A good Samaritan does not always find a good Samaritan. After his return to Paris Doctor Howe went to England, but was taken so severely ill on the way that he did not know what might have become of him but for an English passenger with whom he had become acquainted and who carried him to his own house and cared for him until he was fully recovered. This excellent man, name now forgotten, had a charming daughter who materially assisted in Howe's convalescence, and he said afterwards that if he had not been strongly opposed to matrimony at that time she would probably have become his wife. He was not married until ten years later; but he always remembered this incident as one of the pleasantest in his life. The true hero never rests on his laurels. Doctor Howe had no sooner returned from Europe than he set himself to work on a design he had conceived in Paris for the instruction of the blind. Next to Doctor Morton's discovery of etherization, there has been no undertaking equal to this for the amelioration of human misery. He brought the best methods from Europe, and improved upon them. Beginning at first in a small way, and with such means as he could obtain from the merchants of Boston, he went on to great achievements. He had the most difficulty in dealing with legislative appropriations and enactments, for as he was not acquainted with the ruling class in Massachusetts, they consequently looked upon him with suspicion. He not only made the plan, but he carried it out; he organized the institution at South Boston and set the machinery in motion. The story of Laura Bridgman is a tale told in many languages. The deaf and blind girl whom Doctor Howe taught to read and to _think_ soon became as celebrated as Franklin or Webster. She was between seven and eight years old when he first discovered her near Hanover, N. H., and for five years and a half she had neither seen nor heard. It is possible that she could remember the external world in a dim kind of way, and she must have learned to speak a few words before she lost her hearing. Doctor Howe taught her the names of different objects by pasting them in raised letters on the objects about her, and he taught her to spell by means of separate blocks with the letters upon them. She then was taught to read after the usual method of instructing the blind, and communicated with her fingers after the manner of deaf mutes. Doctor Howe said in his report of the case: