About Me

Hi! My name is Louis Braille. If you haven't heard of me ever before in your life I'm not surprised. The chances are, you are not blind. You probably haven't heard of me because I haven't effected your life.

I was born on January 4, 1809. I lived in Coupvray, France, which is near Paris. I had two wonderful parents named Simon-Rene and Monique Braille. I had a brother and two sisters to play with. Everything was great until I became blind (that's a different story). I was relatively young so I had received no education. After unsuccessfully trying to learn at a public school, I was sent to the Royal Institute for Blind Youth when I was ten years old. I was the youngest student there.

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth was a big help for me. I learned how to read and write for the first time. I learned how to play an instrument there which was very fun. The writing/reading system made me unsatisfied though. The system was called embossed letters. The letters were enlarged and raised, and we read by tracing the letters. It took forever!! I couldn't remember what I had read by the time I got to the end of a sentence. The system was overall not very productive or useful. But I managed.

The Royal Institute for Blind Youth was very fun though. I finally had the chance to learn and be like sighted people. I learned how to play piano and organ. Knitting caps and mittens was another thing we learned along with making leather slippers. As you can probably tell, the institute helped the blind youth learn things that would help us later in life.

So that is a little bit about me. I hope you find my early life interesting. If so, you can read more about me in my next post. I've got to go! See you later!

Louis Braille

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