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# CHAPTER 2

# LOUIS BRAILLE (1809-1852)

1. COUPVRAY
2. L'INSTITUTION ROYALES DES JEUNES AVEUGLES
3. CHARLES BARBIER
4. BARBIER AND BRAILLE CODES COMPARED
5. 1928 PROCEDE
6. WRITING
7. 1829-1837
8. 1937 PROCEDE
9. NOUVEAU PROCEDE
10. THE PLANCHE A PISTONS, LATER KNOWN AS THE RAPHIGRAPHE
11. EPILOGUE

Printing

The Diffusion of the Braille Code

12. CONCLUSION

## 1. COUPVRAY

Louis Braille was born in 1809 at Coupvray, a small village lying approximately 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Paris. His father was a master craftsman, the village saddler and harness maker, and both he and his wife could read and write. There were four children, Louis being the youngest by nearly 13 years. He was involved in an accident when he was only three years old. It is possible that the account given by Hypolyte Coltat (1853, p.14), Braille's pupil and later close friend, may be the most accurate available: "One day, when he was three years old, the child was sitting beside his father and wanted to work too and copy the movements he saw his father making. In one little hand he caught up a piece (strip) of leather and in the other the knife and started to work. Weakness frequently encounters difficulties and this is what happened. The sharp tool slipped sideways and struck the poor little workman in the eye."

Louis became blind in one eye and by the time he was five, he was totally blind. He attended the village school where he showed such ability that arrangements were made for him to attend l'Institut des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris from 15th February, 1819, when he was 10 years old (Pignier, 1859, pp.8-9).

## 2. L'INSTITUTION ROYALE DES JEUNES AVEUGLES

The building was different from the one Haüy left in 1802. The present buildings were cramped and unsuitable in design; the report of the consultant physician, dated 8th March, 1821, stated that "The house is situated in a low-lying district which is airless, evil-smelling and conducive to the spread of disease" (Henri, 1952, p.15). On the 1st March, 1832, the "Moniteur" gave an account of part of the session of the Chamber of Deputies in which the commission on the state of the school was being discussed "The house occupied by l'Institution Royale des Jeunes Aveugles is very unhealthy. Mortality among the pupils is extremely high ..." (ibid., p.17). Delays in providing better accommodation continued, until Lamartine, poet, historian and statesman, made an impromptu speech at the bar of the house in 1832 (ibid., pp.17-18) which finally persuaded the authorities to provide a specially planned new accommodation. The new buildings were opened in 1843. Health at the school has been mentioned because it is without doubt that these living conditions were directly responsible for the tuberculosis from which Braille suffered for many years and which led to his early death when he was 43.

Pignier, the third director of the school, described (1859, pp.9-10) Braille's more than average ability and added, "His compositions, whether literary or scientific, contained only the exact notions; he was noted for the precision of his thought and the clarity and correctness of his style. One was aware of imagination; but it was always subject to his judgement". He won prizes for a wide variety of subjects. [An arithmetic prize bearing the signature of Pignier may be seen at the Braille Museum in Coupvray.] He was made foreman of the workshop where slippers were made when he was not quite 15 and was officially appointed tutor four years later (Henri, 1952, 29-30).

## 3. CHARLES BARBIER

In 1823 when Braille was 14, a retired army officer, named Charles Barbier, visited the school to demonstrate a new method of embossed reading (Henri, 1947, pp.9-10). He believed that illiteracy was caused by difficulties inherent in the use of the alphabet and so he determined to simplify and thus speed up the process. Amongst other experiments he wanted to find a means of sending short messages secretly and quickly on the field of battle without a torch or lantern betraying positions to the enemy (ibid., p.6).

He was interested in codes and secret writing, so it is likely that he knew of a book published in 1803 by Coste d'Arnobat (Henri, 1952, p.40). It included a description of a code invented by Father Lana in 1617, which seems to be the first known means of punctiform writing. The system was never put into practice, but is of interest because knowledge of it may have stimulated Barbier's work.

