Samuel Gridley Howe - Philanthropic Activities

Philanthropic Activities

Dr. Howe, working with Dorothea Dix, also brought about the establishment of the Massachusetts School for Idiotic Children (later renamed the Walter E. Fernald State School), the Western Hemisphere’s oldest publicly-funded institution serving the mentally disabled. He founded the school in 1848 with a $2,500 appropriation from the Massachusetts Legislature. Idiot was at that time considered a polite term for individuals with mental and intellectual disabilities. Dr. Howe was successful in his attempt to educate the mentally disabled, but this led to other problems, as many then argued that the disabled did so well in schools like Dr. Howe's that they should remain permanently incarcerated there. Dr. Howe was opposed to this, arguing that the mentally disabled had rights and that segregating them from the rest of society would be detrimental.

In 1866, Howe gave the keynote address at the opening of the New York State Institution for the Blind at Batavia, NY, and shocked the audience by warning about the dangers of segregation based on disability: "We should be cautious about establishing such artificial communities...for any children and youth; but more especially should we avoid them for those who have natural infirmity...Such persons spring up sporadically in the community, and they should be kept diffused among sound and normal persons...Surround insane and excitable persons with sane people and ordinary influences; vicious children with virtuous people and virtuous influences; blind children with those who see; mute children with those who speak; and the like..."

He was the originator of the State Board of Charities of Massachusetts, in 1863, the first board of the sort in America, and was its chairman from that time until 1874.

He made a last trip to Greece in 1866, to carry relief to the Cretan refugees during the Cretan Revolution.