When I was your age

by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

Again, he gives a pleasant account of his visit to a good old Greek priest, who lived with his family in a tiny cottage, the best house in the village. He found the good old man just sitting down to supper with his wife and children, and was invited most cordially to join them. The supper consisted of a huge beet, boiled, and served with butter and black bread. This was enough for the whole family, and the guest too; and after describing the perfect contentment and cheerfulness which reigned in the humble dwelling, our father makes some reflections on the different things which go to make up a pleasant meal, and decides that the old “Papa” (as a Greek priest is called) had a much better supper than many rich people he remembered at home, who feasted three times a day on all that money could furnish in the way of good cheer, and found neither joy nor comfort in their victuals.

Once our father and his comrades lay hidden for hours in the hollow of an ancient wall (built thousands of years ago, perhaps in Homer’s day), while the Turks, scimitar in hand, scoured the fields in search of them. Many years after, he showed this hollow to Julia and Laura, who went with him on his fourth journey to Greece, and told them the story.

When our father saw the terrible sufferings of the Greek women and children, who were starving while their husbands and fathers were fighting for life and freedom, he thought that he could help best by helping them; so, though I know he loved the fighting, for he was a born soldier, he came back to this country, and told all that he had seen, and asked for money and clothes and food for the perishing wives and mothers and children. He told the story well, and put his whole heart into it; and people listen to a story so told. Many hearts beat in answer to his, and in a short time he sailed for Greece again, with a good ship full of rice and flour, and cloth to make into garments, and money to buy whatever else might be needed. When he landed in Greece, the women came flocking about him by thousands, crying for bread, and praying God to bless him. He felt blessed enough when he saw the children eating bread, and saw the naked backs covered, and the sad, hungry faces smiling again. So he went about doing good, and helping whenever he saw need. Perhaps many a poor woman may have thought that the beautiful youth was almost like an angel sent by God to relieve her; and she may not have been far wrong.

When the war was over, and Greece was a free country, our father came home, and looked about him again to see what he could do to help others. He talked with a friend of his, Dr. Fisher, and they decided that they would give their time to helping the blind, who needed help greatly. There were no schools for them in those days; and if a child was blind, it must sit with folded hands and learn nothing.

Our father found several blind children, and took them to his home and taught them. By and by some kind friends gave money, and one—Colonel Perkins—gave a fine house to be a school for these children and others; and that was the beginning of the Perkins Institution for the Blind, now a great school where many blind boys and girls learn to read and study, and to play on various instruments, and to help themselves and others in the world.

Our father always said, “Help people to help themselves; don’t accustom them to being helped by others.” Another saying of his, perhaps his favorite one, next to the familiar “Let justice be done, if the heavens fall!” was this: “Obstacles are things to be overcome.” Indeed, this was one of the governing principles of his life; and there were few obstacles that did not go down before that keen lance of his, always in rest and ready for a charge.

When our father first began his work in philanthropy, some of his friends used to laugh at him, and call him Don Quixote. Especially was this the case when he took up the cause of the idiotic and weak-minded, and vowed that instead of being condemned to live like animals, and be treated as such, they should have their rights as human beings, and should be taught all the more carefully and tenderly because their minds were weak and helpless.

“What do you think Howe is going to do now?” cried one gentleman to another, merrily. “He is going to teach the idiots, ha, ha, ha!” and they both laughed heartily, and thought it a very good joke. But people soon ceased to laugh when they saw the helpless creatures beginning to help themselves; saw the girls learning to sew and the boys to work; saw light gradually come into the vacant eyes (dim and uncertain light it might be, but how much better than blank darkness!), and strength and purpose to the nerveless fingers.

So the School for Feeble-minded Children was founded, and has been ever since a pleasant place, full of hope and cheer; and when people found that this Don Quixote knew very well the difference between a giant and a windmill, and that he always brought down his giants, they soon ceased to laugh, and began to wonder and admire.

All my readers have probably heard about Laura Bridgman, whom he found a little child, deaf, dumb, and blind, knowing no more than an animal, and how he taught her to read and write, to talk with her fingers, and to become an earnest, thoughtful, industrious woman. It is a wonderful story; but it has already been told, and will soon be still more fully told, so I will not dwell upon it now.