Lana used a system of dots on a 3 x 3 grid, each dot or dots representing a letter of the alphabet:

| A O | G P | B T V
| F L | M N | E S P
| C J | H R | D I Z

K, Q, U, W, X, and Y do not appear but both the French and English editions of Henri (1952, trans. 1987) show P appearing twice, probably due to a printing error. No explanation seems available to explain what criteria determined the position of the letters and if frequency was involved. To represent a letter it was necessary to draw the relevant part of the grid and include one, two, or three dots according to what was the first, second, or third letter of the group of letters written within it. "Lana" would therefore be represented by:

| · · |  | · |  | · · |  | ·
| L |  | A |  | N |  | A

In 1809 (Henri, 1952, p.37) Barbier produced a pamphlet which included a description "d'écriture coupée pour suppliéer la plume ou le crayon et exécuter plusiers copies à lá fois sans tracer de charactères" (cut-out writing for which a penknife is used as a substitute for pen or pencil, so that several examples can be produced at once without copying). Though the intention was to duplicate copies, and at this stage Barbier was not considering work for the blind, it shows a step in the development of tangible writing. Short commands on the field of battle would require no punctuation. Barbier, therefore, worked out a punctiform system intending it for use in the army, but instead the Académie des Sciences recommended the system for use by the blind. In 1823 de Lacépède and Ampère, representatives of the Académie, carried out an experimental test which demonstrated the potential of the Barbier code for use by the blind (ibid., p.44).

There were two stages to Barbier's system. His key to the code consisted of a grid made up of 36 rectangles, each containing one of the phonetic sounds into which he divided the French language. The rows of rectangles were numbered 1-6 down on the left and the columns of rectangles were numbered 1-6 across the top.

Key to Barbier Code

### 1

### 2

### 3

### 4

### 5

### 6

### 1

a

i

o

u

é

è

### 2

an

in

on

un

eu

ou

### 3

b

d

g

j

v

z

### 4

p

t

q

ch

f

s

### 5

l

m

n

r

gn

ll

### 6

oi

oin

ian

ien

ion

ieu

Thus, each sound could be referred to by two numbers, first the row in which it appeared, followed by the number of the column. o would therefore be represented by 1-3, ch by 4-4, ion by 6-5, etc.

The sounds could also be represented by dots arranged on a matrix of 6 x 2. The first row of vertical dots would show the line position and the second the column position. For example:

l l

l

l

l l

l l

l l

l l

l l

l l

l l

l l

l l

l

| o | ch |  | ion

This system requiring two stages, first of remembering the meanings and positions on the grid and then the necessity of using so many dots for the symbols must have slowed up the processes of reading and writing, but it was welcomed because tangibility is of prime importance. The earliest writing board consisted of a narrow strip of wood with six horizontal grooves on which was fixed a metal clip to hold the paper in place and regulate the width of the line of writing.

Diagram of Barbier writing board.

Later a simple guide was provided which was easier to use and gave more accurate results. The hinged guide had a grooved lower surface and the upper surface had slits, tall enough and wide enough for the possible 6 x 2 impressions in each. A pointed style was provided for making the dots. A larger frame was also available, again hinged so that it would open like a book for the paper to be inserted and which was capable of taking eight lines of code [Musée Historique, Musée Valentin Haüy and Coupvray museum].

The more intelligent pupils, who may also have had a more developed sense of touch, must have been delighted by the results. Not only could they read the embossed patterns more easily than those in the Guillié books, but for the first time there was a possible means of writing. This simple equipment was provided for those who wanted to practise and permission was also given for the frames to be taken home for use during the holidays.

With further practice some of the pupils became more critical, and Braille, who was particularly interested, asked if he could meet M. Barbier in order to make "some suggestions". According to Pignier (1859, p.14), Braille "pointed out to M. Barbier several improvements in this kind of writing and also solved some of the difficulties to which M. Barbier had for a long time been seeking solutions".

It is not clear when this conversation took place, but Barbier tended to be irascible and did not appreciate the criticism of his code. The report of l'Académie des Sciences 1823 stated "Ordinary writing is the art of speaking to the eyes, that discovered by M. Barbier is the art of speaking to the fingers" (Henri, 1952, p.44), so with such a testimony, together with his own assurance, it is no wonder that he did not appreciate young Braille's "suggestions". Even so, in the "Avertissement" which appears at the beginning of the first edition of Braille's code (1829, p.1) he wrote "If we have shown the advantages of our procédé over those of this inventor, we should like to say in his honour that it is his procédé that first gave us the idea of our own".

