HOWE, thutit.EY (1801-76). An American reformer and philanthropist. horn in Boston. Ile graduated at Brown in 1821, and took the degree of M.D. at the Harvard Medical School in 1821. Stirred by the poems of Byron, he offered his serviees to the Greeks in their strug gle for independence. In Greece his services were not confined to the duties of a surgeon. in which capacity lie had volunteered. but were of a more military nature. and his bravery, enthusiasm, and ability as a eommander, as well as his Im manity and nobility of character, won for him the title of 'the Lafayette of the Greek P,evoln lion.' He continued in the service until 1827. when he returned to America to raise funds and supplies to alleviate the famine and suffering in Greece. Through his efforts more than $60,000 was raised, besides large donations of food and clothing, with which, after writing his Ms/of-ice/ ,8/ze(ell of the Gretk let rotation. (162s), lie went again to Greece, where he remained until 1830, and lieeallle surgeon-in-•hief of the Greek fleet. Before leaving Greece he settled a successful colony of exiles at Corinth. Ile then spent some time in medical studies at Paris, where his en thusiasm for a repuldican form of government led him to take part in the July Revolution. In the following year he returned to the rnited States, and became interested in the work with which his II/1111e Will lie longest connected—the education of the blind. 11c returned to •tir, pe to study the existing systems in England and France; but his investigations were interrupted in the winter of when he became chair man of the '..knieriean-Polish Committee' at Paris, organized by himself. Fenimore Coop( r, S. F. 11. Norse, and several other Amerieans living in the eity, for the purpose of giving relit f to the Polish political refugees who had crossed over the Prussian border into Prussia. Dr. llowe undertook to distribute the supplies and funds personally. and while in Berlin was secretly seized by the Prussian authorities and imprisoned for five weeks. In the latter part of the same (1832) lie returned to Huston, where he met with great success in his educational work. and the Perkins institution for the Blind, as it was named, in honor of its principal lienefaetor, became the greatest school of its kind in the world.
Dr. hose himself was the originator of many improvements in method, as well as in the IllrOl• of printing books in raised types. Besides acting as superintendent of the Perkins institu tion to the end of his life, he was instniniental in estahlishing a large number of institutions of a similar character throughout the country. At the Perkins Institution his most remarkable achievement was in the education of Laura Bridg man. The care and education of idiots and feeble minded. the reform of prisons, abolition of im prisonment for debt. and finally the abolition of negro slavery in the United States, n11 engaged Ifewe's attention. lie entered publiely into the anti-slavery struggle for the first time in 1846, when, as a 'Conscience Whig,' lie was an un successful candidate for t'fingress against. Poiliert C. Winthrop. In 1831 lie was one of the found ers and editor of an anti-slavery paper, the Bos ton' Daily Commonwealth. upon which his wife. Julia Ward Howe whollt he had married in 1813, assisted him. Ile was one of the most prominent members of the 'Kansas Committee' in and with Sanborn, Stearns, Theodore Parker. and Gerrit Smith was interest ed in the plans of John Brown, although lie dis approved of the latter's attack upon Harper's Ferry. During the Civil War Howe was one of the di•eetors of the Sanitary Commission. 811.1 at its close entered into the work of the Freed men's Bureau. The was the originator of the State Board of Charities of Massachusetts, in 1863, the first board of the sort in America, and was its chairman from that time until 1874. In 1866 lie made a last trip to Greece to carry relief to the Cretan refugees. and in 1470 was a member of the emninission sent by President Grant to in quire into the practicability of the annexation of Santo Domingo. It is probably not too n111•1 to say that no man ever lived in ,Mneriea who so truly deserved the name philanthropist in its highest and best sense—a lover of his fellow men; and no American certainly was ever eon meted with more great reforms that were brought to a successful conclusion. Consult Sanborn, Dr. S. G. Howe, the Philanthropist (New York, 1891).