The Story of Louis Braille and His Gift of Literacy
By Jeanne McClellan
In Episode 2 of the PRRF podcast, “Through Our Eyes,” Brandon Warner states one of the things that “was integral to my success was having a lot of Braille instruction…” from an early age. Brandon didn’t say Braille helped, he didn’t say he reluctantly took a few lessons, he didn’t say it was a necessary evil, he said it was integral to his success. This passionate sentiment is often echoed by others with vision disabilities, as Braille can sometimes be the only means to gain, enjoy, and expand knowledge. Braille is the gift of literacy.
So, who is this fellow, Louis Braille, who came up with a raised dot alphabet which has given millions the gift of reading and writing? And how did he create a system that is largely unchanged since its inception nearly 200 years ago?
Louis Braille was born in a small village called Coupvray, about 25 miles outside Paris, France in l809. His parents were Simon-Rene and Monique and Louis was the youngest of several siblings.
He was a normal, precocious youngster getting into mischief as youngsters are known to do. One day, at the age of three, he climbed up onto his father’s workbench. A saddler and harness maker by trade, Simon-Rene had many sharp tools, awls and the like, along with hides of leather strewn across the workspace. Unbeknownst to his father, Louis started playing with the sharp instruments trying to cut the leather when his parents heard a bloodcurdling shriek and rushed to their son. He had stabbed himself in the eye and blood was streaming down his face. The village doctor was summoned but could only offer cold compresses for the injury. Over time it became infected and, as the child used his tiny fist to rub the sore eye to soothe it, he inadvertently spread the infection to the other eye. Within days, he was losing sight in both eyes and eventually lost all sight. He was in a world gone dark.
His father carved him a wooden stick to find his way. As Louis grew taller, his father carved longer sticks! His older siblings helped him learn to navigate the house and the area around the house, counting steps to pace out the way. He played with other children, but they often tired of his limitations and would play without him.
When Louis was six, the local priest took an interest in him and encouraged the local headmaster to school him. Louis proved to be a quick study. He caught onto mathematics and other subjects memorizing what he heard in class. But learning to read and write was not available at this small village school and it was his greatest frustration.
Louis progressed in his studies but could only progress so far. The priest spoke with a wealthy benefactor on Louis’s behalf and Louis applied to the Royal Institute for Blind Youth located in Paris. He was accepted and was off to the big city - a world away from the safety of his beloved family and home – at just 10 years old.
The Royal Institute for Blind Youth was first opened in 1784. The Institute was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. (More about that in another blog.) It was a large, damp and poorly heated building that made living conditions austere. Punishments for even minor infractions were strict. But there was a camaraderie among the students (boys only) and the opportunities to study and learn that enthralled Louis’s eager mind.
The prevailing and long-accepted method for teaching blind students to read was called ‘embossing.’ In this technique, huge pages of heavy paper were used to emboss the full letters that were then “read” by the student by tracing his fingers over the letter and identifying it by its shape. It was an arduous system, however, and by the time a person got to the end of a sentence he’d forgotten how it began! The pages were clumsy and cumbersome and the books very costly to produce. Additionally, there was no way for the students to compose their own writings, letters, notes, or essays. However, it was the standard throughout Europe so changing it would not be easy.
In the early 1820s, a captain from the French military, Captain Barbier, introduced the school to a secret code that he had developed for use by the military in order to communicate simple messages silently to each other unbeknownst to the enemy. Barbier called his invention night writing. The code consisted of raised dots and dashes punched on thick paper which was read by reversing the paper and deciphering the raised symbols. Barbier thought it might be something that the blind students could learn to use - something easier than embossing. Barbier was right!
Louis was completely intrigued by what he saw and felt. The raised dots and dashes were easily identified, but the system required many different configurations and was only practical when communicating brief messages like “advance” or “retreat.” But Louis’s interest was piqued, and he could not stop thinking about night writing.
He immersed himself in experimentation with variations of Barbier’s system. He would sit for hours in between classes and other responsibilities, figuring and re-figuring combinations of dots and dashes. Barbier’s night writing was based on replicating sounds, so Louis was using that premise as his base as well.
Despite many frustrated efforts, Louis was not deterred. For three years he worked to configure potential combinations until he finally had a brainstorm! If he concentrated on forming letters and combinations of letters, rather than sounds, he could make simpler combinations with fewer combinations to learn. He also eventually eliminated the use of dashes and created what is now known as a cell: a square with six dots in it, two vertical rows of three side by side. He practiced with a stylus and thick paper composing sentences by forming the punched letters backwards so, when the paper was reversed, the words were legible. The breakthrough consumed him but he eventually settled on a workable code.
In 1824, at the age of 15, Louis announced to the headmaster, Monsieur Pigner, that he had something to show him. Louis sat down with his stylus and paper and asked his teacher to read a passage from a book. Pigner complied and, as he narrated the excerpt, Louis’s fingers flew over the paper punching dots as they went. Louis then reversed the paper and repeated verbatim what he had just heard while running his fingertips over the raised “letters.” Pigner was astonished and thrilled.
Soon thereafter, Pigner instructed Louis to teach his system to the rest of the students and to the other teachers. Louis started by teaching the older students who, in turn, taught the younger ones and so on. Before long, the raised dot alphabet was in use by everyone at the Institute. All the boys wholeheartedly embraced the new alphabet and applauded Louis for his invention.
Pigner was so convinced of the benefits of the alphabet for wider use, he wrote the French government asking for its endorsement but was rebuffed. Louis continued to develop and tweak his system He even included the letter ”w” so his system could be used in English. He became a gifted organist and pianist and created codes to represent musical notes.
By 1834, Louis had become a teaching assistant at the school. Through Pigner’s influence, Louis was invited to introduce his alphabet at the Exhibition of Industry in Paris. Even the King saw Louis’s demonstrations but, relegating it as a mere novelty and for other political reasons, did not make any official changes to enabling its more widespread use. In fact, not lot long after, Pigner was replaced by a new headmaster, who, under the auspices of the government powers-that-be, methodically confiscated every stylus, piece of paper and any other implements or sheets of the raised dots. No one at the Institute was allowed to use Louis’s alphabet.
Louis was of course deeply disappointed but the dedicated Institute students were having none of it. They began gathering nails, knitting needles, pencils, and any sharp object that would work and surreptitiously continued using Louis’s alphabet. Eventually, a new assistant headmaster prevailed upon the school to allow this system, so clearly an advantage for students, to return to use - which it finally did.
In the 1840s, after Louis’s 20-plus years of living in the damp and cold environs of the school, and after years of intermittent coughs and fevers, Louis was diagnosed with consumption, or as we would say today, tuberculosis. By decade's end, his teaching became more and more limited as he became more and more frail.
Eventually, Louis returned to Coupvray to rest. He did return to Paris later and succumbed to tuberculosis in l852.
His lifetime of devotion and determination, however, would not be in vain. Two years after Louis’s death the French government approved Braille, as it was now being called, to be adopted throughout the country. In 1878, the World Congress for the Blind voted to make Braille the system for reading and writing for all blind people.
References: Out of Darkness: The Story of Louis Braille by Russell Freedman and The Story of Louis Braille.
About the author:
Jeanne McClellan was born and raised in Royal Oak Michigan, got a master's degree in psychology, and worked for approximately 30 years as a counselor and social worker until she retired in 2009.