In 1827 "Recueil d'anecdotes, extrait de la monde en action" was printed in Barbier code and Henri (1947, pt.3, pp.10-11) demonstrated some of the problems that Braille had recognised before this publication. The essentials of Braille's code were ready by 1825 when he was 16 but not published until 1829.

## 4. BARBIER AND BRAILLE CODES COMPARED

In the "Recueil d'anecdotes", [Musée Valentin Haüy] "anecdote" appears as "anegdote" and "Monsieur" as "Mossieu". In the pronunciation of the French language the sounds of a silent letter at the end of one word is carried over to the beginning of the next if it begins with a vowel. Therefore, as Barbier's method was phonetic, "fait-en" became "fai-ten" and "en action" became "en naction". Punctuation was omitted and no spaces were left between words. For short messages for the soldiers Barbier had thought these details unnecessary. The fact that he had not included them by the time his night-writing (later to be known as sonography) was introduced to the blind pupils demonstrates, either that he had not found a means of showing punctuation, or had not realised its value for clarifying meaning. He was a code maker and not an educationalist. Construction of words and the use of punctuation are necessary for an understanding of the language and its lucid, flexible and imaginative use, and it is also essential for translation of foreign languages. This was to be of great importance in the future when the braille code would be adapted for use in many other tongues.

The second main difference lies in the size of the configurations. Braille halved the possible number of vertical dots in a cell resulting in a matrix of 3 x 2. The signs were thus immediately under the reading finger, no up and down movements were necessary and therefore reading could take place at a faster rate. Barbier's 6 x 2 matrix gives the possibility of 4,096 (212) combinations which is grossly in excess of need, and in fact he only used 36. Braille realised that 3 x 2 (26) gives 64 possible combinations, including a blank cell which was used for spaces between words. This was quite sufficient for the first simple versions of his code.

Barbier's dot positions depend on the position of the sounds in his key grid whereas Braille's use of full spelling made this extra stage unnecessary. All the dots in Barbier's code are used until the line or column position is reached, that is, the cell always includes dots starting from the top of the cell but of varying length downwards. Some of the cells must inevitably seem very similar. For example, it would be difficult to realise tactually the difference between:

l l

l l

l l

l l

l l

l

and

l l

l l

l l

l l

l

| ll |  | f

Later research (Nolan and Kederis, 1969, 38, Table 1) has shown that the dots in the lowest part of the cell are the more difficult to detect, yet in Barbier's code the emphasis must be on the lowest ones for recognition to take place. Braille, as an intelligent blind person, would have been more aware of the confusions that often arise in touch reading and he tried to avoid them where possible. Barbier, being sighted, may not have been so aware of such problems.

## 5. 1829 PROCEDE

By 1829 Braille was ready to have his work published, so he dictated the prose to Pignier, with the interesting result that the text is embossed in Guillié script and Braille wrote the examples in embossed point (Pignier, 1859, p.16) [Musée Valentin Haüy]. The title, "System for writing words, music and plainchant for the use of the blind and arranged for them by M. Braille" gives a clear indication of its contents. Braille had cogitated for a long while and made many trials including a transcription of portions of "La Grammaire des Grammaires" in 1827 to test his system (Pignier, 1860, p.82) [musée Valentin Haüy]. All the testing was carried out with the co-operation of pupils at the school so he had no experience of the use of his code by adults, except perhaps by some of the blind tutors, or the effect of old age in the mastery of his code.

People have often wondered how the first 10 letters of the alphabet were planned. At first they seem arbitrary yet they are particularly important because most of the rest of the code is based on these shapes. Gaudet, a master at the school, was a protagonist of the use of the code at a time when the authorities still frowned upon its use. He used the occasion of the inauguration of the new school buildings in 1843 to give a speech entitled, "Account of the system of writing raised dots for use by the blind" (Roblin, 1952, trans. 1955, p.55). As Gaudet knew Braille personally, his version is probably correct (Henri, 1952, pp.51-53).

