In the mid-nineteenth century, Laura Bridgman, a young child from
New Hampshire, became one of the most famous women in the world.
Philosophers, theologians, and educators hailed her as a miracle,
and a vast public followed the intimate details of her life with
rapt attention. This girl, all but forgotten today, was the first
deaf and blind person ever to learn language.
Laura's dark and silent life was transformed when she became the
star pupil of the educational crusader Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe.
Against the backdrop of an antebellum Boston seething with debates
about human nature, programs of moral and educational reform, and
battles between conservative and liberal Christians, Freeberg tells
this extraordinary tale of mentor and student, scientist and
experiment.
Under Howe's constant tutelage, Laura voraciously absorbed the
world around her, learning to communicate through finger language,
as well as to write with confidence. Her remarkable breakthroughs
vindicated Howe's faith in the power of education to overcome the
most terrible of disabilities. In Howe's hands, Laura's education
became an experiment that he hoped would prove his own
controversial ideas about the body, mind, and soul.
Poignant and hopeful, "The Education of Laura Bridgman" is both
a success story of how a sightless and soundless girl gained
contact with an ever-widening world, and also a cautionary tale
about the way moral crusades and scientific progress can compromise
each other. Anticipating the life of Helen Keller a half-century
later, Laura's is a pioneering story of the journey from isolation
to accomplishment, as well as a window onto what it means to be
human under the most tryingconditions.
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