HOWE, SAMUEL G. 



UUNGARY. 



B8fi 



tliis purpose an object with which she was 

 familiar, such as a fork or spoon, and with its 

 inuiio in raised letter?, was put into her hand. 

 This was repeated many times and with differ- 

 ent objects, till she hud learned that the word 

 bore some relation to the object. As yet, how- 

 ever, her idea of this relation was very vague. 

 The next step was to present her the separate 

 letters in relief, at first so arranged as to form 

 the name of an object which she knew. Find- 

 ing that she recognized the word, her teacher 

 disarranged the letters, and taking her hands 

 in his own, proceeded to reconstruct the word, 

 causing her to observe each letter which com- 

 posed it ; having done this several times, she 

 constructed the word herself without assist- 

 ance. The same process was then repeated 

 with other words, and before the close of her 

 lesson the idea had evidently dawned upon 

 her mind that this was the means by which she 

 could communicate her own thoughts to 

 others. This process was continued until she 

 had become familiar with a considerable num- 

 ber of words. She was then furnished with 

 type having the letters in relief, and a board 

 which had been pierced with holes for the 

 reception of the type. Objects known to her 

 were then presented, and she would compose 

 the names with the type. This afforded her 

 great delight. She was next taught the man- 

 ual alphabet, which she acquired very readily. 

 This having been attained, her teacher pre- 

 sented her with an object with which she was 

 not familiar, and left her for a time to inform 

 herself concerning its form and use. The 

 teacher then spelled its name with the manual 

 alphabet, the child following each letter till 

 she had comprehended that it was the name 

 of the object, when she herself spelled it in 

 the same way, then composed it with her 

 types, and finally, as if to make assurance 

 doubly sure, placed the words thus composed 

 by the side of the object. All this was ac- 

 complished in the first three months. The 

 same course, together with some lessons on 

 the physical relations of objects, was con- 

 tinued through the year. Laura never wearied 

 of this instruction, but when left to herself 

 was constantly spelling words either with her 

 type or the manual alphabet. Her instruction 

 was confined for the first two years to the 

 names of objects; the attempt was then made 

 to instruct her in their qualities, and sub- 

 sequently in their relations to each other. 

 There were many difficulties connected with 

 each step, but patience and perseverance over- 

 came them all. She was next taught to write, 

 and her first effort was to write a letter un- 

 assisted to her mother. She subsequently ac- 

 quired the rudiments of arithmetic; took les- 

 sons on the piano, on which she became a skill- 

 ful performer ; and acquired a practical knowl- 

 edge of needle-work, and of some household 

 duties. At the funeral of her benefactor and 

 instructor Miss Bridgman was one of the most 

 deeply-afflicted mourners. Dr. Howe took a 

 VOL. xvi. 25 A 



prominent part in founding the experimental 

 school for the training of idiots which n-Milt<-<i 

 in the organization, in 1851, of the MaMurlm- 

 setts School for Idiotic and Fcfble-Minih-d 

 Youth. He was actively engaged in the anti- 

 slavery movement, and was a Free-soil candi- 

 date for Congress from Boston in 1840. He 

 engaged earnestly in the sanitary movement 

 in behalf of the soldiers during the civil war. 

 In 1867 he again went to Greece as bearer of 

 supplies for the Cretans in their struggle with 

 the Turks, and subsequently edited in Boston 

 Tlie Cretan. In 1871 he was one of the com- 

 missioners to visit Santo Domingo and report 

 upon the question of the annexation of that 

 island to the United States, of which he be- 

 came an earnest advocate. He published an 

 " Historical Sketch of the Greek Revolution '' 

 (1828), and a "Reader for the Blind," in 

 raised characters (1839). In 1843 Dr. Howe 

 married Julia Ward, an American poetess, who 

 survives him. 



HUNGARY, a kingdom of Europe, and one 

 of the two main divisions of the Austro-IIun- 

 garian monarchy. (All the affairs which are 

 common to the entire monarchy have been 

 treated of under the head of AUSTRIA.) As the 

 Military Frontier, which had formerly its own 

 administration, has been wholly incorporated, 

 partly with Hungary proper and partly with 

 Croatia and Slavonia, the lands of the Hunga- 

 rian crown now consist of three large historic 

 divisions, namely : 



The Hungarian ministry, as reconstructed on 

 October 20, 1875, was composed as follows: 



1. President of the Ministry, Koloman Tisza; 



2. Minister near the King's person (ad latus), 

 Baron Wenckheim ; 3. Minister of Finance, 

 Koloman Szell ; 4. Minister of the Interior, 

 Koloman Tisza; 5. Minister of Education and 

 Public Worship, Dr. Augustin Trefort ; 6. Min- 

 ister of Justice, Bela Perczel ; 7. Minister of 

 Public Works, Thomas Pechy; 8. Minister of 

 Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce, Barpu 

 Simonyi ; 9. Minister of Croatia and Slavonia, 

 Count Pejacsevitch ; 10. Minister for the De- 

 fense of the Country, B. Szende von Keveaztes. 

 Besides its share in the common debt of the 

 monarchy, Hungary has a special debt, amount- 

 ing, at the end of 1870, to near 700,000,000 

 florins (including a debt of 269,000,000 florins 

 for redeeming real estate and commuting the 

 wine-tithes). The assets of the state were es- 

 timated at 696,600,000 florins. 



The aggregate length of railways open for 

 traffic was, on January 1, 1876, 6.415 kilome- 

 tres (1 kilometre = 0.62 mile). The number 

 of private and official letters, newspapers, 

 etc., was 76,672,000. The length of telegraph- 



