Editing Samuel Gridley Howe (section)

==Work for the blind==

In 1831, Howe returned to the United States. Through his friend [[John Dix Fisher|Dr. John Dix Fisher]], a Boston physician who had started a movement there as early as 1826 to establish a school for the blind, he had learned of a similar school founded in Paris by [[Valentin Haüy]]. A committee organized by Fisher proposed to Howe that he direct establishing a New England Asylum for the Blind at Boston. He took up the project with characteristic ardor and set out at once for Europe to investigate the problem.<ref name="learningtogive.org">{{Cite web |title=Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe {{!}} Learning to Give |url=https://www.learningtogive.org/resources/dr-samuel-gridley-howe |access-date=2023-03-11 |website=www.learningtogive.org}}</ref>

[[File:Perkins School.jpg|thumb|Perkins School, prior to 1915]]
In America, he met with supporters of the Polish Revolution and was chosen to take money to revolutionaries in Europe.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=SMHuGrfdNugC&q=American+Polish+Committee+Paris+Samuel+Howe&pg=PA55 The manliest man pg 55–57]</ref> Thus he had two missions: to learn about schools for the blind and, as chairman of the American-Polish Committee at Paris, to support the Polish revolutionaries. The Paris committee had been organized by [[James Fenimore Cooper|J. Fenimore Cooper]], [[Samuel F. B. Morse|S. F. B. Morse]], and several other Americans living in the city. By that time, the Poles had been defeated by the Russians and Howe was to give money to the many, particularly officers, who did not want to return home. They were harassed by some people of neighboring countries, but were given political refuge and crossed over the Prussian border into Prussia.<ref>Richards, Laura E. ''Two Noble Lives,'' Page 23. Boston: Dana Estes & Company, 1911.</ref> Howe undertook to distribute the supplies and funds personally. While  in Berlin, he was arrested and imprisoned, but managed to destroy or hide the incriminating letters to Polish officers.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=SMHuGrfdNugC&q=American+Polish+Committee+Paris+Samuel+Howe&pg=PA55 The manliest man Samuel Howe, pages 55–57]</ref> After five weeks, he was released due to the intervention of the United States Minister at Paris.<ref>Richards, Laura E. ''Two Noble Lives,'' Page 24-29. Boston: Dana Estes & Company, 1911.</ref>

Returning to Boston in July 1832, Howe began receiving a few blind children at his father's house in Pleasant Street. He gradually developed what became the noted [[Perkins School for the Blind|Perkins Institution]].<ref name="learningtogive.org"/> In January 1833, the initial funds were spent, but so much progress had been shown that the legislature approved funding to the institution, later increased to $30,000 (~${{Format price|{{Inflation|index=US-GDP|value=30000|start_year=1833}}}} in {{Inflation/year|US-GDP}}) a year. This was conditioned on its giving free education to twenty poor blind students from the state. Funds were also donated from supporters in Salem and Boston. Colonel [[Thomas Handasyd Perkins]], a prominent Boston trader in slaves, furs, and opium, donated his mansion and grounds in Pearl Street as a location for the school in perpetuity. This building was later found unsuitable, and Colonel Perkins agreed to its sale. In 1839 the institution was moved to the former Mount Washington House Hotel in South Boston. It was known as the ''Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum (since 1877, School for the Blind).''

Howe was director, and the life and soul of the school; he opened a printing-office and organized a fund for printing for the blind — the first done in the United States. He was a ceaseless promoter of their work. Through him, the Institution became one of the intellectual centers of American philanthropy, and by degrees obtained more and more financial support. He started the first circulating library in Braille.<ref name=Renehan>{{cite book
|title=The Secret Six. The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown
|first=Edward J.
|last=Renehan Jr.
|location=New York
|publisher=Crowb Publishers
|year=1995
|isbn=051759028X}}</ref>{{rp|29}} In 1837, Howe admitted [[Laura Bridgman]], a young [[deaf-blind]] girl who later became a teacher at the school.<ref>Richards, Laura E. ''Two Noble Lives,'' Page 32. Boston: Dana Estes & Company, 1911.</ref> She became famous as the first known deaf-blind person to be successfully educated in the United States.  Howe taught Bridgman himself.  Within a few years of attendance at Perkins Institution, she learned the [[manual alphabet]] and how to write.<ref>{{cite web|title=Perkins Annual Reports|url=https://archive.org/stream/annualreportoftr110perk#page/n131/mode/2up/search/bridgman|access-date=May 28, 2014|page=131|year=1839}}</ref>

Howe originated many improvements in teaching methods, as well as in the process of printing books in [[Braille]].<ref name="learningtogive.org"/>  Besides acting as superintendent of the Perkins Institution to the end of his life, he was instrumental in establishing numerous institutions of a similar character throughout the country.