For this explanation only, the signs are numbered 1-15. For the first 10 letters of the alphabet he took all the 15 signs possible in which variations in position of the top four dots occur and arranged them in a logical order.

|  |  | 1 | 2 | 3 |  | 4 | 5 | 6 |  |
| 7 | 8 | 9 |  | 10 | 11 | 12 |  | 13 | 14 | 15

The first six signs are made up of the possible patterns using the left side of the cell, and then the corresponding ones on the right; he then combined the signs in the following order:

1 and 4, 1 and 5, 1 and 6, giving signs 7, 8, and 9.

2 and 4, 2 and 5, 2 and 6, giving signs 10, 11, and 12.

3 and 4, 3 and 5, 3 and 6, giving signs 13, 14, and 15.

Being blind and therefore knowing at first hand what was best for tactile reading, Braille eliminated all the single dots except the first one because location was a difficulty factor (numbers 3, 4, and 6). He also eliminated 5 because it could be confused with 2 and 15 was eliminated because of confusion with 7. The remaining signs became the first 10 letters of the alphabet.

| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J

Braille did not number the dots within the cell but instead described their position in words; his second procédé of 1837 made a greater use of diagrams. Levitte (1880), basing his account on the work of a colleague named Ballu, used the following method:

1 l l 4

2 l l 5

3 l l 6

The numbering was altered in later years and then changed back to the earlier version; to save confusion this earlier method will be used throughout this work.

Much of the remainder of Braille's code was built up in further lines of 10 characters each having some addition to the base signs. For example, line two has dot 3 added to each sign, line three has dots 3 and 6 added and line four has dot 6 added.

1st Line |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J
2nd Line |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T
3rd Line |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |

U

V

X

Y

Z

c

### ,

é

à

è

ù

4th Line |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| â | ê | î | ô | û | ë | ï | ü | œ | W

W appears at the end of the fourth line after the French modified letters instead of after V as would be expected, and there is an interesting reason for this described by Guilbeau (1907, p.47). At first, Braille was thinking in terms of classroom use such as for taking notes. One of the English pupils suggested that the W should be included because of its use in foreign languages, his own included, and that it would be needed for translation purposes. As it was not part of the French alphabet at the time it must have seemed logical to Braille to include it at the end of the accented letters.

Leaving the fifth line aside for the moment, it will be seen that line 6, for punctuation, uses all the signs of line 1 with the addition of dashes in the lowest parts of the cells.

6th

Line

lm

mm

### ¾

lm

lm

### ¾

ll

mm

¾

ll

ml

¾

lm

ml

¾

ll

lm

¾

ll

ll

¾

lm

ll

¾

ml

lm

¾

ml

ll

¾

### ,

### ;

### :

### .

?

!

( )

"

*

"

Line 5 used for numbers shows no resemblance to line 1, but here too it is possible to see the logical way in which Braille chose the configurations.

5th Line | ¾ mm mm | ¾ ¾ mm | ¾ lm mm | ¾ ll mm | ¾ ml mm | lm ¾ mm | ll ¾ mm | ml ¾ mm | ml mm mm | ml ml mm
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0

It was possible to write the dash used in signs for punctuation and numbers because the board had horizontal grooves, but Braille indicated in his "Procédé (1829, p.12) that the dash had been found difficult to make with a style, so another method would be found for writing numbers. He continued to experiment for he was a perfectionist. The remaining lines of the code were used for mathematics and music and there are a few signs with no meaning attached. He also included "a stenographic system in which 20 signs sufficient for writing all the words in the French language" ("Avertissement", p.1).

## 6. WRITING

For writing, the apparatus was not unlike the hand frames still used by a few people today but with some important differences.

Braille's own writing frame showing grooves all down the page.

Guide du Musée Association Valentin Haüy, Fig. 12.

The board was hinged at the top to a frame that held the paper, and down the upper surfaces of the sides of the frame there were a series of depressions. For each line of writing the board held three parallel grooves. The guide, made of a single piece of metal with two or three rows of cells, could be moved down the page as required by fitting the knobs on the under side into the depressions on the frame. The central part of the guide had to be lower than the edge so that it was in contact with the paper. A style was provided for making the dots, and each shape had to be made in reverse and the words written from right to left along the line so that they would appear in the correct reading order when the page was turned over.

