Louis Braille was a French educator and inventor of a reading and writing system for use by people who are visually impaired. His system remains virtually unchanged to this day, and is known worldwide simply as braille

Although Braille was admired and respected by his pupils, his writing system was not taught at the institute during his lifetime. The successors of Valentin Haüy, who had died in 1822, showed no interest in altering the established methods of the school, and indeed, they

• ^ a: It remains uncertain which eye was actually struck first. Most accounts of Braille's accident omit reference to left or right. Braille's American

Braille studied in Coupvray until the age of ten. Because of his combination of intelligence and diligence, Braille was permitted to attend one of the first schools for blind children in the world, the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, since renamed to the

Braille was determined to invent a system of reading and writing that could bridge the gap in communication between the sighted and the blind. In his own words: "Access to

Through the overwhelming insistence of the blind pupils, Braille's system was finally adopted by the Institute in 1854, two years after his death.

• Bickel, Lennard (1989). Triumph Over Darkness: The Life of Louis Braille. Leicester: Ulverscroft. ISBN 978-0708920046. (also large print)
• Farrell, Gabriel (1956). The Story