On this day in 1809, Louis Braille was born in Coupvray, just 20 miles from Paris. If it hadn't been for an accident in his father's leather and harness shop, when Louis was aged three, the world would probably have never known the name of Louis Braille and we wouldn't be remembering his legacy as the inventor of the Braille system. Since 2019 World Braille Day has been celebrated on January 4th, the day of Louis' birth, to honour his contribution to the lives of vision impaired people across the world and to highlight the importance of the Braille communication system to their everyday lives.
For those of us who are sighted and take for granted the written word, we can probably never fully appreciate the way in which the Braille system has revolutionised life for vision impaired people. As an avid reader, I could barely imagine anything worse than losing my sight, however it is amazing the way that the brain can quickly adapt to a new circumstance. A few years ago we lost a very dear friend, Malinda, to an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis. After first experiencing numbness then paralysis, Malinda's sight was one of the first things to go. We have all no doubt heard about how people with a vision impairment have a keen sense of hearing, but it was amazing to see how quickly Malinda developed a heightened sense of hearing.
For those who are vision impaired since birth or a very young age, like young Paddy from Temora in New South Wales, I expect their sense of touch is also equally heightened quite early in the piece. Paddy's hometown has put into practice that old adage that "it takes a village to raise a child." Temora has rallied behind Paddy to "Braille bomb" the business district, attaching Braille stickers to many of the business front doors. Apparently Temora is one of the first regional areas to do this, but really, it is something that should be standard across all our communities. Despite all the advances in technology, the Braille system will always be foundational to Paddy's life as he learns to read and write, and navigate the sighted world, yet, quite incredibly, there once was severe opposition to implementing the Braille system in education for the vision impaired.
The Blessing of a Supportive Family
By the time Louis Braille was aged five, he was totally blind in both eyes, however this never prevented him from achieving excellence in his education and in adapting to life as a vision impaired person. Louis was certainly fortunate to have a very supportive family who were determined to raise him as normally as possible alongside his three older siblings. His father apparently made the canes that Louis needed to learn to get around his local town and rural area. Time and time again we hear the same story about other people with disabilities, both currently and throughout history, who were blessed to have supportive parents who were way ahead of their time. In Louis' time, the village idea for raising children with disabilities hadn't quite caught on yet.
Louis displayed a brilliant mind and was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, where he would spend most of his life as both student and then professor. The Institute was one of the first schools for blind children in the world, although, in keeping with the attitude at that time toward disability, it was also seriously underfunded. However, Louis made excellent progress, learning the Haüy tactile system that had been developed by the school's founder. The Haüy system used raised imprints of the regular alphabet used by the sighted, and while it was groundbreaking at that time, it was also cumbersome and quite expensive. It also didn't lend itself to the production of writing by the vision impaired students themselves. So Louis began work on developing his own tactile system, which he achieved in 1824 at the age of fifteen.
Louis was influenced to some degree by the Barbier system which was based on 12 dots, however Louis refined and simplified it by reducing it down to 6 dots which significantly improved its efficiency. We now know it, of course, as the Braille system, and considering the difference it has made to the lives of the vision impaired, it is quite fitting that it is named after its inventor. Quite sadly, it took considerable pressure from the vision impaired students for the Institute to finally adopt the Braille system in 1854, two years after Louis' death. It seems the educators saw no reason to change from their traditional way of teaching vision impaired students, even displaying open hostility towards anyone using the Braille system to produce texts for the students. By the late nineteenth century, however, the Braille system had spread across the world and the rest, as we say, is history.
Bust of Louis Braille by Etienne Leroux
Louis Braille, however, was more than just the inventor of the Braille system. He was also a very proficient musician, playing the organ all over France, and one of the key features of his Braille system was the ability for it to also represent musical notation. Louis also wrote a number of books, about the Braille system as well as mathematics, which was one of the subjects he taught during his years as professor. While Louis didn't have a long life, passing away at age 43, he is remembered all over the world and his humble childhood home in Coupvray is the site of the Louis Braille Museum.
The life of Louis Braille demonstrates the enormous potential that people with disabilities have to make significant contributions to our world. A system of raised dots seems so simple, yet it opens the world of knowledge and communication to those who experience the world though the sense of touch rather than sight. While in Louis' time sighted educators no doubt had the best of intentions, it took the first hand experience of a vision impaired student to know what was really needed. Louis said:
"Access to communication in the widest sense is access to knowledge, and that is vitally important for us if we [the blind] are not to go on being despised or patronised by condescending sighted people. We do not need pity, nor do we need to be reminded we are vulnerable. We must be treated as equals - and communication is the way this can be brought about."
Equality for people with disabilities has a very long history indeed.
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