Braille, Louis - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. III, p. 30

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

BRAILLE, LOUIS. - B. at Coupvray (Seine-et-Marne) on Jan. 4, 1809 and d. in Paris on Jan. 6, 1852. Blind, he dedicated himself to the education of his companions in

Article illustration — (from Th. San Gallo, J. B., Monaco BII) BRAHMS, JOHANNES - Beginning of the fugue from the German Requiem. Autograph - Vienna, Society of the Friends of Music.

misfortune, inventing for them the writing system that took its name from him.

Such was his progress at the Institute for the Blind in Paris in the study of letters, music, and mathematics, that in 1826 he was called to teach grammar, geometry, geography, history, algebra, and arithmetic there successively.

Dissatisfied with the Haüy system then in use for the reading of the blind, he set out to find a new system, and found it by reforming that of Barbier, who, with twelve dots arranged differently in a given space, formed the various letters of the alphabet. B. reduced the dots to 6 and distributed them in three series of ten letters each.

A prospectus of it can be given here:

With the same signs later applied to musical notation, he succeeded in transcribing musical works, rendering a great service to the blind, who can do much in the field of music.

His system could be officially adopted in the Paris Institute for the Blind only in 1854 and subsequently spread to almost all parts of the world.

BIBL.: L. Vitali, Istruzione e pedagogia dei ciechi (voce Ciechi) in A. Martinazzoli e L. Credaro, Dizionario illustrato di Pedagogia, I, Milano s. d., pp. 281-93; G. Gerner, Blindenschrift, in Das Kind und die Schule, Lipsia 1914; P. Villey, Le monde des aveugles, Parigi 1918; id., Pédagogie des aveugles, ivi 1922.

Nino Sammartano