Early Life and Education
Howe was born on Pearl Street in Boston, Massachusetts on November 10, 1801. His father, Joseph Neals Howe, was a ship-owner and cordage manufacturer. His mother, Patty Gridley, was considered to be one of the most beautiful women of her day.
Howe was educated at Boston Latin School, where he was cruelly treated, and even beaten, according to his daughter. Laura (Howe) Richards later wrote: “So far as I can remember, my father had no pleasant memories of his school days."
Boston in the early nineteenth century was a hotbed of political foment. Howe’s father was a Democrat who considered Harvard University a den of Federalists, and refused to allow his sons to enter the university. Accordingly, in 1818, Howe's father had him enrolled at Brown University. Most of his time there was spent engaged in practical jokes and other hi-jinx and, years later, Howe told his children that he regretted that he hadn’t more seriously applied himself to his studies. One of his classmates, a future president of Brown University, Dr. Caswell, described Howe in this way, “He showed mental capabilities which would naturally fit him for fine scholarship. His mind was quick, versatile, and inventive. I do not think he was deficient in logical power, but the severer studies did not seem to be congenial to him.” After graduating from Brown in 1821, Howe attended Harvard Medical School, taking his degree in 1824.
Read more about this topic: Samuel Gridley Howe
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life ... would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We have not been fair with the Negro and his education. He has not had adequate or ample education to permit him to qualify for many jobs that are open to him.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)