he was given religious instruction, but Dr Howe was
intent upon not inculcating dogma before she had grasped the essential
moral truths of Christianity and the story of the Bible. She grew up a gay,
cheerful girl, loving, optimistic, but with a nervous system inclining to
irritability, and requiring careful education in self-control. In 1860 her
eldest sister Mary's death helped to bring on a religious crisis, and
through the influence of some of her family she was received into the
Baptist church; she became for some years after this more self-conscious
and rather pietistic. In 1867 she began writing compositions which she
called poems; the best-known is called "Holy Home." In 1872, Dr Howe having
been enabled to build some separate cottages (each under a matron) for the
blind girls, Laura was moved from the larger house of the Institution into
one of them, and there she continued her quiet life. The death of Dr Howe
in 1876 was a great grief to her; but before he died he had made
arrangements by which she would be financially provided for in her home at
the Institution for the rest of her life. In 1887 her jubilee was
celebrated there, but in 1889 she was taken ill, and she died on the 24th
of May. She was buried at Hanover. Her name has become familiar everywhere
as an example of the education of a blind deaf-mute, leading to even
greater results in Helen Keller.

See _Laura Bridgman_, by Maud Howe and Florence Howe Hall (1903), which
contains a bibliography; and _Life and Education of Laura Dewey Bridgman_
(1878), by Mary S. Lamson.

(H. CH.)

BRIDGNORTH, a market town and municipal borough in the Ludlow parliamentary
division of Shropshire, England, 150 m. N.W. by W. from London by the Great
Western railway, on the Worcester-Shrewsbury line. Pop. (1901) 6052. The
river Severn separates the upper town on the right bank from the lower on
the left. A steep line of rail connects them. The upper town is built on
the acclivities and summit of a rock which rises abruptly from the river to
the height of 180 ft., and gives the town a very picturesque appearance.
The railway passes under by a long tunnel. On the summit is the tower of
the old castle, leaning about 17 deg. from the perpendicular. There are also
two parish churches. That of St Leonard, formerly collegiate, was
practically rebuilt in 1862. This parish was held by Richard Baxter, the
famous divine, in 1640. St Mary's church is in classic style of the late
18th