A Young Inventor
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be unable to read? We read all day long: street signs, sports scores, newspapers, books, teachers’ instructions, even sizes in our clothes and shoes. But people who are blind or sight-impaired have to learn other ways to find out the same information. In 1824, a 15-year-old blind boy named Louis Braille demonstrated a better way for blind people to read. This week, The Mini Page learns more about how Louis’ code changed the world for those who can’t see.
Early life
Louis Braille was born in January 1809, 210 years ago, in a small town in France called Coupvray. His father was a harness maker who worked with leather, and Louis loved to play in his father’s workshop. When he was just 3 years old, Louis climbed up on the workbench while his father was outside. As he pretended to make a hole in a piece of leather, the tool he was using slipped and punctured his right eye. The damaged eye became infected, and soon the infection spread to Louis’ left eye. By the time he was 5 years old, he was completely blind.
Overcoming his handicap
As Louis grew, his parents taught him as much as they could. His father carved a cane for him so he could move around the house and in the nearby village. He started his education with the local priest, who saw how smart he was. Later, Louis joined other village children at the school, but he needed more help than sighted students. The village priest learned of a special school in Paris called the Institute for Blind Youth. He arranged for Louis to attend the school, and when he was 10 years old, Louis went to live at the school.
Methods of reading
The founder of the institute, Valentin Haüy, had invented a system of reading and writing called embossing. Large letters of the alphabet would be pressed, or embossed, onto thick waxed paper, and students could trace the letters with their fingers to read. But the size of the letters made embossed books too large and heavy to move, and they were expensive to print. Later, a retired military man visited the school to demonstrate a system he had invented for soldiers to communicate in the dark, called nightwriting. He used dashes and dots to represent different sounds. Louis was excited to learn this system, but he soon figured out that it was difficult to read and didn’t have symbols for punctuation. So Louis got started on perfecting a system of his own. He worked late into the night, after classes and on weekends.