The College of Optometrists

Braille press made for the National Institute for the Blind (hence its date is pre-1953) by J.M. Glauser of London

American braille press made by Howe of Watertown, Massachussetts

Card game with braille dots made for the RNIB

Brazilian postage stamp from 1954 marking the centenary of education for the blind in that country

There is believed to be only one surviving photograph of Louis Braille and we can be confident that he didn't see a thing whilst it was being taken...because he was dead at the time. This month, however, we celebrate the start of his life, as a fully-sighted child, born two hundred years ago in January 1809. Despite being blinded in a childhood accident he would go on to do remarkable work as a teacher of both blind and sighted pupils though his methods took time to gain acceptance and his fame is almost entirely posthumous, hence the lack of portraits.

 

Braille's father had a shoe and harness-making workshop. The three year-old Louis played where he shouldn't and accidentally stabbed himself in the left eye with an awl. The resulting cross infection caused him the loss of sight in both eyes. It was an awl, however, that he used to good effect in 1824 to punch dots on paper in representation of alphabetical letters. Many websites give incomplete or even inaccurate accounts of the development. The timeline below is our best attempt at accuracy but we would welcome corrections or additions:

• 1784-6 - The Royal Institute for Blind Youth is founded in Paris by Valentin Haüy who pioneers a system of raised letters for the creation of reading materials to use in the school
• 1791 - After the Revolution the French Constituent Assembly decrees the institute be renamed the Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles
• 1801 - Institute amalgamates with another to become, eventually, the Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles (INJA)
• 4 Jan 1809 - Louis Braille born in Coupvray, France
• 1812 - He is accidentally blinded in left eye
• 1813 - He finally loses sight in right eye
• 1819 - He receives a scholarship to the Institute, now under the direction of Sébastien Guillié (succeeded in turn by Dr. Alexandre François-René Pignier in 1821)
• 1821 - Pupils at the school are taught the Code Barbier a method for representing sounds through combinations of twelve raised dots (based on a military communication system for sending messages in the dark). Louis Braille started to work to improve the system which had already been discarded as ineffective by the French Army
• 1824 Braille perfects a system based on cells of just six dots, representing individual letters. It is suitable for both reading and writing. Pignier adopts it for the pupils at the Institute
• 1828 Braille is appointed an apprentice teacher at the Institute. He qualifies in 1833 and teaches only blind pupils from 1835
• 1829 The first book about braille is published: Method of Writing Words, Music, and Plain Songs by Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind and Arranged for Them (English title). Although it included some examples of Braille's raised dot system the overall book was produced in embossed type.
• 1834 The braille system is demonstrated at the Paris Exposition
• 1839 Braille publishes details of the Decapoint method he had developed for blind people to communicate with sighted people, using patterns of ten dots to approximate the shape of printed symbols: Nouveau Procédé Pour Représenter Par Des Points La Forme Même des Lettres, les Cartes de Géographie, les Figures de Géométrie, les Caracteres de Musique etc. à l’Usage des Aveugles
• 1839 Braille's Precis Sur L'Histoire De France is the first full-length book to be produced using the braille raised dot system
• 1840 Pierre-Armand Dufau ceases the use of braille at the Institute but is later persuaded by Joseph Guadet to reinstate its use
• 1844 The Institute moves to new premises and builds a reputation for the use of braille. Louis Braille has three years off due to ill health. He returns in 1847 but is eventually forced to retire in 1850
• 6 Jan 1852 Louis Braille dies of tuberculosis aged 43 and two days
• 1854 System of braille officially recognised in France
• 1868 Founding of the British and Foreign Society for Improving the Embossed Literature of the Blind. This becomes a forerunner of the NIB, subsequently the RNIB
• 1878 Paris congress decides to adopt braille as the international system used for writing by the blind but cannot enforce its use over rival forms of embossed lettering
• 1890 Standard system of braille adopted in England
• 1917 Standard system of braille adopted in the USA
• 1932 Standard system of braille adopted in all English-speaking countries
• 1952 On the centenary of his death Braille's body is transferred to the Pantheon in Paris. Pierre Henri publishes the standard biography: La vie et l'oeuvre de Louis Braille: Inventuer de l'alphabet des aveugles (1809-1852) - copy available in the College Library
• 26 March 2009 - Commemorative silver coin featuring the letters BRL in braille due to be issued by the United States Mint

Finally we thought that our members would like to see what 'The College of Optometrists' looks like when written in braille, though until someone invents raised texture computer screens this is likely to be of symbolic rather than any practical use.

 

Note: the College also holds copies of some RNIB images on blindness including the use of braille, the Moon alphabet and tactile maps. These cannot be reproduced online but are available to scholars using our study facilities.