1 Braille is a system of reading and writing for the blind. It can be read entirely by touch and uses raised dots to represent letters, numbers, punctuation, and even symbols. Before the invention of braille, the blind population was unable to access written materials, such as important documents or even a simple novel, without a sighted person available to read for them. Thus, braille opened up a world of accessibility to the blind. With today’s modern technology, fewer people are learning braille, as text-to-speech software has made braille unnecessary in the minds of some. Still, there are some written materials that cannot be easily ‘read’ with audio technology, such as package labels or public signs. Some blind people might be content with listening to an audio recording of a book or magazine article, while others might want to read independently. This involves learning to read braille.
2 Born in France in 1809, Louis Braille, the inventor of braille, proved that he could still lead a productive life even though he was blind. Though he spent the first few years of his life capable of sight, his life was forever altered at the age of three. His father, a harness-maker, instructed his four children to be careful around his tools. Unfortunately, Louis’s curiosity got the best of him, and he injured his right eye while playing with a tool used to punch holes in leather. Infection spread from one eye to the other, and Louis became completely blind. In those days, the blind were typically destined for a life of helplessness. However, Louis’s parents refused to accept this life for their youngest child and kept him in the regular school that sighted children attended. Louis had a strong memory that allowed him to keep up with his classmates despite his disability, and he eventually earned a scholarship to France’s National Institute of Blind Youth. Though he received a strong education from his teachers, he longed to be able to study and learn on his own, as well. Unfortunately, there were very few books for the blind available at the school, and the ones that did exist were very heavy and were not well-designed for reading by touch.
3 One day, when Louis was still a teenager, a French soldier named Charles Barbier visited Louis’s school. He had created a writing system for the French army called “night writing”, so that soldiers could communicate silently at night. His system used a series of twelve raised dots to represent sounds, but it was unsuccessful. The reader could not feel all twelve dots at once, and the system was too complicated for soldiers to learn quickly. Still, Louis’s interest was piqued, and he determined to change Barbier’s system to make it more efficient and useful for the blind population.
4 Louis changed the twelve-dot system to a six-dot system based on the alphabet that could be felt with one fingertip. After two years spent perfecting his system, he taught it to some of his classmates, and when he
eventually became a teacher at his school, he taught it to his blind students, as well. Braille’s classmates and pupils applauded his system and were delighted to have a way in which they could both read and write successfully. Unfortunately, the other instructors worried that the need for sighted teachers would be compromised and considered it too expensive to replace the school’s current books with ones that used braille. Eventually, braille did become the international system of reading and writing for the blind, but it was not until years after Louis Braille’s death that braille was adopted worldwide.