## 7. 1829-1837

The authorities, and later some of the directors of institutions for the blind abroad, did not understand how suitable the code was for tactile reading and writing. In France the braille code was already being used in class for writing exercises and in 1832 two hand written braille volumes were printed entitled "Géographie de l'Asie" and "Géographie de la France" respectively [Musée Valentin Haüy]. They are of particular interest because they show an interim stage in the development of the code. Dashes were replaced in numbers by the use of the numeral sign. It was placed in front of signs of the first line to indicate numbers 1-9 and 0. The letters were very large and the spacing between the dots within cells was at least 3 mm.

In 1834 Fornier made the first attempt to adapt the writing frame so that writing could occur on both sides of the paper. By leaving the height of one cell between each line of writing on the first side of the page it was possible to write between the lines on the second side.

Music is not included in the brief of this work, but it is interesting for musicians to know that it was also in 1834 that Braille decided to use the first four lines of the code to denote pitch and sound values. Contrary, therefore, to many people's belief, the literary code was developed first and the signs of the literary code were the inspiration for the music code. Braille, himself, was a fine musician. Thirty-six pages dealing with the music code were added to the 1829 procédé in 1834 and l'Institut des Jeunes Aveugles owns Braille's own copy.

By the next year Braille was to suffer times of great tiredness and he had a violent haemorrhage, the first sign that he had tuberculosis of the lungs. In 1843 the school moved to new spacious buildings which are still in use today, but it was too late for Braille for the damage had been exacerbated by conditions in the old damp and cramped buildings.

Pignier (1859) paid tribute to Braille as a distinguished teacher. His work was supplemented with short treatises on the subjects he taught. One of these books entitled, "Petit memento d'Arithmétique à l'usage des commer, cants, contenant les nombres entiers et les fractions, décimales, suivi de cent problèmes" (musée Historique) is described by his friend, Coltat (1853, p.16) as "un chef-d'oeuvre de clarté et de concision". Maybe these short books were produced because there were so few text books available, but it is also possible that they were produced to save too much use of his voice during frequently occurring bouts of tiredness, or to help his pupils during his absences that were sometimes necessary for recuperation. Collat (1853, p.16) quoted Braille's view that: "Since our methods of writing and printing take up a lot of space on paper, we must compress the thought into the fewest possible words."

## 8. 1837 PROCEDE

The first edition of the procédé had gone out of print, so Braille prefaced the second edition (p.2) by writing, "We are taking advantage of this fact to add some useful observations and ingenious applications which we owe to the kindness of several distinguished colleagues".

Line five for numbers had the dash eradicated and instead the signs of line one became numbers when prefaced by the numeral sign written close up before each sign.

This sign was first used in the "Géographies" of 1832. Fractions were also prefaced by the numeral sign followed immediately by the numerator in the upper position and the denominator placed next in the lower position. Examples given by Braille were:

| 2/3 |  |  |  | 7/10 |  |  |  |

This method is still followed in many countries today.

In the promised new version the signs in the sixth line for punctuation showed the cells of the first line in the lower position of the cells.

In consideration of the slow rate of reading and writing and of the space the code required, the 1837 procédé provided second meanings for the signs of the fourth line, for example:

| ê | ë | ü
| in | ou | ch

Simple rules for the formation of shortform words are also included (ibid., p.21). Among Braille's examples are:

the omission of vowels immediately following a consonant;

| verity | vrt |  |  |

if two vowels follow a consonant the first is omitted;

| piano | pan |  |  |

Being a musician this would be a most useful shortform easily recognised in context, though there are two other meanings of "pan" in an unabbreviated form in the French language.

initial vowels must not be omitted;

| utilité | utlt |  |  |  |

By now Braille was thinking of the dissemination of his code abroad, so he included parts of the Lord's Prayer in Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and English and copies of the procédé were "sent to all the institutions for the blind then in existence, Philadelphia, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Brussels, Madrid, Budapest, Copenhagen, etc." (Pignier, 1860, p.107). The work also includes a description of the writing apparatus which is similar to that used in 1829. Braille added the practical comment that boards were now made of metal because wood did not last.

