BRAILLE
I have often been asked, "What is Braille? Is it raised letters?"
Braille was originated by a Frenchman named Louis Braille, in 1829, and,
with a few trifling changes, stands to-day as it left the hands of its
inventor. The base of the system consists of six raised dots enclosed in
what is called a cell, thus--
+---+ |. .| |. .|. |. .| +---+
The dots are numbered as follows: left-hand dots, 1, 3, 5; right-hand,
2, 4, 6. For reading purposes the dots are arranged in cells
corresponding to the base cell, each cell being a letter or contraction.
In Grade II Braille, there are in all eighty-two word and letter signs.
The letters of the alphabet
+---+
|. |
are as follows: Dot 1-- | | --represents the
| |
+---+
+---+
|. |
letter A; dots 1 and 3-- |. | --the letter B;
| |
+---+
+---+
|. .|
dots 1, 2-- | | --the letter C; dots 1, 2, 4--
| |
+---+
+---+
|. .|
| .| --the letter D, and so on. The arrangement
| |
+---+
of the dots in the cell gives not only all the letters of the alphabet,
but signs that stand for words and phrases as well.
I began the study of Braille with Miss Gilles, a New Zealand lady, as my
instructor, while I was at St. Mark's Hospital. I was first given a
wooden box full of holes. Into these holes my teacher showed me how to
put nails with large heads, the nails being placed in cells to
correspond with the Braille alphabet. After I had succeeded in grasping
the principle of Braille by means of the nails--which, by the way, I
frequently jabbed into my fingers instead of into the holes--I was given
a card with the alphabet on it. At first the dots seemed without form
and void; and when I was asked what numbers I felt, I did wish for my
eyes, as I was utterly unable to convey to my brain the letter under my
fingers. The hardest part of Braille for the beginner is not in getting
it into the head, but in getting the fingers to take the place of eyes.
But it is only necessary to persevere to get the proper, illuminating
"touch" into the finger tips. The men made sightless in the war were in
most cases confronted with grave difficulties. Their hands were hardened
by toil, and their fingers calloused by work in the trenches. One of my
comrades, when given his Braille card, struggled over it for a time, and
then exclaimed: "I wish they'd leave this card out in the rain till the
dots swelled to the size of door-knobs; then I might be able to read
it."
[Illustration: The Braille Room]
Before I left St. Mark's I had mastered the first ten letters of the
alphabet; but I was soon to learn that if one does not keep at it,
"touch" will be lost. After leaving St. Mark's, I spent three idle weeks
at Folkestone. As a result, when I arrived at St. Dunstan's I had to
begin my Braille all over again. My teacher at St. Dunstan's, Miss
Wineberg, proved herself as patient as was Miss Gilles; but patience is
a characteristic virtue of all the women who instructed the sightless
boys in the Braille Room, and among them were some of the best-known
ladies in England, four having titles. These teachers sit for hours
making men "stick it," in many cases against their will, until they have
mastered the mystery of correctly judging the number and arrangement of
dots under the finger tip. The theory of Braille can be grasped in six
weeks by the average student; but it takes from four to six months to so
cultivate touch as to make the fingers readily take the place of eyes.
After the reading of Braille has been mastered, writing it, an even more
difficult operation, is taken up. When I had satisfactorily passed my
test in both reading and writing, I entered that holy of holies, the
Shorthand Room. The four teachers in this room are all blind. Our
teacher was Corporal Charles McIntosh, who had lost both his eyes and
his right leg while with the Gallipoli Expeditionary Force. I have
stated that there are eighty-two signs in Grade II Braille; but Braille
shorthand contains six hundred and eighty word and letter signs that
have to be committed to memory. A herculean task was before me, but by
dogged effort on my part and patience on the part of my instructor, I
succeeded so well that in a few weeks I was able to take shorthand notes
as speedily as the average sighted stenographer. Meanwhile, I had been
diligently at work at my typewriting, and under the kindly instruction
of Miss Dorothy Charles Dickens, a granddaughter of the great novelist,
I had soon acquired sufficient speed and accuracy to qualify for work.