Louis Braille, Age 15 (Continued)
Louis Braille invented the raised dot reading system. Blinded at age 5, he learned by listening, developed a great memory, was a good student, but wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to learn how to read.
At age 10, he was sent to Paris to live and study at the National Institute for Blind Children. He learned to play the piano, organ, violin, and cello. He learned to read by tracing raised wooden letters in large books, designed by the founder of the institute. A typical book was divided into 20 volumes, weighing 20 pounds each, totaling 400 pounds. Reading this way took too long. Louis was sure there had to be a better, easier way for the blind to read. He experimented with different codes. Using a knitting needle, he punched holes in paper and made shapes to represent letters. He shared his idea with officials at the institute but wasn’t taken seriously. How could a blind boy invent a better reading method than the one designed by the school’s founder?
In 1921, French army Captain Charles Barbier visited the institute and spoke of his Night Writing invention of raised dots and dashes that helped soldiers read messages in the dark. The method intrigued Louis, but he thought there were too many dots and dashes for each letter and there weren’t symbols for numbers or punctuation marks.
Louis spent the next three years, before and after classes, creating a better system. He eliminated the dashes and devised a method of using one to six raised dots for each letter, number, and punctuation mark.
At age 15, he showed his method to his classmates and the headmaster, Dr. Pignier. They liked it and began using it because it was easier and faster. The governors of the school banned the method from classes; it was too expensive to have new books published in the dot system.
After Louis graduated, he taught at the institution, and secretly shared his six-dot method with his students. Louis, and the people he employed, began transcribing books into his six-dot system.
Six months after Louis died in 1852, the Braille method was adopted at the institute. Years later, people began acknowledging his achievement by erecting schools, libraries, and monuments, and issuing a special postage stamp, in his honor. The French government had his remains moved to the Pantheon in Paris.
As Louis once explained, “Blind people must be treated as equals, and communication is the way to bring this about.”
(France: 1824)