Question

Necessity is said to be the mother of invention. Read this piece below on the invention of the Braille system to help the visually impaired.

READING FOR THE BLIND Until 1819, learning material for the blind was provided by using letters of the alphabet made of wood, lead, twigs or, sometimes, pins arranged in large pincushions. The Royal Institute for Young Blind Persons in Paris used three-inch deep letters made from cloth. In 1918, a ten year old blind boy named Louis Braille enrolled at the Institute. It was around this time that Captain Barbier de la Serre devised an alphabet of raised dots and dashes embossed on strips of cardboard. He called it ‘night writing’ because soldiers could use it to ‘read’ with their fingertips when in action at night. His system, however, was not a success because it was too complicated: it used an arrangement of twelve dots to each letter. Braille, now a teenager, became interested in this system. He simplified it and developed the present internationally used Braille system.

Answer 1

Before Braille was developed, blind people were taught using raised letters made from materials such as wood, lead, twigs, pins and cloth. In 1819, Louis Braille, a blind boy studying at the Royal Institute for Young Blind Persons in Paris, became interested in a system of raised dots and dashes called “night writing”, developed by Captain Barbier de la Serre. Since Barbier’s system was complicated and used twelve dots for each letter, Braille simplified it and developed the Braille system, which is now used internationally by visually impaired people.