Second part – Behind the Louis Braille’s works and the history for the Blind people
The picture of the Saint Ovid’s Fair show here. This image called “A Fair at St. Ovids” shows several ladies and gentlemen at the fair while a group of musicians wearing pointed hats play violins. https://www.nyise.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=438103&type=d&pREC_ID=948711
“He put this coin on the blind beggar’s palm. Nevertheless, as he turned to go, the beggar called sir! You have surely made a mistake; you have given me a France instead of a Sou.’’ In Haüy replied, `But how did you know I had given you a France?… Hauy in surprise. The blind beggar replied it is quite simple. If I pass my finger over a coin, I can at once tell what it is.”
Who is François Le Sueur? He was the Blind beggar and gave the idea to Valentin Haüy when François was around seventeen years old. François Le Sueur can be seen in the picture here, and he was the first teacher of the Blind.
“He’s being paid to be here. After all, he could be out begging, supporting his mother and two brothers and three sisters on his blind beggar’s salary. Which was more than you could earn as a bell ringer, or town crier, or chair caner, which were the only other blind professions back in 1782 in Paris. But with begging there was a kind of blind differential marked by the white insignia they wore which gave the blind the special status of “aristocrats of beggars”, reserving for them the steps of the churches and Cathedral. Begging paid higher. Which is why Francois Le Sueur, the first blind student in the first school for the blind in the world, is being paid to be here by his teacher, Valentin Hauy, who is outside the picture. Hauy paid Le Sueur to teach him—the teacher paying the student—how to read and write. He learned in three months. On the desk are several wooden alphabet blocks, an embossed print book, embossed musical score, tactile map, and his hand face down. Hauy paid Le Sueur daily what he would have earned in a day with an upturned hand as a blind illiterate beggar twenty-five years before the birth of Louis Braille. It was the only way his mother would let him come to school.” https://visionthroughwords.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/portrait-of-francois-le-seuer/
“Charles Barbier de la Serre served in the French Army during the late 18th century. He invented various forms of shorthand and a form of writing known as “Ecriture Nocturne” (night writing) using raised dots that became the basis for what is now Braille. The first version of Braille, composed for the French alphabet.” https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Charles_Barbier
This invention made sense that during the nineteenth century, it was the era of rapidly accelerating scientific discovery and invention with significant developments in the broader fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and many other things that prepare technological advances – twentieth century. It was called divergent thinking and is the process of creating many unique solutions in order to solve a problem. There are three different types of thoughts how our brains produce: insightful (used for problem-solving), experiential (focused on the task at hand), and incessant (chatter). Insightful thinking helps us to do long-range planning and problem-solving. What is concrete thinking in psychology?. https://findanyanswer.com/what-is-concrete-thinking-in-psychology
The ideas of three philosophers— René Descartes, John Locke and Denis Diderot—planted the seeds to educate people who are blind and, most importantly, accept them into society.
Let go back to Valentin Haüy and Louis Braille’s works.
Valentin Haüy produced a small number of embossed reading books for his Blind students including Louis in 1786. In the embossed reading books, the details of embossed were in raised alphabets. See picture here.
Haüy found a wood carpenter to make wooden blocks with raised alphabets and numbers, like the embossed coin. Haüy worked along with Le Sueur with wooden blocks through teaching in one room. It was challenging to grasp education with Le Sueur because Haüy needs to work out how to teach other Blind children in the classroom. Haüy quit his job as a linguist in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and he continued to teach Le Sueur. It worked out well. The next step was to produce embossed educated books for the Blind children, and it was not enough money to make a vast range from Maths to Music. The families of the Blind children were happy to pay toward the embossed books. Two remarkable steps were when Haüy gave his life and income to work with the Blind children and established a school for the Blind. Haüy was a philanthropist who devoted his life to helping the blind. Like Charles-Michel de l’Épée and his work with the Deaf children, he established the first public school for the Deaf.
Four years later Haüy renovated an old house on Rue Notre-Dame des Victoires and opened the world’s first school for the blind in Paris, France in 1784. The school’s location and the name were the Institute for Blind Youth (Institution des jeunes aveugles), in Coquillère street. In 1786, the Royal institution of Blind Children started and a supporter – King Louis XVI who he was interested in Blind Children and education for the Blind. The new purpose of teaching many Blind children was spinning and letterpresses. Nevertheless, came the French Revolution, the French state took over the school. In 1801, the Institute for Blind Youth was merged with another famous institute for blind people.
In 1802, Haüy retired from Institute for Blind Youth (Institution des nfjeunes oaveugles) after being arrested several times under his time’s political life. He moved to St Petersburg, Russia and set up another school at the request by Alexender 1 of Russia in the same year. In 1817,
Haüy returned to Paris and lived with his famous brother – René-Just Haüy known as the “Father of Modern Crystallography”. Valentin Haüy died in 1822 and buried with his brother René-Just Haüy. Valentin Haüy became known as the “Apostle to the Blind.
Then came along Charles Barbier de la Serra’s works in 1821. Louis Braille entered to Royal Institute for Blind Youth, later renamed to Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, (National Institute for Blind Children or Royal Institution for Blind Youth) in 1819 by receiving a scholarship. Braille learnt about Barbier’s works, and Barbier’s works gave Braille inspired to invented raised dots for the Blind children as to communication and to read books. Because with Barbier’s works, Braille found turned out to be too complex to use for reading. Braille came up with an excellent idea by using six dots of his system.
Louis thought about using the dot they produced and invented six dots. Letters in Braille are formed by raised dots arranged in specific places in a six-position matrix. The matrix consists of two vertical lines of three points each. Various combinations of raised dots in the matrix stand for each letter in the Roman alphabet.
Braille learnt about Barbier’s works, and Barbier’s works gave Braille inspired to invented raised dots for the Blind children as to communication and to read books. Because with Barbier’s works, Braille found turned out to be too complex to use for reading. Braille came up with an excellent idea by using six dots of his system.
Braille presented his works to the public first time in 1824. After leaving school, he became a professor at the Institute where he taught history, geometry, and algebra. Braille loves music for he played the cello and the organ where he became a cellist and organist for all the churches around France from 1834 to 1839.
All his life, he was a sickly person with a persistent respiratory illness later believed to known as Tuberculosis. There was no cure in the 1840s and 1890s, and he suffered severely for sixteen years. Braille was forty years old and retired as a teacher. Braille admitted to the infirmary at the Royal Institution, in 1852 two days before his death. He was only forty-three years old.
Braille’s system was finally adopted by the Institute in 1854, two years after his death. That was the legacy of Braille’s works began to see and produced embossed books, and Braille’s typewriters around the world.
Here is a notable quote from T. S. Eliot in 1952.
“Perhaps the most enduring honor to the memory of Louis Braille is the half-conscious honor we pay him by applying his name to the script he invented – and, in this country [England], adapting the pronunciation of his name to our own language. We honor Braille when we speak of braille. His memory has in this way a security greater than that of the memories of many men more famous in their day.”
