The earliest authentic records of tangible letters for the blind
describe a plan of engraving the letters upon blocks of wood, the
invention of Francesco Lucas, a Spaniard, who dedicated it to Philip II.
of Spain in the 16th century. In 1640 Pierre Moreau, a writing-master in
Paris, cast a movable leaden type for the use of the blind, but being
without means to carry out his plan, abandoned it. Pins inserted in
cushions were next tried, and large wooden letters. After these came a
contrivance of Du Puiseaux, a blind man, who had metal letters cast and
set them in a small frame with a handle. Whilst these experiments were
going on in France, attempts had also been made in Germany. R.
Weissembourg (a resident of Mannheim), who lost his sight when about
seven years of age, made use of letters cut in cardboard, and afterwards
pricked maps in the same material. By this method he taught Mlle
Paradis, the talented blind musician and the friend of Valentin Hauy.
To Hauy belongs the honour of being the first to emboss paper as a means
of reading for the blind; his books were embossed in large and small
italics, from movable type set by his pupils. The following is an
account of the origin of his discovery. Hauy's first pupil was Francois
Lesueur, a blind boy whom he found begging at the porch door of St
Germain des Pres. While Lesueur was sorting the papers on his teacher's
desk, he came across a card strongly indented by the types in the press.
The blind lad showed his master he could decipher several letters on the
card. Immediately Hauy traced with the handle of his pen some signs on
paper. The boy read them, and the result was printing in relief, the
greatest of Hauy's discoveries. In 1821 Lady Elizabeth Lowther brought
embossed books and types from Paris, and with the types her son, Sir
Charles Lowther, Bart., printed for his own use the Gospel of St
Matthew. The work of Hauy was taken up by Mr Gall of Edinburgh, Mr
Alston of Glasgow, Dr Howe of Boston, Mr Friedlander of Philadelphia,
and others. In 1827 James Gall of Edinburgh embossed some elementary
works, and published the Gospel of St John in 1834. His plan was to use
the common English letter and replace curves by angles.
In 1832 the Edinburgh Society of Arts offered a gold medal for the best
method of printing for the blind, and it was awarded to Dr Edmond Fry of
London, whose alphabet consisted of ordinary capital letters without
their small strokes. In 1836 the Rev. W. Taylor of York and John Alston
in Glasgow began to print with Fry's type. Mr Alston's appeal for a
printing fund met with a hearty response, and a grant of L400 was made
by the treasury; in 1838 he completed the New Testament, and at the end
of 1840 the whole Bible was published in embossed print. In 1833
printing for the blind was commenced in the United States at Boston and
Philadelphia. Dr S.G. Howe in Boston used small English letters without
capitals, angles being employed instead of curves, while J.R.
Friedlander in Philadelphia used only Roman capitals. About 1838 T.M.
Lucas of Bristol, a shorthand writer, and J.H. Frere of Blackheath, each
introduced an alphabet of simpler forms, and based their systems on
stenography. In 1847 Dr Moon of Brighton brought out a system which
partially retains the outline of the Roman letters. This type is easily
read by the adult blind, and is still much used by the home teaching
societies. The preceding methods are all known as line types, but the
one which is now in general use is a point type.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Moon Alphabet.]
In the early part of the 19th century Captain Charles Barbier, a French
officer, substituted embossed dots for embossed lines. The slate for
writing was also invented by him.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.
Apparatus for writing Braille.
Braille Alphabet. The black dots represent the raised points of the sign
in their position in relation to the group of six.]
Barbier arranged a table of speech sounds, consisting of six lines with
six sounds in each line. His rectangular cell contained two vertical
rows of six points each. The number of points in the left-hand row
indicates in which horizontal line, and that in the right-hand row in
which vertical line, of the printed table the speech sound is to be
found.
Louis Braille, a pupil and afterwards a professor of the Institution
Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles, Paris, studied all the various methods in
which arbitrary characters were used. Barbier's letter, although it gave
a large number of combinations, was too long to be covered by the finger
in reading, and Louis Braille reduced the number of dots. In 1834
Braille perfected his system. Dr Armitage considered it was the greatest
advance that had ever been made in the education of the blind.
The Braille alphabet consists of varying combinations of six dots in an
oblong, of which the vertical side contains three, and the horizontal
two dots.
. .
. .
. .
There are 63 possible combinations of these six dots, and after the
letters of the alphabet have been supplied, the remaining signs are used
for punctuation, contractions, &c.
"For writing, a ruler is used, consisting of a metal bed either
grooved or marked by groups of little pits, each group consisting of
six; over this bed is fitted a brass guide, punched with oblong holes
whose vertical diameter is three-tenths of an inch, while the
horizontal diameter is two-tenths. The pits are arranged in two
parallel lines, and the guide is hinged on the bed in such a way that
when the two are locked together the openings in the guide correspond
exactly to the pits in the bed. The brass guide has a double row of
openings, which enables the writer to write two lines; when these are
written, he shifts his guide downwards until two little pins, which
project from the under surface at its ends, drop into corresponding
holes of a wooden board; then two more lines are written, and this
operation is repeated until the bottom of the page is reached. The
paper is introduced between the frame and the metal bed. The
instrument for writing is a blunt awl, which carries a little cap of
paper before it into the grooves or pits of the bed, thereby producing
a series of little pits in the paper on the side next the writer. When
taken out and turned over, little prominences are felt, corresponding
to the pits on the other side. The reading is performed from left to
right, consequently the writing is from right to left; but this
reversal presents no practical difficulty as soon as the pupil had
caught the idea that in reading and writing alike he has to go
_forwards_.
"The first ten letters, from 'a' to 'j,' are formed in the upper and
middle grooves; the next ten, from 'k' to 't,' are formed by adding
one lower back dot to each letter of the first series; the third row
is formed from the first by adding two lower dots to each letter; the
fourth row, similarly, by adding one lower front dot.
"The first ten letters, when preceded by the prefix for numbers, stand
for the nine numbers and the cipher. The same signs, written in the
lower and middle grooves, instead of the upper and middle, serve for
punctuation. The seven last letters of each series stand for the seven
musical notes--the first series representing quavers, the second
minims, the third semibreves, the fourth crotchets. Rests,
accidentals, and every other sign used in music can be readily and
clearly expressed without having recourse to the staff of five lines
which forms the basis of ordinary musical notation, and which, though
it has been reproduced tor the blind, can only be considered as
serving to give them an idea of the method employed by the seeing, and
cannot, of course, be written. By means of this dotted system, a blind
man is able to keep memoranda or accounts, write his own music, emboss
his own books from dictation, and carry on correspondence."
The Braille system for literature and music was brought into general use
in England by Dr T.R. Armitage. Through his wise, untiring zeal and
noble generosity, every blind man, woman and child throughout the
English-speaking world can now obtain not only the best literature, but
the best music.
In America there are two modifications of the point type, known as New
York point and American braille. In each of these the most frequently
recurring letters are represented by the least number of dots.
The original Braille is used by the institutions for the blind in the
British empire, European countries, Mexico, Brazil and Egypt.