was thought would never know a letter, can now read a simple story, and a son who could not say 'father,' can now distinctly repeat a prayer to his Father in heaven. . . .

"Such are some of the results of the Experimental School for Teaching and Training Idiotic Children, as far as they can be set forth in numbers and words; but as was observed before, the principal result, being of a moral nature, cannot well be so set forth. It is a delicate ordeal which public institutions of beneficence pass in rendering a report of their works. They may not be able to render a full account of all the good they do, even if they would. The balance, however, in which some would weigh the worth of their works is not fit for the purpose. One might as well weigh diamonds upon hay-scales. For instance, they say the State has granted seventy-five hundred dollars for this Experimental School, and by the showing of its friends there has been but a score or so of idiotic children in any way benefited; while with the same amount of money we might have sent many gifted young men to college or taught hundreds of children in common schools, and they would have been worth more to the State than all the idiots that ever were or ever will be in it.

"But not so taught he whose simplest words are wiser than the wisdom of wise men, and who told us that if one sheep be lost we should leave the ninety and nine and seek until we find it. And shall we not, especially since we need not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness of ignorance, -- shall we not seek our lost lambs, and gather them into the fold of humanity, that none may be lost, and that we may give account to Him, who surely will demand of us his own with usury?"

The school was soon moved from the Perkins Institution; not only on account of its own need of wider space, but because the blind pupils resented keenly, and perhaps not unnaturally, the presence of their weak-minded brethren. Always sensitive, they fancied, perhaps, that they might be classed with these unfortunates; even Laura Bridgman writes in her journal: "I should be so happy to be much more pleasantly established with the whole house if they could prescribe to the Idiots not to have our rooms."

"In 1855 a pleasant site was chosen in South Boston, at some distance from the Perkins Institution, and a building erected which was for many years the happy and cheerful home of the feeble-minded children of the State.

During a number of years my father devoted a large part of his time to the service of the School for Idiots, visiting it daily, examining all candidates for admission, engaging all officers, prescribing diet, regimen, rules and regulations, discipline and exercises, and making all examinations in person. He kept the correspondence, and ordered all expenses. He also travelled through the State in search of pupils, and visited other States, bringing before their legislatures the plan of having their idiotic children sent to the school at suitable charges.

In the winter of 1850-51 he appeared with some of his pupils before the state authorities of New York at Albany, showing what had been done in Massachusetts, and urging the establishment of a similar school in New York. Soon after this visit a law was passed for the establishment of an "institution for idiots," with an appropriation of six thousand dollars a year for two years. In July, 1851, Governor Hunt of New York wrote to my father, "Your visit to our capital last winter was of great service. We feel that we are much indebted to you for the success of the measure thus far, and hope we may have the benefit of your experience and counsel in carrying our plan into practical operation. . . . You must remember that we are new beginners in the good work, and until we have had some experience of our own, we must look to the East for light and information."

And in March, 1852, the Hon. Christopher Morgan, secretary of the New York Board of Education, wrote to my father, concerning the new school, "It may now be regarded as permanently established, and to your visit, more than anything else, are we indebted for this noble charity."

All this labour on my father's part was without money and without price. It was not until 1868 that he consented to receive a nominal allowance for his travelling and personal expenses. I should add that from this time forward he was the recognized authority on idiocy in this country, and parents brought their idiotic, feeble-minded or backward children to him from all parts of the United States and from Canada for examination and advice. This also was a labour of love; he never would accept a penny in payment of such services.

Until 1887 the School remained at South Boston, and was then removed to Waltham, its present and probably its permanent home. To-day, the ten pupils have increased to twelve hundred; and under the wise and benevolent direction of Dr. Walter M. Fernald each year shows some step forward in the great work of tending and elevating the helpless children of the Commonwealth.

The "Idiots," as we children used to call the school, was another of the happy play-places. We loved to run along the sunny corridors, to slide down the wonderful fire-escape, to swing and climb in the big airy gymnasium, to finger the simple, bright-coloured apparatus of the schoolroom. We found nothing sad or painful in the scholars, with their happy vacant faces; nothing melancholy in all the bright, cheerful place. Many of the children were pleasant playfellows enough, and I can testify that a halfwitted girl may make a faithful and tender nursery-maid.

Here, as at the Institution, "Doctor" was the central figure. His visit was the event of the day; teachers and pupils alike felt the stir of his coming, like a "going among the tree-tops." He passed like light through the rooms; the dullest child brightened at sight of him, and dear old Charley Smith, gentlest of fifty-year-old children, would leave his wooden horse to run to him.

They loved him, the children whom he had rescued from worse than death. When he died, they grieved for him after their fashion, and among all the tributes to his memory none was more touching than theirs: "He will take care of the blind in heaven. Won't he take care of us too?"