Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and Development

by George Willis Cooke

Another instance of Unitarian philanthropy is to be found in the support given to Rev. Edward T. Taylor, usually known as "Father Taylor," in his work for sailors. When he went to Boston in 1829 to begin his mission, the first person he visited was Dr. Channing, and the second Ralph Waldo Emerson, then a settled pastor in the city. Both of these men made generous contributions to his mission, and aided him in securing the attention of wealthy contributors.[[8]] In fact, his Bethel was almost wholly supported by Unitarians. For thirty years Mr. Albert Fearing was the president of the Boston Port Society, organized for the support of Taylor's Seamen's Bethel. The corresponding secretary was Mr. Henry Parker. Among other Unitarian supporters of this work was Hon. John A. Andrew.[[9]]

We have no right to assume that the Unitarians alone were philanthropic, but they had the wealth and the social position to make their efforts in this direction thoroughly effective.[[10]] That the results were beneficent may be understood from the testimony of Mrs. Horace Mann. "The liberal sects of Boston," she wrote to a friend, "quite carried the day at that time in works of benevolence and Christian charity. They took care of the needy without regard to sectarianism. Such women as Helen Loring and Elizabeth Howard, (Mrs. Cyrus A. Bartol), Dorothea Dix, Mary Pritchard (Mrs. Henry Ware), and many others less known to the world, but equally devoted to the work, with many youthful coadjutors, took care of the poor wonderfully."[[11]] After spending several weeks in Boston in 1842, and giving careful attention to the charities and philanthropies of the city, Charles Dickens wrote: "I sincerely believe that the public institutions and charities of this capital of Massachusetts are as nearly perfect as the most considerate wisdom, benevolence, humanity, can make them. I never in my life was more affected by the contemplation of happiness, under circumstances of privation and bereavement, than in my visits to these establishments."[[12]]

Education of the Blind.

The pioneer in the work of educating the blind and the deaf was Dr. Samuel G. Howe, who had been one of those who in 1824 went to Greece to aid in the establishment of Greek independence. On his return, in 1832, he became acquainted with European methods of teaching the blind; and in that year he opened 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."[[13]] In his father's house in Pleasant Street, Dr. Howe began his school with a few pupils, prepared books for them, and then set about raising money to secure larger facilities. Colonel Thomas H. Perkins, of Boston, gave his house in Pearl Street, valued at $50,000, on condition that a like sum should be contributed for the maintenance of the school. In six weeks the desired sum was secured, and the school was, afterwards known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind. Dr. Howe addressed seventeen state legislatures on the education of the blind, with the result of establishing schools similar to his own. His arduous task, however, was that of providing the blind with books; and he used his great inventive skill in perfecting the necessary methods. He succeeded in making it comparatively easy to print books for the blind, and therefore made it possible to have a library of such works.

In the autumn of 1837 Dr. Howe discovered Laura Bridgman, who had only the one sense of touch remaining in a normal condition; and his remarkable success, in her education made him famous. In connection with her and other pupils he began the process of teaching the deaf to use articulate speech, and all who have followed him in this work have but extended and perfected his methods. While teaching the blind and deaf, Dr. Howe found those who were idiotic; and he began to study this class of persons about 1840, and to devise methods for their education. As a member of the Massachusetts legislature in 1846, he secured the appointment of a commission to investigate the condition of the idiotic; and for this commission he wrote the report. In 1847, the state having made an appropriation for the teaching of idiotic, children, ten of them were taught at the Blind Asylum, under the care of Dr. Howe. In 1851 a separate school was provided for such children.

Dr. Howe was called "the Massachusetts philanthropist," but his philanthropy was universal in its humanitarian aims. He gave large and faithful attention, in 1845 and later, to prisons and prisoners; he was a zealous friend of the slave and the freedman; and in 1864 he devoted arduous service to the reform of the state charities of Massachusetts. His biographer justly says of his spirit of universal philanthropy: "He joined in the movement in Boston which abolished imprisonment for debt; he was an early and active member of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, which once did much service; and for years, when interest in prison reform was at a low ebb in Massachusetts, the one forlorn relict of that once powerful organization, a Prisoner's Aid Society, used to hold its meetings in Dr. Howe's spacious chamber in Bromfield Street. He took an early interest in the care of the insane, with which his friends Horace Mann, Dr. Edward Jarvis, and Dorothea Dix were greatly occupied; and in later years he introduced some most useful methods of caring for the insane in Massachusetts. He favored the temperance reform, and wrote much as a physician on the harm done to individuals and to the human stock by the use of alcoholic liquors. He stood with Father Taylor of the Seamen's Bethel in Boston for the salvation of the sailors and their protection from cruel punishments, and he was one of those who almost abolished the flogging of children in schools. During his whole career as a reformer of public schools in New England, Horace Mann had no friend more intimate or helpful than Dr. Howe, nor one whose support was more indispensable to Mann himself."[[14]]

Dr. Howe was an attendant upon the preaching of Theodore Parker, and was his intimate friend. In after years he was a member of the congregation of James Freeman Clarke at the Church of the Disciples. "After our return to America," says Mrs. Howe of the year 1844, "my husband went often to the Melodeon, where Parker preached until he took possession of the Music Hall. The interest which my husband showed in these services led me in time to attend them, and I remember as among the great opportunities of my life the years in which I listened to Theodore Parker."[[15]]

Care of the Insane.

Another among the many persons who came under the influence of Dr. Channing was Dorothea Dix, who, as a teacher of his children, lived for many months in his family and enjoyed his intimate friendship. Her biographer says: "She had drunk in with passionate faith Dr. Channing's fervid insistence on the presence in human nature, even under its most degraded types, of germs, at least, of endless spiritual development. But it was the characteristic of her own mind that it tended not to protracted speculation, but to immediate, embodied action."[[16]] Her work for the insane was the expression of the deep faith in humanity she had been taught by Channing.

When she entered upon her humanitarian efforts, but few hospitals for the insane existed in the country. A notable exception was the McLean Asylum at Somerville, which had been built as the result of that same philanthropic spirit that had led the Unitarians to establish the many charities already mentioned in these pages. In March, 1841, Miss Dix visited the House of Correction in East Cambridge; and for the wretched condition of the inmates, she at once set to work to provide remedies. Then she visited the jails and alms-houses in many parts of the state, and presented a memorial to the legislature recounting what she had found and asking for reforms. She was met by bitter opposition; but such persons as Samuel G. Howe, Dr. Channing, Horace Mann, and John G. Palfrey came to her aid. The bill providing for relief to the insane came into the hands of a committee of which Dr. Howe was the chairman, and he energetically pushed it forward to enactment. Thus Miss Dix began her crusade against an enormous evil.