In 1837 the first printed book in braille was produced. It was in three volumes and entitled "Précis sur d'histoire de France" [Musee Valentin Hauy]. The first huge volume of format 22 x 28 sq. cms. weighs 1,750 grammes even though it has only 152 pages. The pages were stuck back to back as had been done for the Haüy volumes. Each page contains 25 lines with an approximate average of 34 letters to the line and the spacing between dots, instead of being 3 mms. was reduced to 2.4 mms. "... for reasons of economy only one design of type was cast embossed with all six dots of the cell. It was the pupils and tutors who, with a chisel, chipped off all the superfluous dots" in order to produce the separate letters required for printing the book (Henri, 1952, p.75). It was a remarkable instance of patience that inspired the pioneers in support of Braille's work. A wider appreciation came in 1854 when the Emperor of Brazil ordered a Portuguese primer and paid for a new and complete set of type for the purpose. [A copy is exhibited at the Coupvray museum.]

Even though the authorities did not officially approve of the use of the braille code, Pignier permitted its use in the school because it improved the rate of reading and writing. In 1840 the deputy director, Dufau, became director and Pignier had to accept early and unwelcome retirement. Unfortunately, at first Dufau did not wish the code to be used and the pupils had to work with Dufau's improved version of Roman alphabet letters. Gaudet, his second master, persuaded him of the merits of the braille code, and when the new school building was inaugurated (1843), Gaudet took this public opportunity to give "un substantial exposé" (ibid., p.76) in praise of Braille's code. Though it was then used in the school, and in fact had never ceased to be used privately by the pupils, it was not until 1854, two years after Braille's death, that his code at long last became officially recognised for use in France.

## 9. NOUVEAU PROCEDE

Braille regarded the 1837 Procédé as the definitive version of his literary code. It is not often realised that having devised a means for the blind to read and to communicate with each other, he then sought a method by which blind people could write in such a way that there could be recognition by vision as well as touch. He had learned to read by the Guillié version of Haüy's embossed linear script when he had first come to the institution, so would already have been familiar with the alphabet code used by those with sight. He now proposed to make approximations of the alphabetic shapes in dots, a simple task for someone with sight, but probably requiring many trials and much patience by a blind man. A writing frame on which equidistant dots could be made was now necessary.

In 1839 Braille published his "Nouveau Procédé pour représenter par des points la forme même des lettres, les cartes de géographie, les figures de géométrie, les caractères de musique, etc., a l'usage des aveugles". Always precise, Braille's titles are apt to be long, even though the inkprint edition contains only nine pages of explanation and four pages of numerical tables for forming the letters.

The method is simple and probably did not take as long to learn as it may seem at first, but writing must have been tedious because of the necessary strings of numbers to be remembered in making each letter. Lower case letters required a height of four dots for the main part of the sign and three dots were allowed above or below for the extended parts of the letters. A height of seven upper dots were used for the capital letters. Numbers and punctuation were carried out on the same principle. The board required 10 horizontal grooves per line of writing and the guide was a fine grille making equidistant dots possible. One space was left between words.

The plan of how the letters should be made has been compared with charts for tapestry designs; this is a visual opinion. Braille arranged for large scale models of dotted letters to be made so that his colleagues could become familiar with the punctiform shapes, but for writing by blind people he produced numbered rows of figures which were much easier for tactile use. The following examples show first, two lower case letters and then an example of a capital letter. (The signs have been enlarged.)

1 |  | l |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 1 |  |  |  |  |
2 |  | l |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 2 |  |  |  |  |
3 |  | l |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 3 |  |  |  |  | l
4 |  | l | l | l |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 4 |  |  | l | l | l
5 |  | l |  |  | l |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 5 |  | l |  |  | l
6 |  | l |  |  | l |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 6 |  | l |  |  | l
7 |  |  | l | l |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 7 |  |  | l | l | l
8 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 8 |  |  |  |  | l
9 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 9 |  |  |  |  | l
10 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 10 |  |  | l | l |

1 2 3 4 5 6 / 4 7 / 4 7 / 5 6 | 5 6 / 4 7 10 / 4 7 10 / 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

|  |  |  | 1 |  | l | l | l | l | l | l |  |  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  | 2 |  |  | l | l |  |  | l | l |  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  | 3 |  |  | l | l |  |  | l | l |  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  | 4 |  |  | l | l | l | l | l |  |  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  | 5 |  |  | l | l |  |  | l | l |  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  | 6 |  |  | l | l |  |  | l | l |  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  | 7 |  | l | l | l | l | l | l |  |  |  |  |  |

1 7 / 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 / 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 / 1 4 7 / 1 4 7 / 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 / 2 3 5 6

The patterns were written from right to left so that they were correct for reading when the page was turned over. It seems unnecessarily complicated for serifs to be included, but as a blind man, Braille may not have realised the relative unimportance of these excrescences. They had been included in the Haüy and Guillié type.

