Even though Louis Braille died when he was only forty-three years old, he succeeded in devising a system of reading and writing for the blind which is now taught all over the world. Braille lost his sight accidentally as a child. Nevertheless, he was able to complete his education at a school for the blind in Paris and become a teacher. In his day, the few books that were available for blind people were printed in big, raised type. The letters used were those of the ordinary alphabet. The reading of such books required an immense effort. Not only that, the writing was almost impossible for a blind person who was still restricted to an alphabet which was extraordinarily difficult to reproduce on paper.

Braille’s idea was to use raised dots instead of letters. He evolved a system making use of only six dots in all, various combinations of which made it possible to represent not only each letter in the alphabet but also punctuation marks, numbers and musical notations. Reading and writing have thus been enormously simplified. The sensitive fingers of a blind person can travel rapidly over the dots: and there is a small machine, something like a typewriter, which enables the blind to write quickly and clearly. Braille’s marvellous invention was the best help one ever could render not only for the blind of one’s age but also for those of ages to come.