EDUCATION It is now sixty-five years since Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe khat he had made his way through Laura Bridgmans fio her intelligehe names of Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller will always be liogether, and it is necessary to uand what Dr. Howe did for his pupil before one es to an at of Miss Sullivans work. For Dr. Howe is the great pioneer on whose work that of Miss Sullivan and other teachers of the deaf-blind immediately depends.
Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe was born in Boston, November 10, 1801, and died in Boston, January 9, 1876. He was a great philanthropist, ied especially in the education of all defectives, the feeble-mihe blind, and the deaf. Far in advance of his time he advocated many public measures for the relief of the poor and the diseased, for which he was laughed at then, but which have since been put into practice. As head of the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, he heard of Laura Bridgman and had her brought to the Institution on October 4, 1837.
Laura Bridgman was born at Hanover, Neshire, December 21, 1829; so she was almost eight years old when Dr. Howe began his experiments with her. At the age of twenty-six months scarlet fever left her without sight or hearing. She also lost her sense of smell and taste. Dr. Howe was an experimental stist and had in him the spirit of New England transdentalism with its large faith and large charities. Sd faith together led him to try to make his way into the soul which he believed was born in Laura Bridgman as in every other human being. His plan was to teach Laura by means of raised types. He pasted raised labels on objects and made her fit the labels to the objects and the objects to the labels. When she had learned in this way to associate raised words with things, in much the same manner, he says, as a dog learns tricks, he began to resolve the words into their letter elements and to teach her to put together "k-e-y," "c-a-p." His success vinced him that language be veyed through type to the mind of the blind-deaf child, who, before education, is iate of the baby who has not learo prattle; indeed, is in a much worse state, for the brain has grown in years without natural nourishment.
After Lauras education had progressed for two months with the use only of raised letters, Dr. Howe sent one of his teachers to learn the manual alphabet from a deaf-mute. She taught it to Laura, and from that time on the manual alphabet was the means of unig with her.
After the first year or two Dr. Howe did not teach Laura Bridgman himself, but gave her over to other teachers, who under his dire carried on the work of teag her language.
Too much ot be said in praise of Dr. Howes work. As an iigator he kept always the stists attitude. He never fot to keep his records of Laura Bridgman in the fashion of one who works in a laboratory. The result is, his records of her are systematid careful. From a stific standpoint it is unfortuhat it was impossible to keep such a plete record of Helen Kellers development. This in itself is a great ent on the differeween Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller. Laura always remained an object of curious study. Helen Keller became so rapidly a distinctive personality that she kept her teacher in a breathless raeet the needs of her pupil, with no time or strength to make a stific study.
In some ways this is unfortunate. Miss Sulliva the beginning that Helen Keller would be more iing and successful than Laura Bridgman, and sh