The system had its faults, not least because it was slow and complicated for some to carry out, but it is commendable that Braille wanted to make the attempt to communicate with the sighted world. He must have been only too aware that the braille code required only two dots for the letter 'b' whereas this new method required 12, and some of the letters were even more complicated. He had considered a system requiring seven dots high instead of 10 but rejected the idea because this writing was "smaller but less regular" (Henri, 1952, p.101). The method has been shown in some detail because it led to an invention by Braille's friend, Foucault, who had been at the Paris school and was then living at the Quinze Vingts.

## 10. THE PLANCHE A PISTONS, LATER KNOWN AS THE RAPHIGRAPHE

Foucault was extremely able in inventing machinery for special purposes and he and Braille co-operated in producing apparatus that speeded up the new way of writing. The apparatus consisted of a board and frame to hold the paper, and mounted above on a movable carriage were 10 pistons, five for each hand. When the hands were held pointing towards each other with a finger or thumb on each key, up to 10 dots could be punched at a time before the carriage was moved to the left to make the next part of the letter. A handle at the side was worked to move the carriage down to the next line.

Raphigraphe

Guide du Musée, Association Valentin Haüy, Fig. 14.

The Institut Royal des Sourds-Muets et des Aveugles at Bruges has preserved the letter written by Braille on 21st May, 1842, to the abbé Carton, the school's founder, to demonstrate the use of the Foucault machine. "The address, written by the same means, was so clear that the packet, posted in Paris on 22nd May, was received by the abbé Carton in Bruges the following day" (Henri, 1952, p.100, footnote). Some of Braille's letters to his family are also extant [Coupvray]. This method enabled quicker, more accurate writing to be carried out but the machine was expensive so many people continued to use the hand frame.

The raphigraphe was in use for approximately 50 years until it was replaced by machines for typing dot patterns which were first invented in Germany and in America. These may be regarded as the forerunners of the print typewriter. They had six keys only for punching the dots as well as a space bar.

Attempts were made from time to time to modify Braille's plan using nine, seven, five, four, and even three dots in height to represent the letters but with varying success. An example using a 4 x 4 matrix has been found recently on a library shelf at the Edinburgh School for the Blind. It consists of a small hand-written booklet in French produced by "E.V." in Dunkirk in 1898 and is referred to as "Traitpoint" (linepoint). Not only is the method described in detail and illustrations supplied in both reading and writing aspects of the signs, including numbers and punctuation, but diagrams are included showing the order in which the dots should be made in an attempt to improve rate of writing. As in Braille's "Nouveau Procédé" the dots are numbered and given in linear form for making the configurations.

By 1840 Braille's health had deteriorated so much that he was forced to give up class teaching. He was given permission to continue living at the school but he also needed frequent times of recuperation at his home in the country. By 1847 he resumed work but by 1850 he was only giving occasional music lessons. He died on 6th January, 1852.

## 11. EPILOGUE

Braille had considered the 1837 procédé to be the definitive version of his work, but others found by experience the need to build on to it.

### Printing

This was also improved. Instead of pages pressed from moveable type, in 1849 Laas d'Aguen invented embossed stereotyping on one side of metal sheets from which multi-copies could be made. "Imitation de Jesus Christ" by Thomas à Kempis [musée Valentin Haüy] was one of the first books to be printed in this way. The pages include two small punctiform illustrations, which must be the first examples of such use. Ballu and Levitte, circa 1867, introduced two-sided stereotyping. By 1888 Ballu was printing by the interpoint method, that is printing each column of the signs of the second side of the paper between those of the first side (Henri, 1952, 91-92). By this means 100% of space could be saved and as stereotyping required thinner paper the size of the books was much reduced.

