Louis Braille

Louis Braille was the inventor of  Braille system , a system of reading

and writing used by people who are blind or visually impaired.

Birth :  4 th Jan, 1809

Place : Coupvray, near Paris, France

Father : Simon-Rene Braille

Mother : Monique Baron

Loss of Eyes : Sharp tool damage an eye in his father’s workshop at the age of Four, loss of second eye due to infection spread.

Schooling & works : Louis was an intelligent boy , at  age of 10, admitted to the Royal Institution for Blind Youth (Institution Royales des Jeunes Aveugles) Paris. The children were taught how to read by a system devised by the school's founder, Valentin Haüy (The Haüy system). Haüy was not blind himself, but who devoted his life to helping the blind. He designed and manufactured a small library of books for the children using a technique of embossing heavy paper with the raised imprints of Latin letters. Readers would trace their fingers over the text, comprehending slowly but in a traditional fashion . Braille was helped by the Haüy books, but he also despaired over their lack of depth & information kept in such books. Despite of this pupils were mainly taught practical skills such  caning and slipper making. It was 1821 that Louis was first introduced to the idea of using a raised dots. Charles Barbier, was an artillery officer invented ,a writing system, called "sonography" with 12-dot. Louis quickly realised how useful this system . In 1824, aged just 15 years, he developed his own version of the code, using just six dots to represent the standard alphabet. He had also perfected his 'planchette' or writing slate, which gave precise placing for the pattern of raised dots when writing braille. 1952, Louis Braille's accomplishments were finally recognised by the French government as French national heroes.

Helen Keller -"We, the blind, are as indebted to Louis Braille as mankind is to Gutenberg."

Death :  6 January 1852, at the age of  43.