It was indeed a triumph for a foreigner to win the appointment to such a responsible position in the conservative town of Boston.
He abundantly justified the trust reposed in him, devoting his whole soul and his considerable talents to the task. His signal success, like that of his predecessor, has become a part of the proud record of the state of Massachusetts.
The two men were very unlike. Doctor Howe was essentially a leader, original in thought, quick and daring in action, yet possessing great patience.
The work of the pioneer was eminently congenial to him. He laid the foundations of the education for the blind in this country on such broad lines, he so thoroughly thought out and left on record the principles governing it, that his reports are considered educational classics. Hence his successor took up a work already well established. The task of Anagnos was to administer and to enlarge. For this he was admirably fitted. He greatly augmented the work of the printing in embossed letters, by raising a Howe Memorial Fund, largely increasing, also, the financial assets of the Institution.
His most striking achievement was the foundation and maintenance of a kindergarten for the blind, the first of its kind in the world. Both he and sister Julia were extremely fond of children. She had been greatly interested in the enterprise, but died while it was still in its infancy. Her last words were, “Take care of the little blind children.”
Anagnos made very full reports of the work under his charge. After the death of my sister it fell to my lot to go through these in order to make sure that the English idioms, so difficult for a foreigner to catch, were all correct. Thus for some twenty years it was my annual task to criticize “Michael’s” reports.
The great, square, brown paper envelopes in which these were contained, directed in my brother-in-law’s beautiful copper-plate hand, were sometimes greeted with groans on their arrival. For they were due at a season of the year when I was very busy.
Yet the work was very helpful to me, because it called for careful consideration of the reasons for or against certain forms of speech. With the prepositions we had special difficulty. Anagnos, too, as a true Oriental, possessed a very flowery style which it was necessary to prune and restrain in order to adapt it to our cold New England climate. At first he would pile metaphor upon metaphor and add simile to simile until his sober Puritan sister-in-law stood aghast. We had special difficulties with the obituaries of deceased benefactors of the Institution, whose virtues his gratitude painted in the most glowing colors. To have excellent but matter-of-fact Boston citizens compared to spreading oak-trees of benevolence seemed to me a trifle incongruous. I also demurred to “the Ark of the Institution keeping step in the march of progress.”
Looking back on the matter now, I am inclined to think my brother-in-law knew human nature better than I did. My work in cutting down the adjectives of encomium was perhaps supererogatory.
Anagnos found it on the whole very satisfactory. My use of English was the best in the family, he averred—but then he was a foreigner!