Fired with romantic idealism, young Dr. Howe left Boston in 1824 to fight in the Greek War of Independence and developed a deep concern for suffering humanity. From the moment when, as a twenty-three-year-old doctor, Howe set sail from Boston to aid Greece, the pattern of his life was set. Strong, tough and tireless, he served as both soldier and doctor in the savage war against the Turks. Enlisting American aid, he built hospitals, distributed food, and struggled against government corruption to help the Greek people rebuild their shattered land.

Returning to Boston, he tried to live the life of an ordinary physician. But a school for the blind was about to be established, with no one willing to head the pioneer project. No one, that is, save Howe, who found in the the answer to his dreams. Thus he began his greatest work, at the New England Asylum for the Blind (now Perkins Institution), patiently guiding those who had lost their sight to useful, happy lives. He directed the school for 44 years, and so became involved other causes. He supported Dorothea Lynde Dix in her work with the mentally ill, and Horace Mann in his revolutionary principles of education. With his famous wife, Julia Ward Howe, he opposed slavery and advocated civil and political rights for freed Negroes.

Few men have equalled the half century of humanitarian service to which Samuel Gridley Howe was dedicated. Doctor, fighter for freedom, and great pioneer in education of the blind, his was a life built upon one strong principle -- to ever heed the call of suffering humanity, without thought to personal ambition or gain. From the book