Louis Braille was
born on 4 January, 1809 in the small village of Coupvray in France. He was the
fourth and youngest child of Mr. Simon-Rene Braille, who was a skilled leather
worker who used to make articles such as shoes, harness, bridle and saddle.
Louis liked to play and work with leather while his father worked, but the
child was not allowed to touch the sharp tools used by his father to cut and
perforate leather. One day, when he was just three years old, when his father
went out of his workshop for a brief work, little Louis picked up a sharp and
pointed awl from his father's tool-box and bending over a piece of hard
leather, tried to make a hole in the leather in an attempt to imitate his
father's work. The awl accidentally slipped from his tiny hands and poked one
of his eyes. This inflicted an injury and infection which led to loss of vision
in that eye. The infection soon spread to the other eye and the poor child
became totally blind at the age of three!
Though he was a bright, brilliant
and intelligent student, his handicap made him unable to read or write like his
colleagues in the village school. Though he learned by carefully listening to
his teachers' words, his cruel colleagues
avoided his company. He felt lonely and confused, but being very
religious, sought refuge in prayer and singing hymns. He liked to learn but his
handicap was a great obstacle and impediment.
At the age of ten, he won
a scholarship to study in the Institut
National des Jeunes Aveugles, (National
Institute for Blind Children or Royal Institution for Blind Youth),
in Paris, which was the first special school for blind students in the world, and served as a model for
many subsequent schools for the visually impaired around the world. As he was very talented in music, he learned to play the
organ and the cello. He used to play the organ in several churches and his
performance was widely admired.
He had a great goal and dream in his life. At
the age of 12 he started his new mission - to invent a system to enable the
blind to read and write. He conceived the concept that if the letters could be
felt by the fingertips, even a blind could read with ease. With his father's
awl which blinded him, he experimented with a system of 'raised dots' on paper
to represent the letters of the alphabet and the common marks of punctuation.
He successfully completed his system of raised dots by the age of fifteen. He
served as a teacher of the blind in the institute where he was a student. He
was determined, dedicated and positive. He was admired by all his colleagues
and students.
The system invented by Louis Braille has a
series of raised or embossed dots. Each letter is formed by raising specific dots out of a total of six
dots arranged in a rectangle consisting of two columns of three dots each. He
expanded his system to accommodate notations for music and mathematics. Now the
Braille system is available in a large number of languages and is used for a
variety of applications including computer-aided operations. It is a boon to
the blind. Braille's work has shaped the lives of millions of blind people and
enabled them to lead a productive life, a life of dignity. Louis Braille died
at the age of forty three on 6 January, 1852.
The outstanding contributions
of Braille provided a vision and mission to the millions of disabled people. By
determination and untiring effort, they too can work wonders and serve society.
In life, troubles, suffering and failures may fall on us.
Let us not worry about them or feel hopeless. We should not let the troubles
defeat us or bury us. We must shake them off and rise to the top, step by step,
using every failure as a stepping-stone and not as a stumbling-block. Adversity
is the best University for our education. Let us trust in God who will guide us
through all our problems. A poet teaches the difference between pessimism and
optimism thus:
"Two men looked out
from prison bars;
One saw mud; the other saw
stars."
God has plans to bring to us prosperity and not disaster.
Our life is like a
boat, sailing through the sea of the world. We may be threatened by the
tempests of troubles, tribulations and temptations. But we can sail safely if
our faith is strong. God has control over the forces of nature. He may give
us tests and trials so that we may grow further and stronger, but he never
abandons us during hard times. God is with us in our joys and tears
throughout our life.
............................................................................................................
© By Prof. Dr. Babu Philip, Professor, Cochin
University of Science & Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Kochi-682016, Kerala,
India, Prof. Mrs. Rajamma Babu, Former Professor, St.
Dominic's College, Kanjirappally, Leo. S. John, St. Antony's Public
School, Anakkal, Kanjirappally and Neil John, Maniparambil, Ooriyakunnath,
Kunnumbhagom, Kanjirappally, Kottayam-686507, Kerala, India.
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