### The Diffusion of the Braille Code

By the inclusion of the Lord's Prayer in six languages in his procédé of 1837 (pp.8-18) and sending it to "all the institutions in existence" (Pignier, 1860, p.107), Braille must have hoped that many other blind people abroad would benefit from use of his code. In the main acceptance was slow. It was officially adopted in French-speaking Switzerland in 1858 (Henri, 1852, p.77), but other countries were slow to accept the new method, especially as it would need adaptation if contractions and shortform words were to be used. Both Edinburgh and Glasgow institutions received copies but Britain did not accept the braille code until 1870. Klein of the Vienna institute and Knie of Breslau rejected the code for several years on the grounds that it made a barrier between blind and sighted. Gaudet, who had done much to encourage its use in the Paris school, edited a journal entitled "L'Instituteur des Aveugles" 1855-1865 (ibid., p.76) in which he occasionally included articles on the code and it is thought that it was Gaudet who finally persuaded Knie to introduce the code in Breslau. Confusion arose elsewhere because St. Marie of Leipzig introduced a code in which the signs containing the fewest dots were used for letters which occurred most frequently. This arrangement saved space and improved writing time, but made translation to other languages impossible for letter frequencies would be different.

In an attempt to solve these problems an international congress was held in Paris in 1878, one of whose mandates was "to study the various methods of printing and writing with a view to the uniformity of the systems" (proceedings of the Congress for the Improvement of the Lot of the Blind and the Deaf Mutes, p.187). Discussion was heated, but finally a large majority "voted in favour of the general adoption of the unmodified braille system" (ibid., p.183). This was a momentous decision which avoided years of indecision.

As a result of the congress, Levitte, who was head of the teaching staff at the Paris school, issued a pamphlet entitled "Anaglyptographie et Raphigraphie de Braille" (1880). The contents were based on Braille's work as the title suggests but also includes the additions made by Ballu, who had been a pupil and then friend of Braille. (The ugly nomenclature of the title was invented by Levitte.) The pamphlet appears in three parts, anaglyptographie (uncontracted braille), sténographie (contracted braille), and lastly, raphigraphie, which was a replication of the details included in Braille's "Nouveau Procédé.

Besides numbering the dots within the cell for ready reference, the capital letter signs (dots 4-6 in front of a letter) was introduced. In 1932, the sign was changed to dot 6 preceding a letter. There is also more detailed information concerning the use of mathematics signs in the literary code (ibid., p.6), viz:

| lm lm | ll ll | + | - | x | ¸ | = | > | < |

|  |  | Ö | ( | ) | II |  |  |

No information was given concerning rules for their use. In the "sténographie" section 38 partwords were included, seven whole words, a few suffices and 44 shortforms. Unlike the shortform words used in English braille today, there seems to have been little attempt to help the memory by retaining most of the consonants. This seems contrary to Braille's principles. In 1882 de la Sizeranne (1857-1924), a teacher at l'Institut, revised the French braille code to make it more orthographically correct, a further revision took place in 1924 and there have been later revisions (Henri, 1952, p.92).

## 12. CONCLUSION

Haüy, Barbier and Braille all made their contributions towards literacy being possible for blind people. Haüy was the first to believe education was possible, he opened the first school for them, discovered a viable means of tactile print and set up a printing department for producing embossed material. Barbier used a system invented for sighted soldiers which happened to have merit for use by the blind. He, like Haüy, was sighted and did not fully understand the tactile problems involved, but his great contribution was the use of points rather than the closely packed lines and curves of the Roman alphabet, and he also arranged the points in two parallel lines. Relying on touch for cognition Braille halved the size of Barbier's cell so that it was the right size to be under the pad of the reading finger, and he used alphabetically correct spelling instead of phonetic sounds. We can agree with Pignier (1859, p.14) that "Thus to modify is not to perfect but to invent".

The blind inmates of the school, such as Coltat, Ballu, and de la Sizeranne, not only realised the great benefit of the braille code, but wrote about it. Such was its success that sighted directors of the school also watched its success, "It was Pignier, Dufau, Gaudet, who in their writings proclaimed the merits of the new alphabet, not out of vanity and for the honour of the Institution, but because as Directors or Head Teachers of a school for the blind, they had personal experience of the enormous service which Braille had rendered to his fellows" (Henri, 1952, p.64).